UPDATE, 11:45 p.m.: With 122 of 144 precincts reporting just a few minutes before midnight, Steve Mulroy maintained a decisive lead over incumbent Amy Weirich.
The Democratic challenger had 58% of the vote to his Republican opponent’s 42%.
“Barring some statistically improbable election day results appear tonight, we have won the election for Shelby County District Attorney,” Mulroy said late Thursday.
“It has been the honor of my life to have been a prosecutor and to have served in the district attorney’s office and to have served the citizens of Shelby County,” said Weirich, who held the seat since 2011.
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — One of the hottest items on the ballot is the district attorney race. It’s garnered national attention.
You’ve got the current DA, Republican Amy Weirich, facing off against the democratic candidate Steve Mulroy, who’s a law professor, activist and former county commissioner.
The DA serves an eight-year term, so the stakes are high. WREG caught up with both candidates today. Both seemed very confident.
Weirich said she’s feeling great.
“Just talking to the voters and hearing the message that I hear everywhere I go in this community, and that is that people want offenders to be held accountable, particularly violent offenders, and that’s what our office does every day,” Weirich said.
Mulroy said he’s cautiously optimistic.
“This is a battleground between a very old-fashioned, mass-incarceration-oriented approach to criminal justice that I think has, you know, seen its day, and a new reform model that I think has been sweeping the country for the last decade or so, and I’m hoping that that’ll happen here in Shelby County,” Mulroy said.
Weirich says she’ll be at her headquarters Thursday night watching the results with supporters and her family.
Mulroy will be in East Memphis having a joint watch party with Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris.
