Three Metro Council seats were settled by a runoff on Thursday.
District 11
Jeff Eslick beat out Eric Patton in District 11 by 49 votes.
They represented two of the most fundamentally different candidates. In the end, Eslick got 1,983 votes to Patton’s 1,934.
On one side, Eslick espoused the conservative values more traditionally represented by the District 11 seat. He runs the media firm that Steve Smith used to launch attack-ads against mayoral candidate Freddie O’Connell during the general election. Although Eslick raised $122,269 compared to Patton’s $110,732, about $100,000 of his money came from loans he made to his campaign. Meanwhile, all of Patton’s money came from donors and PACs.
Patton was one of the few progressives to lose in an election cycle marked by a wave of progressive success. He was endorsed by a number of the city’s more progressive public figures and a handful of current and former Metro Councilmembers. In comparison, Eslick won the endorsements of the police and firefighter’s unions.
Things got ugly in the final weeks of the election when a PAC sent out an ant-LGBT mailer in support of Eslick, calling Patton “Gay and Tired.” Eslick beat out Patton by 2 percentage points in the general election.
District 4
Mike Cortese has beat Davette Blalock in the runoff for the Metro Council District 4 seat.
He won with 53 percent of the vote, besting Blalock by nearly 300 votes. In a patchwork district of red and blue, Blalock represented the more conservative of the two candidates, although both candidates had similar priorities.
Cortese is an adjunct professor at Belmont. He told the Banner that his top priorities are “keeping Nashville affordable, creating a better quality of life for residents: Reinvesting revenue from downtown back into our communities – road upgrades, sidewalks, green spaces, community services, public safety, making sure there is a strong dialogue and line of communication between the city government & District 4 Residents.”
District 29
Of the three districts that went into a runoff, District 29 was over the quickest. Candidate Tasha Ellis has beat out John Reed with 1,322 votes to his 780.
Ellis got 44 percent of the vote in the general election compared to Reed’s 24 percent. Throughout the election season, Ellis out-raised Reed four-to-one, raising a total of more than $60,000 throughout the season. Ellis also had the support of a number of political figures, receiving donations from At-Large Councilmember Zulfat Suara, former Mayor Megan Berry, state House member Gloria Johnson and District 3 Councilmember Jennifer Gamble.
The District 29 seat was left open when Delishia Porterfield chose to pursue an at-large seat rather than running for a second term.