On the campaign trail with David Briley, John Cooper: What each candidate is pitching to Nashville voters – The Tennessean

On the campaign trail with David Briley, John Cooper: What each candidate is pitching to Nashville voters  The Tennessean

Mayor David Briley is seeking reelection against At-large Metro Council member John Cooper in the Sept. 12 runoff election for Nashville mayor.

Tucked in the Scottsboro Community Club, folks can try their luck at a cake walk for a $1 buy-in at the annual barbecue. Or better yet, a butt walk — same concept but the winner takes home a pork butt. 

It’s also where, still a few days away from Nashville’s mayoral runoff, residents have already started calling Metro Councilman John Cooper mayor. 

The community near the Cheatham County border northwest of downtown Nashville is one of the best representations of Cooper voters. 

The group includes self-proclaimed hippies and yuppies and those who value the small-town feel of Scottsboro, one of the few rural neighborhoods in a bustling city.

Cooper’s message that Nashville is going in the wrong direction and the city’s economic boom is leaving most residents behind resonated here, despite Mayor David Briley’s best effort to sway support his way. 

Now, Briley enters the Sept. 12 runoff as an underdog — an unprecedented position for an incumbent, albeit one who has been in office less than two years. No sitting mayor of Metro Nashville government has lost a reelection bid.

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While the two have largely clashed over city finances throughout the campaign since the August general election, Briley has tried to reframe the runoff race around progressive politics and national issues to draw contrasts between himself and Cooper. 

Jostling for an advantage in a race that Cooper is leading, Briley has repeatedly criticized Cooper for being too focused on financial issues.

Briley stresses that Nashville is on the right track and has made progress on affordable housing, education and teacher pay. Nashville, he says, needs a mayor who will stand up for its progressive values and social priorities.

Cooper’s pitch to voters

“Welcome mayor,” one woman said as she reached out to Cooper for a handshake at the 63rd annual Scottsboro barbecue on a recent Saturday.

“He’s going to make it. He’s a shoo-in,” one man said, walking by with a plate piled high with pulled pork, baked beans and coleslaw.

“It reminds you how much trust they are putting in you,” Cooper said in an interview. “You become very aware of the responsibility and the privilege.”

Cooper, who serves in a countywide council seat, won nearly every corner of the county in the general election, with the exception of the most liberal parts of the city in East Nashville and downtown, where votes went largely to Briley. 

He rode a wave of support from conservative constituents, many of whom backed retired Vanderbilt professor Carol Swain when she ran in the May 2018 special election to serve out the remainder of former Mayor Megan Barry’s term, a race Briley won.

Swain ran again in the Aug. 1 election, finishing third to Cooper and Briley. 

Cooper also won big in largely African American voting precincts such as Bordeaux and  diverse districts including Antioch.

A recent poll funded by the Tennessee Laborers’ Political Action Committee shows both conservative and progressive voters drifting toward Cooper. 

The poll shows 78% of Swain voters and 56% of voters for state Rep. John Ray Clemmons say they prefer Cooper. It also shows Cooper maintaining a healthy lead, with 58% of likely voters supporting him in the runoff compared with 32% for Briley. 

At the Scottsboro event, a man sporting a Donald Trump MAGA hat stopped Cooper to shake his hand but mistook him for Councilman Steve Glover, who is running for one of the four remaining at-large council seats. 

Glover, a conservative, has campaigned in the runoff on a message that no two council members have voted more alike than he and Cooper. 

The interaction highlighted one of the dynamics of Cooper’s campaign. He is appealing to more conservative residents, particularly in the outlying areas of the county, by focusing on financial issues, his business background and his opposition to raising property taxes.

He stressed he is not Swain and was likely not the man’s first choice for mayor.

Yet Cooper knows he appeals to conservative voters and points out how local issues resonate across traditional party lines.

“This race needs to be about what we can do at the local level to make our city better,” the lifelong Democrat said, citing teacher pay, sidewalks and water pressure as local issues. 

“Local government, it’s very much administrative and you can’t marginalize anybody, any community,” Cooper said. “And that means immigrants, as well as old-time Americans. It’s a Nashville for everybody.” 

