Norfolk mayor, two council members reelected without opposition

Norfolk — Norfolk’s mayor and the pair of councilwomen who each represent half the city all won reelection Tuesday night without breaking a sweat.

They didn’t have to worry about victory parties or concession speeches — none of them had a challenger. The only hint of one was a mayoral challenger, Alexander Ritchie, who filed a petition to run against Mayor Kenny Alexander but failed to qualify for the ballot.

Instead, it was business as usual for the three winners and the rest of the City Council on Tuesday night as the body finalized the city’s budget for the next year.

With all Election Day precincts reporting Tuesday night — but what’s likely to be a large number of absentee ballots because of the coronavirus still outstanding as of deadline — Alexander held 4,929 votes from across the city. The two councilwomen, Angelia Williams Graves and Andria McClellan, each netted more than 2,000 votes from their respective halves of the city.

Write-in candidates received no more than 299 votes in any of those races.

Alexander, a funeral home director and Norfolk’s 99th mayor, secured his second term Tuesday.

McClellan, who unseated long-time incumbent Barclay Winn in 2016 to represent Norfolk’s Superward 6, also won a second term without challenge. Superward 6 includes the city’s north and west.

Graves, first elected in a special election in 2010 to the Superward 7 seat, won a fourth term to represent Norfolk’s south and east.

Ryan Murphy, 757-739-8582, ryan.murphy@pilotonline.com