St. Louis will pick its next mayor with approval voting

By

Ballotpedia staff

Welcome to the Tuesday, Feb. 25, Brew. 

By: Briana Ryan

Here’s what’s in store for you as you start your day:

  1. St. Louis will pick its next mayor with approval voting
  2. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to resign
  3. A look at the elections happening across the country on Feb. 25

St. Louis will pick its next mayor with approval voting

Incumbent Mayor Tishaura Jones, Michael Butler, Andrew Jones Jr., and Cara Spencer are running in the nonpartisan primary for Mayor of St. Louis, Missouri on March 4.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Lara Hamdan and Rachel Lippmann wrote, “The next mayor of St. Louis will come into office with crime numbers mirroring the national downward trend…But he or she will also face a lot of challenges, including: Uncertainty over the city’s financial picture…Questions about whether the city will receive promised federal funds from the Trump administration…[and] a declining population.”

This mayoral primary is the second in St. Louis to use approval voting, which allows voters to vote for any number of candidates. The two with the most votes advance to a runoff. In 2020, St. Louis voters approved Proposition D, 68.15% to 31.85%, which implemented approval voting in local primary elections beginning in 2021. The only other U.S. city that uses approval voting is Fargo, North Dakota, which started using the system in 2020.

To give you a better sense of what an approval voting ballot looks like, here’s the sample ballot shown on the St. Louis website for the March 4 primaries.

Let’s take a closer look at the candidates.

  • Jones has served as the mayor since 2021. She is running on her record. During a candidate forum, Jones said, “We inherited a whole host of antiquated systems and have been working really hard to improve those systems day in and day out.” Jones said that since then, her office has “invested in people, infrastructure and upgraded the government experience.” She is affiliated with the Democratic Party.
  • Butler has served as the city’s recorder of deeds since 2019. Butler is running on his experience as recorder, saying, “I’ve increased revenue in that office by $700,000 a year. I’ve increased staff productivity by 25%, all while decreasing the number of full-time employees in that office. I want to spread that to the rest of City Hall, and I know I can.” He is affiliated with the Democratic Party.
  • Jones Jr. is the former executive vice president for business development and marketing at Southwest Electric. Jones Jr. said he is running to “get rid of crime first and then take care of economic development, community development, workforce development and make sure St. Louis is on the up and up.” He is affiliated with the Republican Party.
  • Spencer has served on the city’s Board of Aldermen since 2015. Spencer said, “Governments are failing our communities, and the city of St. Louis is failing our communities. And if I’m elected mayor, what I’ll do to rebuild trust is root out corruption in every single city department…zero tolerance for corruption.” She is affiliated with the Democratic Party.

This election will be the second time Jones, Jones Jr., and Spencer have run against one another in a mayoral primary. The three were candidates in the 2021 primary, which resulted in Jones and Spencer advancing to the April 6 runoff.

The two candidates who receive the most votes on March 4 will advance to the April 8 runoff. St. Louis does not have mayoral term limits, and mayors serve a four-year term.

St. Louis is the 68th largest city by population in the U.S. Currently, the partisan breakdown of the mayors of the 100 largest U.S. cities is 64 Democrats, 25 Republicans, one Libertarian, three independents, and four nonpartisans. Three mayors’ partisan affiliations are unknown.

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Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to resign

The United States Postal Service (USPS) announced on Feb. 18 that Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, the 75th head of the USPS, will resign. In a letter to the USPS Board of Governors, DeJoy said, “It is time for us together, to think about and plan for the inevitable changing of the guard in many areas of our organization, to ensure that the new culture we have developed survives our tenure, including mine, and continues to thrive.”

The USPS’ primary responsibility is to provide mail processing and delivery services to individuals and businesses in the country. The first postal service in the U.S. was the United States Post Office, an executive department led by a Cabinet-level official established at the Second Continental Congress in 1775. Benjamin Franklin was the first U.S. postmaster general. In 1971, following the passage of the Postal Reorganization Act, the United States Postal Service replaced the United States Post Office Department.

The search for DeJoy’s successor may have a new wrinkle. According to a Washington Post report, Trump “…is preparing to dissolve the leadership of the U.S. Postal Service and absorb the independent mail agency into his administration…”  The Post‘s Jacob Bogage writes that Trump plans to issue an executive order “…to fire the members of the Postal Service’s governing board and place the agency under the control of the Commerce Department and Secretary Howard Lutnick…”

The USPS is run by the Board of Governors. The board has 11 members: nine governors, the postmaster general, and the deputy postmaster general. The president appoints the governors for seven-year terms. No more than five of the nine governors can be of the same political party. The board currently consists of four former President Joe Biden (D) appointees and two President Donald Trump (R) appointees. There are also three vacancies.

The nine governors select the postmaster general, who serves an indefinite term. A majority of the governors can remove the postmaster general.

The board selected DeJoy to lead the USPS in May 2020. At the time, all the governors on the board were Trump appointees. Before his appointment, DeJoy was president of the investment bank LDJ Global Strategies. DeJoy was the first postmaster general in 20 years who was not a career USPS employee.

Some members of Congress criticized DeJoy at the start of his tenure due to operational changes aimed at addressing USPS’s financial losses, which resulted in delayed mail deliveries in the summer of 2020. 

Lawmakers highlighted the delays affecting the delivery of prescriptions, commercial products, bills, and absentee or mail-in ballots, which saw increased use during the 2020 election cycle due to the coronavirus pandemic. DeJoy ultimately suspended the operational changes until after the 2020 elections, saying, “I came to the Postal Service to make changes to secure the success of this organization and its long-term sustainability. […] To avoid even the appearance of any impact on election mail, I am suspending these initiatives until after the election is concluded.”

During the Biden administration, DeJoy released a plan titled “Delivering for America,” which sought to “reverse a projected $160 billion in losses over 10 years by achieving break-even operating performance while improving the reliability and predictability of service.” DeJoy worked with Congress on the Postal Service Reform Act of 2022. DeJoy also oversaw the implementation of the provision of the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, which included $3 billion for new electric USPS vehicles.

In its Feb. 18 statement, the USPS said that the Board of Governors would begin identifying a replacement for DeJoy before his resignation becomes effective. The USPS did not say when DeJoy plans to step down.

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A look at the elections happening across the country on Feb. 25

Voters will be heading to the polls in some states on Feb. 25. Today, we’re giving you a snapshot of what some voters can expect to see on their ballots.

First let’s check out the local ballot measures within our coverage scope.

In Wichita, Kansas, voters will decide on a bond measure that would authorize the school district to issue up to $450 million in general obligation bonds to fund improvements, including constructing new facilities such as a Trades Future Ready Center and an Early Childhood Center, upgrading existing district facilities, and acquiring new sites as needed.

There will also be special elections on Feb. 25 to fill vacancies in the Connecticut and Maine Legislatures. Here’s a closer look at those elections.

So far, in 2025, 39 state legislative special elections have been scheduled in 16 states. Between 2011 and 2024, an average of 70 special elections happened each year. 

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