Freddie O’Connell is officially moving up from councilmember to the head of Nashville’s Metro government. Voters chose the progressive candidate, O’Connell, as the city’s new mayor in a runoff election on Thursday.
“I love this city and her people. I love the music. I love the Southern writing and cooking. And accents,” O’Connell told the crowd present at his victory speech.
The software architect and former Metro councilmember faced business advisor and Republican strategist Alice Rolli, ultimately winning with 64% of the vote.
“It is work, but we are up to the challenge,” O’Connell said. “We still have deep, painful scars — from a past that treated too many people unjustly. And too many of us are experiencing new injuries. So the work of repairing and healing is necessary. And not as many people as we hoped have been able to access the economic success of this city. So we need to broaden opportunity and access to prosperity.”
Davidson County’s early voting totals, which dropped about 20 minutes after polls closed at 7 p.m. Thursday, gave a good idea of O’Connell’s eventual win. They represented the nearly 72,000 people who cast ballots during the two-week early voting period and had O’Connell with more than 65% of the vote.
Who is Freddie O’Connell?
O’Connell represented District 19 — made up of downtown, Germantown and Music Row, the council’s most populous district — since 2015. Before that, O’Connell chaired Metro Transit Authority’s board for three years, led the Salemtown Neighbors Neighborhood Association for five years, and served on various other boards and committees.
O’Connell says his focus is on “improving residents’ day-to-day lives” by focusing on city infrastructure and implementing an efficient transit system “that people can use to bring down their cost of living.”
O’Connell was the first candidate to announce an intention to run.
Who did he beat to get here?
In last month’s general election, in which O’Connell and Rolli advanced to Thursday’s runoff, O’Connell secured 27% of the vote. Rolli won 20%. But that field featured a dozen candidates, including a state representative, COO of a Wall Street firm, and a former mayor of Oak Hill.
Rolli served as campaign manager for Tennessee Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander during his 2014 reelection bid. She also worked in the Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development under Gov. Bill Haslam.
The top two’s responses to WPLN’s questions on the topics of affordable housing, public transit, gun violence, relations with the Tennessee General Assembly and the environment illuminated just how different their administrations would be.
Who are his supporters?
At his Election Night watch party at Madison’s Eastside Bowl, supporters from all corners of the city gathered to cheer O’Connell on. This included the Laborers’ International Union, International Association of Firefighters, a host of Metro Council members — past and present — and even some of his former competitors.
O’Connell’s college roommate, Dale Bertrand, even flew down from Boston to support O’Connell’s campaign. He said the way O’Connell is able to connect with people uniquely qualifies him for his new role. Bertrand says he saw O’Connell employ this skill throughout college and when interacting with his Nashville community today.
“People will shout out to him on the street,” Bertrand says. “Like ‘Hey, Freddie!’ and then when I talk to them, each and every time they’ll tell me a story about how Freddie helped them with something.”
So what can we expect from his administration?
This Is Nashville got much more in-depth with this answer in Thursday’s show. You can listen here.
But reading through O’Connell’s stances on the above topics paints a picture. Here’s a taste on a subject near and dear to his heart — transit:
There is no other candidate in the race as committed to or capable of building the transit system Nashville urgently needs. As a former chair of our transit board and regular rider, I know how important transit is for cost of living and quality of life. We don’t have to wait; we just have to put into action the 3-year WeGo Public Transit work plan already written, which can be done without raising taxes. That plan will create crosstown connectivity and bring traffic out of the downtown core to help everyone get where they need to go faster, and it will bring transit closer to communities, extend hours and frequencies, and introduce more technology. We will also intentionally work on increasing participation in the WeGo Ride program, an employer-sponsored commuter program, especially among businesses receiving incentives. Work I led on Council means that our historically Black colleges & universities (HBCUs) will be able to participate like their peers to allow faculty, staff, & students to ride without fares. Five years after the failure of a transit referendum, we’ll resume the effort to secure dedicated funding, joining the ranks of every other major American city. Right now, the airport and convention center are literally waiting on the city to create the single light rail line that makes the most sense — the one linking the airport to the heart of the city. Transit is the biggest missing ingredient to Nashville’s long-term success, and I’m ready on day one to fix that.
Update: This story was updated to include victory speech quotes from Freddie O’Connell. It was last updated at 8:55 p.m.
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