2024 Highlighted Victories
School Board Races, Florida
In Florida’s August primaries, New Southern Majority supported school board candidates who believe classrooms should be places of learning, not political battlegrounds. Each of our supported candidates were challenged by people hand-selected by Florida’s extremist Gov. Ron DeSantis and the far-right political organization Moms for Liberty.
In a very close race (50.9% to 49.1%), Duval County School Board incumbent Cindy Pearson defeated a former Moms for Liberty chapter president.
The candidates: Jessica Vaughn, from left, Nadia Combs and Cindy Pearson. (Credits: Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via ZUMA Press Wire; Bob Self/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK)
In Hillsborough County, voters rejected two leading DeSantis challengers who were seeking to flip the makeup of the Tampa-area board after the board became one of 10 to resist DeSantis’ “Don’t Say Gay” law. Nadia Combs won her election in District 1 despite being outraised 2 to 1 by her opponent. Jessica Vaughn won her election in District 3 against a vocal proponent of book banning.
NSM was proud to support candidates through text campaigns and digital advertising.
Sheriff, Caddo Parish, Louisiana
Henry Whitehorn
On March 23, Henry Whitehorn became the first Black person to be elected sheriff for Caddo Parish, a parish in northwestern Louisiana with over 200,000 people. Whitehorn won the November 2023 runoff election by one vote. But after Republicans convinced a retired judge to overturn the election results, voters returned to the polls for the third time to choose their next sheriff.
Whitehorn promises to be an improvement over his predecessor, Steve Prator, who has been admonished in the past for racially insensitive remarks he made during a news conference on state efforts to enact justice system reform. Prator expressed a need to keep “good” Caddo Parish inmates incarcerated so that they could continue to “wash cars, to change the oil in our cars, to cook in the kitchen, to do all that where we save money.”
The New Southern Majority IE PAC targeted roughly 25,000 Black voters with six waves of text messages in the month before the election. These texts included persuasion messaging highlighting Whitehorn’s experience and values, as well as information on early voting dates/hours, polling locations at a cost of $15,000. These efforts contributed to Whitehorn’s more than 4,000-vote victory.
For more on the disparity between Louisiana’s racial demographics and the ethnicity of its sheriffs and district attorneys, read the SPLC Action Fund’s report, Out of Balance.
2023 Highlighted Victories
In 2023, New Southern Majority conducted independent expenditure campaigns in 9 races across 3 states.
(Credit: Jeff Amy / AP Photo)
16th Circuit Court of Mississippi, District Attorney
Scott Colom has served as district attorney for Mississippi’s 16th Circuit since 2015. Before becoming DA, Colom was awarded a Skadden Fellowship, given to law graduates pursuing a career in public interest law. During the fellowship, Colom worked with an SPLC local partner, the Mississippi Center for Justice.
A trailblazer, Colom made history in 2011 by becoming the youngest and first Black justice court judge in Lowndes County. In 2012, he was appointed municipal court judge for Aberdeen, Mississippi, and in 2013, he became the first Black prosecutor for the city of Columbus. In 2022, Colom was nominated by President Joe Biden to serve as judge for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Mississippi. Colom was recommended for the position by U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson.
As District Attorney, Colom has expanded the circuit’s pretrial diversion and victims’ advocacy program and prioritized transparency. Colom says, “It’s very easy when you’re leading the criminal justice system to want to hide things. So often (with) bad news, even if you can explain it, the easiest thing to do is cover it up. . . . I have nothing to hide. Every case that I’ve dismissed . . . every case that I’ve plead, I can give you an explanation for it.”
Because of Colom’s progressive approach to the job and a district that voted for Republicans in 2019 legislative races, he drew a well-financed Republican opponent in 2023. New Southern Majority invested more than $17,000 in a direct mail and texting program in support of Colom’s reelection. With our help, Colom won with just over 55% of the vote.
Mayor of Austell, Georgia
Cobb County, Georgia, is the third largest county in the state and an emerging battleground. Historically Republican, the county voted for Mitt Romney in 2012 and has had Republican county officials for most of the past 20 years.
Cobb has shifted from a majority white county to plurality white county contributing to increasingly competitive elections. This shift has been critical in recent elections, including 2022, as U.S. Sen. Warnock won the county 60% to 40%. New Southern Majority views Cobb County as an important key to building Black political power in Georgia. Despite recent successes, local and municipal elections continue to be very competitive.
