UPDATE: April 5, 10:48 p.m.
James Fuller lost to incumbent Shirley Johnson with a final tally of 145-45. Fuller said he will speak with experts tomorrow to confirm the validity of the count. He said even if he has lost he will not be dissuaded from politics.
“We will be back running for this exact same seat in two years,” Fuller said.
Fuller said even if he fails to win his next campaign, he and his supporters made a difference and showed that people can freely run against long time incumbents like Johnson.
“We accomplished a lot,” Fuller said. “We opened up the door for more campaigns. For the community.”
James Fuller, 20 year old Junior Political Science major, knocked on another door this Saturday, April 2nd, to convince another Northwood resident that he should represent them over his opponent who has held the job since he was a baby. Fuller is running for the Ward 3 spot on the Board of Alderman, a legislative council which represents all of the smaller towns in St. Louis County.
The board works to pass annual budgets and ordinances with the goal of bettering their wards through county cooperation.
Fuller has spent most every weekend this year going door by door in his community in North County talking about issues such as youth programming and vacant properties. And he is confident that his age won’t stop him from beating incumbent Shirley Johnson.
“All of our elected officials have been in office for so long,” Fuller said. “They count on those votes, but they don’t really work for those votes”
But Fuller says that he has worked for whatever votes he gets this Tuesday, April 5th. He expects that if voter turnout is high, he will win.
Fuller, with the help of his parents, has mostly self funded his campaign. He said what little residents have been able to give has meant the most for his campaign.
“We had a little bit of money that came from the community,” Fuller said. “Which definitely meant a lot to us, because that was a clear sign of full support from that person.”
Fuller said he will be at the Northwood City Hall, where voting is taking place, all day to talk to any residents that have questions about his candidacy.
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