NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — There's a good chance the Nashville Mayoral Election won't be decided this Thursday on Election Night, and the top two finishers will compete in a runoff.
"99.9 percent. Maybe more than that," said Pat Nolan, NewsChannel 5's Political Analyst. "It doesn’t appear any chance at all that anybody’s going to beat 50 percent plus one vote."
50% is what a single candidate needs to win the general election and avoid a runoff, but that isn't likely with this many candidates in the race. It begs the question — why does Nashville have a nonpartisan race that often leads to a runoff?
"Everything goes back to the charter," said historian David Ewing.
Ewing says it all started 60 years ago when the Nashville city limits sign went down and the Metro Nashville sign went up.
"The authors of the Metro Charter specifically wanted the runoff in there because they felt an election between the top two candidates would give us the best candidates," said Ewing.
Under the practice, Nashville mayoral candidates don't have to run in a political primary and all run against each other in the General Election. If one candidate doesn't get more than 50 percent, it triggers an automatic runoff between the top two finishers in the general election.
"Otherwise, you get these races with 5, 6, 7 people and the person who wins gets 20 percent of the vote. Do you want your mayor who only got 20 percent of the vote in the last election?" explained Nolan.
Nolan says you may start seeing some of the front runners pulling back from spending, to save some money for the runoff. "They have to be careful, I don’t think they can actually start taking contributions for the runoff unless they’re in the runoff, but they may hold some money back which they can then transfer over," said Nolan. "Whoever the top two are, the money will come in."
Tune in to NewsChannel 5 on Thursday at 7 p.m. to find out who makes the mayoral runoff.
