Tuesday was local primary day in Tennessee — the first of three election days in 2022. Polls closed at 7 p.m., and early this morning, some likely winners emerged.
On the ballot were the Democratic and Republican candidates for a slew of local offices, from judges and prosecutors to school board members and county clerks. These aren’t the big races people often think of when they think about elections, but they are ones that can have a big impact on folks’ daily lives.
Davidson County
One race, in particular, that’s been a talker in Nashville is the Davidson County district attorney race.
Incumbent Glenn Funk faced challenges from fellow Democrats, former federal prosecutor Sara Beth Myers and former local prosecutor P. Danielle Nellis.
Preliminary results show that Funk will hold on to his seat as Nashville’s district attorney with a 3% narrow lead over Myers, who has conceded the race. That means Funk will be unopposed in the general election in August, giving him a second, 8-year term. Nellis came in a distant third.
At the polls, WPLN News spoke to voters both supporting and opposing Funk.
Renee Chamberlain, a nurse practitioner, was among several nurses in scrubs who came to the Green Hills library to vote against the incumbent. She was against Funk’s prosecution of former Vanderbilt nurse RaDonda Vaught and worries if Funk is re-elected, it sets a worrisome precedent for local nurses.
“I think that RaDonda had already had enough punishment, by having her license dropped and never being able to work in health care again,” Chamberlain says. “And so for criminal charges to be brought against her, and it come from not even the family, it’s just very disappointing.”
Others, like Bridge Taylor, a local accountant, felt differently, backing Funk for a second term.
“I like what he’s been doing,” Taylor says. “I saw something that he cut the average amount of people in jail in half since he took over. And that’s something that I’m passionate about.”
Meanwhile, the judges races have had cut-and-dry results in early voting returns for the Democratic primaries.
Former Nashville Mayor David Briley holds a 4,700–vote lead over Wendy Longmire in the race for Circuit Court Judge, Division I.
Attorney Jim Todd holds an 900-vote lead over Frank Mondelli Jr. in the race for General Sessions Judge, Division VI. Rachel Bell looks to be on track to retain her General Sessions judgeship in a race with Erin Coleman. And Robin Kimbrough Haynes appears to have defeated Dianne Turner for General Sessions Judge, Division V.
In the race for Circuit Court Clerk, Joseph Day now leads Howard Jones by about 400 votes, after Jones led by a small margin in the early vote returns.
Meanwhile, in the race for Metro School board, one of the most closely watched races has been between Democratic incumbent John Little and Berthena Nabaa-McKinney for a seat that serves Hermitage and Donelson.
The two went head to head in 2020 for the current seat after former board member Anna Shepherd unexpectedly passed away. Nabaa-McKinney was endorsed by a majority of the school board and the city’s teachers union. She currently holds a nearly 1,000-vote lead.
Meanwhile, school board candidate Todd Pembroke has a small lead in the only crowded Republican race. The seat is to serve District 2, which represents parts of South Nashville.
Williamson County
In Williamson, the county clerk race pitted former Speaker of the House Glen Casada against incumbent Jeff Whidby.
Whidby has beaten Casada, according to early results, with a commanding 50-point lead over the lawmaker who stepped down from the speakership in 2019 after a texting scandal. Whidby has been serving as the interim county clerk since last year — taking the place of the former clerk, Elaine Anderson, who is his grandmother.
If the result holds, Casada likely won’t hold elected office for the first time since 2001.
A screenshot taken from Williamson County’s live YouTube feed at 7:24 p.m. Tuesday
Meanwhile, in Williamson’s school board race, Donna Clements leads in the Republican seat to serve parts of Grassland Estates and Hunterwood.
Clements is a former teacher and served on her school’s curriculum selection committee. In a March debate, Clements said she was against critical race theory, a term that’s become a catch-all phrase used by opponents of any teachings about race and American history.
She was among three Republican candidates endorsed by the local Moms for Liberty chapter, a parent advocacy group known for leading the charge against certain books on race and gender that they claim aren’t age appropriate. Right now, she is the only Republican endorsed by the group who’s leading in the polls.
For the Andover school board seat, the Republican primary is a neck-and-neck race between incumbent Eric Welch and opponent Ali Adair. Welch has served two terms, once in 2010 and then again in 2018. Opponent Ali Adair is a health care executive and the product of Williamson County Schools. According to early voting results, Welch leads by only a dozen votes.
In heated races, lines at the polls remained cool
Turnout is typically low for the local primaries, which at least means voters were in and out of the polls quickly.
https://twitter.com/BlaiseGainey/status/1521572239480664064
Only about 5% of registered voters in Davidson County turned out during early voting.
Check back here throughout the night for updates.
This story was last updated at 6:50 a.m. WPLN’s Rachel Iacovone, Chas Sisk, Juliana Kim, Blaise Gainey, Marianna Bacallao and Julia Ritchey contributed reporting.
On Air - 90.3 WPLN-FM