Continuing its investment in this important battleground, New Southern Majority supported four candidates for municipal office in Cobb County including incumbent mayor of Austell, Ollie Clemons Jr. A retired U.S. postal worker, Clemons has worked to make city government more accessible and has supported the city’s Youth Innovation Center, a collaborative effort among the city, county, educators and the faith-based community. New Southern Majority ran a direct mail program highlighting Clemons’s commitment to transparent government and, in a low turnout race, the mayor won reelection by 400 votes.
2022 Highlighted Victories
The overarching goals of New Southern Majority are to build Black and Brown political power and defeat bigots at the ballot box. Two of our victories in 2022 that encapsulate these are the Cobb County, Georgia, solicitor general race, and the Mississippi District 5 Mississippi Circuit Court, Place 2 runoff election.
Makia Metzger
Cobb County, Georgia, Solicitor General
Once a GOP stronghold, Cobb County has had more competitive elections in recent cycles and demographics have shifted to make the county increasingly diverse. Republican Barry Morgan served as the Cobb County solicitor general since 1998; his decision not to seek reelection in 2022 made this an open seat. Solicitors general play a key role in Georgia’s criminal legal system as the chief prosecutor of misdemeanors and violations at the county level. In 2022, New Southern Majority was pleased to support Democrat Makia Metzger, a native of Sierra Leone, West Africa, who migrated to the United States with her family before a civil war broke out in her home country. Metzger distinguished herself as a student at Georgia State University and the University of Georgia School of Law and began her legal career at the Athens Legal Aid Clinic. New Southern Majority used direct mail, digital ads, outdoor advertising and door canvassing to highlight Metzger’s biography and urge voters to support her campaign. Metzger won the race with 52.32% of the vote, outperforming six of the nine statewide candidates running in Cobb County, and became the first person of color and woman to hold this position in Cobb County.
Curtis Flowers
District 5 Mississippi Circuit Court, Place 2
Mississippi District 5 District Attorney Doug Evans garnered national attention when the United States Supreme Court reversed the guilty verdict of Curtis Flowers, a Black man who Evans tried six times for the same crime. Evans’ tactic of removing as many Black jurors as possible drew the rebuke of Justice Brett Kavanaugh who wrote, “The State’s relentless, determined effort to rid the jury of black individuals strongly suggests that the State wanted to try Flowers before a jury with as few black jurors as possible, and ideally before an all-white jury.” Adding, “The State’s actions in the first four trials necessarily inform our assessment of the State’s intent going into Flowers’ sixth trial. We cannot ignore that history. We cannot take that history out of the case.” Despite this embarrassing decision, Evans sought higher office in 2022, running for Mississippi Circuit Court Judge in District 5. Evans placed second of five in the general election and advanced to a runoff election after Thanksgiving. During the narrow window between the general and runoff elections, New Southern Majority invested thousands of dollars in a direct mail and texting program to make sure voters were aware of Doug Evans’ history of prosecutorial misconduct. Evans lost in a landslide, receiving only 30% of the vote.
Becky Salyer
Cobb County, Georgia, School Board races
The Cobb County School Board, the third largest school board in Georgia, has become a hotbed for reactionary education policy. Since 2020, the white Republican-led school board, representing a minority of Cobb County families (because the district seats have been heavily gerrymandered to give Republicans a majority), enacted policies that silenced Black board members and their constituents, including an election rule that makes it impossible for Black board members to add items to meeting agendas; dismantling a committee to rename Wheeler High School, which is now named after a Confederate general; refusing to entertain school COVID mitigation strategies advanced by Black members of the school board and their constituents; and passing resolutions to ban inclusive education. Bad policies weren’t the only problem. During the 2021 redistricting process, the state further gerrymandered the district to protect Republican incumbents. Against this backdrop, New Southern Majority invested in multiple Cobb County school board races in 2022. We opposed the Board chair’s reelection in District 4 and supported candidate Becky Sayler in the open race for District 2. New Southern Majority covered District 4 in YouTube ads highlighting corruption on the board. We also utilized direct mail, outdoor advertising and door canvassing to urge voters to make a change. While the effort in District 4 came up short, and the incumbent won with 53.9% of the vote, our effort succeeded in making this race much closer than others in the district. In District 2, our effort helped Sayler win overwhelmingly.