Runoff election: See who will represent Ward 2 on the Jackson City Council

Tina Clay will represent Ward 2 on the Jackson City Council.
Clay defeated her opponent Marcus Cheatham in a runoff election held Tuesday. Clay received 1,509 votes, while Cheatham received 920. A total of 2,436 Ward 2 residents turned out to vote in the runoff. That total included write-ins but not mail-in ballots or affidavits.
These results are unofficial. Jackson Municipal Clerk Angela Harris said there are still 59 mail-in ballots and two affidavit ballots to count, which will be done by 3 p.m. Wednesday. Harris said the city has five business days to certify the election with the Mississippi Secretary of State.
Unofficial results were announced just before 10 p.m. Tuesday night at the Warren Hood Building across the street from Jackson City Hall. Clay and Cheatham were both present, directly in-front of the ballot machines as Jackson election commissioners counted the votes.
Asked how she was feeling after being declared the victor, Clay kept it brief.
“Excited, happy,” she said. “Ready to hit the ground running.”
Clay said two big issues she wants to focus on in Ward 2 are crime and economic development.
“I’m going to work with the Chief (of the Jackson Police Department) and make sure he has whatever he wants,” Clay said. “As far as development, I’ll start looking into the community to see what needs and opportunities there are. Just thinking outside the box and creating some opportunities for growth in the community.”
A run-off was held between the top two candidates, when no individual candidate received a majority of the vote, or 50% plus one
Clay was the clear frontrunner in the Oct. 1 special election receiving 43.3% of the vote. Cheatham received nearly 21% of the vote. The total voter turnout in the Oct. 1 election was 2,629. 
The runoff follows the Oct. 1 special election, which was held due to the resignation of former Ward 2 Councilwoman Angelique Lee. The scene was less chaotic than the Oct. 1 special election, where all six of the candidates and their supporters waited for nearly three hours at the Hood building as votes were being hand fed into counting machines.
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Lee resigned her council seat on Aug. 14, then hours later she pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit bribery in the Thad Cochran United State Courthouse. She took approximately $20,000 in “cash, deposits and other gifts,” from two undercover FBI agents posed as real estate developers from Nashville. The bribes were in exchange for Lee’s vote in support of the agents for a downtown hotel project.
Five days before Tuesday’s runoff, a second conspirator pleaded guilty in the bribery scandal, along with the revelation that two more unidentified Jackson elected officials are involved. Sherik Marve’ Smith entered a guilty plea on Oct. 17 after U.S. prosecutors alleged he and another conspirator helped facilitate bribes to two Jackson elected officials.