Physician Jonathan S. Jones announced today that he is withdrawing his candidacy for the Ward 1 City Council seat currently held by Jeff Weill. In a statement, Jones, who was running as a Republican, said that he is dropping out because of the "difficult constraints placed on municipal primary elections."
"By removing my name from the Republican City Council race, now all residents of Ward 1 will be able to vote in the Democratic Primary election for mayor if they so choose," Jones said.
Mississippi election law bars voting in both Democratic and Republican primaries. In his April 23 endorsement of Marshand Crisler for mayor, Northside Sun editor Wyatt Emmerich bemoaned the fact that a contested city council race would draw away Republican votes for Crisler.
"Jeff (Weill) suggested that families split their vote, having the husband vote in the Republican primary and the wife in the Democratic. Not a bad idea," Emmerich wrote. "Would half a Northside vote…be enough to get Crisler into the runoff? Doubtful. Could Jeff Weill win with a small Republican turnout? I have no idea."
Claude McInnis, president of the Jackson Democratic Municipal Executive Committee, refrained from speculating as to which mayoral candidates would benefit from Jones' dropping out and an accompanying influx of Republican voters. He did suggest, though, that Mayor Frank Melton would probably not benefit from high turnout in Ward 1, as he did in 2005.
"In that ward, in that area, it really did give the incumbent a leg up," McInnis said. "It really pushed that race to what looked like a landslide. The rest of Jackson was very competitive. I don't know if the incumbent has the same support out there that he had."
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