With mail-in absentee ballots still uncounted, incumbent Ashby Foote is claiming the victory in the hotly contested Ward 1 council race, even as he leads independent Grace Greene by just 10 votes.
“I’m gonna say we won, but I mean obviously it’ll probably be contested, I mean it could be contested by the other candidates, and that’s their right to do when you have a really tight vote,” he said. “But for the time being it appears that I won.”
As of Tuesday night, Foote stands at 1,738 votes with Greene at 1,728, according to an unofficial count that includes in-person absentee votes. Democrat Jasmine Barnes, an auditor at the Mississippi Department of Transportation, is in third with 1,713 votes, a drop off from the 2,465 votes she claimed in the April 1 Democratic primary.
There will be no runoff as Foote does not need a majority of the vote to win, only a plurality. In Mississippi, municipal general elections do not feature a runoff.
Election officials will process mail-in ballots until up to five days after the June 3 election, meaning it’s possible the race will not be called until next week. The number of affidavit ballots was not known as of Tuesday night.
The Ward 1 race was considered the most competitive, with seasoned politicos struggling to predict the outcome due in part to recent demographic changes in northeast Jackson. As of last year’s redistricting, the ward, long considered the city’s “white Republican bastion,” was recorded as having fewer white residents than Black.
“I’m just thankful for all the voters who showed up and thankful to the competitors for the race that they ran,” Greene, an entrepreneur who runs an online reselling business, told Mississippi Today from a call outside her house, which she said was full of neighborhood kids.
Grace Greene, 43, joined others vying for city council seats and the Mayor’s office, voicing their positions and answering questions from the public during a Meet the Candidates forum held Tuesday evening, May 27, 2025 at Anderson United Methodist Church in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayJasmine Barnes, 32, joined others vying for mayor and city council seats to voice their positions and answer questions from the public during a Meet the Candidates forum held Tuesday evening, May 27, 2025 at Anderson United Methodist Church in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayWard 1 city council candidate Ashby Foote, 73, joined others vying for city council seats and the Mayor’s office, voicing their positions and answering questions from the public during a Meet the Candidates forum held Tuesday evening, May 27, 2025 at Anderson United Methodist Church in Jackson. Credit: Vickie D. King/Mississippi TodayLaDarion Ammons, Barnes’ campaign manager, said that Barnes is in good spirits but they plan to wait until receiving the number of affidavit ballots before making a decision on whether to concede.
“We think it’s too close to call right now,” he said.
Foote, the founder of a financial services company, has represented the ward as the council’s lone Republican since 2014. He ran as an independent this year.
“What a nutty finish,” he said in the parking lot of Bravo, where he got together with a few friends to watch the results.
Foote said he thought the race would be close, so he stopped by the city clerk’s office yesterday to see how many absentee ballots had been filed. The clerk told him there were about 800 for the city and 187 for Ward 1 — 89 of which ended up going to him, he said.
“I gotta give a special thanks to the people who went to the trouble of going down to City Hall, filling them out and turning it in so they still had their vote even though they were gonna be out of town,” he said.
Despite leading with a plurality, Foote said he thought Mississippi should change its laws to force a runoff after a general if no candidate gets a majority of the votes, because that would make governing easier for the victors.
“In this case, I only have 33.6% of the vote and that’s not exactly a resounding majority to say I speak for the citizens,” he said.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( ‘What a nutty finish’: Foote leads by 10 votes in tight Jackson council race )
Also on site :