Nashville Metro Councilor John Cooper defeated incumbent David Briley 69-30 in a runoff election on Thursday to become the next mayor of Tennessee’s largest city.
Briley becomes the first incumbent mayor to lose re-election since the city of Nashville and Davidson County consolidated, forming what's known as the "Metro" government, in 1962.Briley, however, had never previously sought a full term in office: He only took over this position after former Mayor Megan Barry resigned last year and won a special election to serve the balance of her term.
Briley had long been in danger of losing his post after finishing well behind Cooper’s 35% in the first round of voting and only narrowly beating out conservative candidate Carol Swain 25-22 for second place. Cooper, brother of Nashville-area Rep. Jim Cooper, mainly self-funded his campaign for the first round of voting, but he received an infusion of cash and endorsements during the runoff that proved to be too much for Briley to overcome.
Though both are Democrats, Cooper and Briley presented starkly different messaging in the second round of voting. Cooper positioned himself as a pragmatist who would “work for all Nashvillians” and support policies that would promote growth in all of the city’s neighborhoods. Throughout the campaign, he zeroed in on economic issues as the most important matters facing Nashville.
Briley, meanwhile, waded into national issues more frequently and made his progressive bona fides a central element of his campaign. One of his final acts before the election was signing an executive order that calls for state legislators to repeal a law that bans “sanctuary cities” in Tennessee. On the local front, Briley touted his strides on affordable housing, and described a deal struck on that issue as one of his greatest achievements during his time in office.