With Mobile’s Aug. 27 mayoral election bearing down, the final Saturday of the campaign belonged to two very different kinds of gatherings, as supporters of Mayor Sam Jones turned out to pray while backers of challenger Sandy Stimpson fanned out across the city to canvass voters.
Mayor Jones and roughly 200 supporters filled the auditorium at Davidson High School for an afternoon of prayer and praise. Ministers and deacons offered prayers of thanksgiving, leadership, faith and victory throughout the event, while performers including Jere Thomas and members of St. Peter Baptist Church took part.
Jones told the crowd the prayer gathering was the most important stop of his campaign because it refocused attention on what mattered most in the closing days of the race.
“This showed us again where we should be looking,” Jones said. “This has been everything that the Lord would have it to be. Let’s show that God’s vote cannot be bought.”
Across town, Stimpson drew about 400 supporters to Ladd-Peebles Stadium before the group dispersed to roughly 60 intersections throughout Mobile to campaign directly with voters. Stimpson told supporters he had run a positive campaign and hoped that approach would carry him to victory on election day.
“We have kept the high road,” Stimpson said. “When there have been things brought up that have nothing to do with the issues facing the city, we have stuck to what matters.”
The rallies took on added significance because Aug. 24 marked the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, a milestone that became a point of contention between the two camps. The Rev. Cleveland McFarland criticized signs carried by some Stimpson supporters that read “Keep King’s dream alive,” arguing the slogan misused the civil rights leader’s legacy for political gain.
“They say to keep Martin Luther King’s dream alive, you should vote for Stimpson … you do hear what I’m saying,” McFarland said. “We’ve had an afternoon of prayer and praise, not blues and fish plates.”
McFarland also pointed to reports of a campaign flier some had called racist. “People said there was a flier that was racist,” he said. “Well, I think that’s racist to turn King’s dream inside out.”
Looming over both events was news that the U.S. Postal Service had opened an investigation into possible fraud involving absentee ballots cast in the municipal election. Both candidates addressed the matter cautiously when asked.
Stimpson called the prospect of fraud disheartening. “It makes me sad that there is possibly voter fraud happening,” he said. “I hope that anyone who did commit fraud would be fully prosecuted to the extent of the law.”
Jones said his campaign had not been contacted by investigators and stressed that ballots themselves, not the envelopes they arrive in, are what matters. “We haven’t received any information or been contacted,” he said. “The absentee ballot is not what’s on the outside of the envelope but what’s inside.”
City Clerk Lisa Lambert reported that around 3,000 absentee ballots had been cast in the election, a sharp increase from the last contested Mobile mayoral race in 2005, when only about 900 absentee ballots were cast combined in the general election and runoff.
The surge in absentee voting raised the stakes around the fraud inquiry, since a prolonged investigation could leave the outcome of the mayor’s race unsettled even after polls close Tuesday. Both candidates said they hoped the matter would be resolved quickly.
“We are hoping we can get the plurality we need the first time, where we cannot be concerned about the absentee votes or a runoff,” Stimpson said, referring to the possibility that no candidate would win an outright majority, triggering a runoff election.
Jones said he doubted the ballot investigation would stretch beyond election day, expressing confidence that voters would have a clear answer on who would lead Mobile for the next term.
The Aug. 27 election capped a closely watched campaign between the incumbent mayor and his challenger, with both camps making final appeals to voters in the campaign’s last days through faith, grassroots canvassing and public statements addressing the integrity of the vote.