Candidates in the runoff election for Atlanta’s open citywide council seat are hoping residents visit the ballot box one more time this year, just four weeks after a disappointing presidential election for a majority of the city’s voters.
Two out of a crowded field of candidates for the vacant Post 3 at-large council seat earned enough votes to qualify for the Dec. 3 runoff: Atlanta school board member Eshé Collins and longtime educator and business owner Nicole Evans Jones will face off for the coveted citywide seat.
Unlike usual turnout numbers for local races, the number of votes cast in the Atlanta City Council race on Nov. 5 was boosted exponentially by the presidential contest and other federal and state level races that commanded a majority of the space on the ballot.
Nearly 200,000 city of Atlanta voters in Fulton and DeKalb counties weighed in on who they thought should fill the citywide seat on council that’s been vacant since former council member Keisha Sean Waites resigned in March.
That’s compared to a little over 70,000 ballots cast in each of the races to fill the three citywide positions on council during the general election in 2021 — where both the mayor and all City Council seats were up for grabs.
Turnout numbers are expected to drop significantly lower for the runoff, forcing both candidates to work quickly to get their loyal base to the polls again.
Evans Jones garnered the most votes in the general election, capturing around 78,000 of the ballots. She told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that success in the runoff means targeting the same people she’s already reached before.
“My strategy is simple: get those 70,000 people back out,” she said. “Just double down on my universe between now and three weeks from now.”
Adding even more pressure, the city council race will be the only contest on the runoff ballot in the election that will take place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
“It’s going to be extremely important to target the voters that we know have the high propensity of returning to the polls and that is the super voters throughout the city,” said Collins, who captured about 50,000 votes in the general election.
Both candidates come from backgrounds in education, but Collins points to her experience as an elected official on Atlanta’s school board as what makes her stand out against her opponent.
“Being in the public service space, as an elected official on the school board, serving as chair and vice chair of one of our largest ecosystems in Atlanta and being at the table to make really big, tough and innovative decisions,” she said, “is completely transferable and in alignment to what we want to see happen in the city as well.”
Evans Jones said what she lacks in experience as an elected official is made up by three decades of being on the front line in classrooms.
“I had to be responsible, and was held responsible and accountable on an hourly basis,” she said. “From the parents to the teachers to the custodians to the kids, I was always held accountable. And that’s why I never left the school building, because I wanted to look my constituents in the eyes and be responsible and responsive.”
The AJC interviewed all the candidates in the general election about their stances on key issues from transportation to public safety. Both Collins and Evans Jones are also taking part in a candidate forum on Nov. 12 at 6:30 p.m. hosted by the Civic Center for Innovation at 460 Edgewood Ave NE. The forum can also be watched virtually.
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Credit: Miguel Martinez
Credit: Miguel Martinez
