In the span of the year, Paul Young went from a novice politician to the city’s highest office. 

Young won the Memphis mayor’s office Thursday, Oct. 5, after running a campaign in which he stitched together a coalition of voters across the city with a message of hope and progress that pushed him to the top of the crowded, 17-person field. 

Blog: Election night in Memphis wraps with new mayor, three council seats headed for runoff

“This is not a me thing. This is a we thing,” Young said.

“The city that we love, the city that people forgot about, the one that they want to write off ... it’s time for us to write the next pages of Memphis history,” Young said.

In his victory speech in front of hundreds of supporters at Midtown’s Minglewood Hall, a jubilant Young promised a brighter future for the city. 

“I want to make sure that together, we go through a transformation — a transformation that’s gonna take us from hopelessness to hopeful; from poverty to prosperity; from hurt to healed; from stalled to thriving,” Young said. 

The Downtown Memphis Commission CEO spent years in government before launching his bid for the mayor’s office, aptly, on 901 Day, Sept. 1, 2022.

He started the race with next-to-no name identification among voters and garnered significant fundraising support among large- and small-dollar donors, ultimately raising more money than any other candidate.

He positioned himself as the most prepared person to take the job with his experience in government and used his family’s networks to build a coalition of white and Black voters. Young countered negative attacks by describing his opponents as career politicians and emphasizing his record of public service. 

Young’s positive message will now face the reality of the city he will lead.

The new mayor will inherit challenges related to the city’s violent crime rate; a Department of Justice investigation into the Memphis Police Department, which is struggling with officer retention; a $550 million civil lawsuit filed against the city in the death of Memphian Tyre Nichols after an encounter with MPD officers; the chance to renovate FedExForum and ink a new lease for the Memphis Grizzlies and the opportunity to capitalize economically on Ford Motor Co.‘s BlueOval City.

Analysis: City election day dominated by race for Memphis mayor

How the race was run 

The 2023 mayoral election started early. Multiple candidates declared in fall 2022 as they sought to fill the void left by term-limited Memphis Mayor Jim Strickland. 

The campaign ramped up in the spring when two candidates, Floyd Bonner Jr. and Van Turner, sued to make sure they would be on the ballot. The lawsuit stemmed from a dispute over whether Memphis had a five-year residency requirement for mayoral candidates. 

Bonner and Turner, neither of whom would have met the requirement, sought to prove it had been repealed in the 1990s as part of an unrelated referendum. The City of Memphis said it hadn’t. 

In what one observer described as one of the “most political” lawsuits seen in recent years, Shelby County Chancellor JoeDae Jenkins sided with Bonner and Turner, letting them run. 

Mayoral candidate Young takes absentee, early vote by 2,600-vote margin

With residency squared away, the race became a crowded 19-person field, with many candidates facing the question of whether they should drop out and support someone else. Only two did, Frank Colvett and George Flinn. Colvett, a Memphis City Council member and longtime Republican official, later endorsed Bonner. 

The top candidates — Bonner, Willie Herenton, Turner, Young, Karen Camper, J. W. Gibson and Michelle McKissack — squared off at a myriad of forums. Most of the time, the tone was civil. At one notable debate, hosted by ABC24 and the Tri-State Defender, candidates were allowed to ask each other questions. 

McKissack, a candidate who spent a year working hard without gaining much traction in the polls, said she would have asked Herenton, who skipped every debate and every forum, how he would be accountable to constituents if he could not show up to the debate.

She noted that the former mayor spent a considerable amount of time at an East Memphis restaurant and then delivered the line of the season. 

“You can’t just hide at Houston’s,” McKissack said. 

Throughout September and two weeks of early voting, the candidates who could afford it took to the airwaves, aiming at each other and trying to convince voters their vision for the city was the right one.