Former Shelby County Commissioner Tami Sawyer will be the Democratic Party nominee for General Sessions Court Clerk, after toppling incumbent General Sessions Court Clerk Joe Brown to win her Super Tuesday primary race on March 5.
Meanwhile, President Biden and former President Trump easily won the Shelby County vote in their primary matchups for the Democratic and Republican Presidential nominations. Along with wins in several other states, the victory ensures a rematch of the 2020 election on the top of the ballot.
Unofficial results for Shelby County reflect a sizable win for Trump over rival Nikki Haley. With all precincts reporting, 21,224 Shelby County voters preferred Trump. The former South Carolina Governor netted 8,056 votes in the county. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who suspended his campaign in late January, came in third with 380 votes.
A total of 16 states held primaries on Tuesday. Haley only managed a win in the Vermont race. Following the results, she suspended her campaign. Â
Biden ran unopposed for the Democratic nod. He received 27,286 votes in Shelby County. Another 1,491 Democratic primary voters remained uncommitted.
Both Biden, 81, and Trump, 77, face doubts over their fitness for the office due to their respective ages. Both have also committed numerous gaffes during the campaign to further those doubts.
Trump is facing 91 indictments too. Future court dates could lead into, or occur during the election. He has also accrued over half-a-billion dollars in court fines over state fraud charges in New York and a defamation suit.
The accumulated concerns have diminished voter enthusiasm for both candidates.
For her part, Sawyer grabbed 12,182 votes, for 42% of ballots cast in the four-way race. Brown followed up with 10,157 votes, for 35%. Shelby County Register Shelandra Ford and clerk’s officer supervisor Rhente Benson, came in third and fourth. They gathered 12% and 9% of the vote, respectively.
Brown is a former Memphis City Council member. After winning the office in 2020, he became ill with the COVID virus. During the race, Sawyer accused Brown of being absent from his post. Brown dismissed the assertion.
Sawyer has received endorsements from former U.S. Representative Harold Ford, Jr., along with his uncle, former State Senator John Ford. Â
She will square off against Republican nominee Lisa Arnold in November.
The clerk’s race is the only countywide office up for grabs during the general election on Tuesday, November 5.Â
With absentee, early and election-day votes a total of 30,204 Republicans cast ballots on Tuesday. Democrats fared slightly worse with 29,300.Â
The vote total was the second lowest in the Tennessee presidential primary’s 52-year history with a 10.06% turnout. The lowest turnout was 9.9% of Shelby County voters, in 2000. Primary votes began to determine delegates to party conventions in 1972.