Local government, he said, is where both the right and the left share some of the same concerns, “as crazy as that is.”

When asked about the Trump supporter, Cooper cites two examples as evidence that he has support among a cross section of voters: A campaign stop at a union hall, a place one doesn’t find traditional Trump voters, and the controversy over the removal of cherry trees downtown in advance of April’s NFL Draft, an issue that resonated among all Nashvillians.

“The cherry tree response was across all groups, all segments, all regions of Nashville,” Cooper said.

Resident Arthur Franklin, who attended an early voting event that Saturday in Bordeaux, says Cooper’s approach to city issues is the right one. 

“For me, that’s the blueprint for the city,” Franklin said. “We can hold him accountable with it.”

Cooper said his background in business and real estate is a plus in his campaign for the city’s top job. 

Franklin said it makes him “ideally suited” for the position. 

Cooper “just makes sense,” he said. “Lot of the issues in Nashville need adequate funding. That’s what Cooper is running on.” 

Briley, he said, came to be mayor at the wrong time. Residents have felt largely unsatisfied by his time in office. 

“Nashville is ready for Cooper,” Franklin said. 

Briley on why he wants a full four-year term

The results of the general election were not what Briley, his campaign and political insiders expected. Some anticipated a possible Cooper lead, but not the sizable 10-point margin his rival achieved.

Among the list of descriptors — “accidental” and “default” among them — that have followed Briley in his short tenure as mayor, he gained a new one that night: underdog.

In the days that followed, top Nashville Democrats, Briley supporters and fundraisers discussed what he’d need to do to pull off a win or whether he should compete at all in the runoff.

Briley struck a fighting tone in vowing to continue his reelection bid, telling supporters in an email he won’t run a negative campaign but will “leave it all on the field.”

He says the numbers show 65% of people don’t want his opponent.

Getting progressive votes is likely the only chance Briley has to keep his job. During the first televised debate of the runoff, he criticized Cooper for not taking a strong stance on progressive issues.

After a visit to Temple Church on the Sunday before Labor Day, Briley attended the Old School BBQ Festival at the newly renovated Fair Park. He walked through the festival, visiting with those standing in line for a plate of Cajun shrimp and jumbo wings, and stopping to take photos. 

“Thanks for coming out,” Briley said as he climbed onto the stage to address festivalgoers sitting under a wave of umbrellas to beat the heat. 

“We’re stronger as a city together,” Briley said. “If you want somebody who’s going to fight for more affordable housing, better wages and giving everybody a chance to prosper, vote for David Briley. 

“I’m the one who’s going to fight for you for the next four years,” he said. 

Amid the runoff, Briley called for a temporary ban on scooters, touted 4.5% raises for city public teachers, announced Nashville police will start to deploy body cameras later this month, and created the Mayor’s Council on the State of Women to commemorate the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage. 

And on Tuesday, he signed an executive order calling for state lawmakers to repeal an anti-sanctuary city law with a promise to dedicate the full weight of the mayor’s office to support the effort. 

The order, which also outlines how Nashville employees will respond to requests from federal immigration agencies, came after reports that the city’s probation department is sharing information on probationers with Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents. 

It also came nearly 16 months after the state law passed House and Senate. 

While some have applauded the moves, others have called them a last-ditch effort to win votes.

Briley attended the National Pan-Hellenic Council cookout at Sevier Park where Jason Luntz, an entrepreneur, said he’s voting for the mayor because of his progressive agenda and background, standing up for African Americans, Nashville General Hospital and LGBTQ issues. 

“His opponent doesn’t have the same background,” Luntz said. “We don’t need a central-leaning Dem. We need a mayor that’s going to fight for us.”

Briley needs more time for results to be fully recognized, Luntz said. 

“Eighteen months is not that long. He needs more time,” he said. 

Campaigning on promises to both conservatives and progressives, he said, is Cooper speaking out of both sides of his mouth. 

“That’s impossible,” he said.

Yihyun Jeong covers politics in Nashville for USA TODAY NETWORK – TENNESSEE. Reach her at yjeong@tennessean.com and follow her on Twitter @yihyun_jeong.

Published 11:00 PM EDT Sep 5, 2019