Melissa Bailey Photo
In her quest to topple a Dixwell alderman, Jeanette Morrison had an extra weapon Tuesday: A minivan-turned-campaign-shuttle bringing loads of Yale students to her polling station.
Thanks to a flood of Yale voters, Morrison emerged the victor in a four-way Democratic Party primary election for alderman in Ward 22, which includes part of Dixwell as well as four residential colleges at Yale.
Morrison ran as a union-backed challenger to incumbent City Hall-backed Alderman Greg Morehead — who in the past relied in part on vanloads of Yalies to help him win the office.
Morrison (right) and her daughter Jaydah.
Morrison upset Morehead on the machines 355 – 165. (Candidate Lisa Hopkins picked up 125 machine votes in that race, Cordelia Thorpe, 4.)
Hopkins and Thorpe remain on the general election ballot as independents, which means there will be another election on Nov. 13. Morehead is not on the ballot.
She credited an influx of voters from Yale, which brought her an estimated 180 votes, she said.
Asked what sealed her victory, she said, “people wanting change, and the beginning of bridging that gap between the community population and the Yale students.”
The shift in the Yale vote was apparent all afternoon, as two Yale-bound vehicles left the polling station and brought back more voters each time.
Tuesday at 3 p.m., voters were trickling in rather slowly to polling station at the Wexler/Grant School. Then a gold Toyota Sienna minivan rolled up. Out climbed five bright-eyed Yale students from Morse and Stiles Colleges, which are near the Yale gym on Tower Parkway.
“Thank you all for coming down,” Morrison told the crew (pictured at the top of this story). “I know you have classes to go to.”
No problem, the students said. Then they asked her advice: “Who should we vote for for mayor? Do you have an endorsement?”
Morrison told them she’s supporting Clifton Graves, one of three Democratic challengers to incumbent John DeStefano in a mayoral primary Tuesday. The students took palm cards and scurried into the polls without talking to the three other candidates.
The young voters were part of an at-least-twice-hourly shipment of Yalies to the polling station, according to Yale senior Mac Herring.
Herring (pictured) took the wheel of the minivan Tuesday, which had a sign in the window that read: “Jeanette Morrison Ward 22 Shuttle.” She said she was making runs every half an hour starting at 7 a.m., leaving from Morse and Stiles and heading to Wexler/Grant. Herring said another shuttle (though not as capacious as her borrowed minivan) was making runs from Timothy Dwight and Silliman, the other two colleges in that ward.
Herring, who lives in Yale-dominated next-door Ward 1, is campaign manager for Sarah Eidelson, the union-backed aldermanic candidate in that district. (That election doesn’t take place until November.) Morrison is also being supported by Yale unions, which are by far the biggest organizing force against City Hall-backed candidates this election. She said she met Morrison at the end of last school year and volunteered for her campaign over the summer.
The shuttle runs appeared to be sending a significant number of new voters to Ward 22, where Yale students have at times voted in low numbers.
Morehead said he also had a point person on Yale’s campus, with one vehicle making runs to the polls.
“I was the first one to start” getting Yale students involved in the ward, Morehead noted. Yale students typically vote predominantly in Yale’s Ward 1. Two years ago, Morehead made big inroads onto Yale’s campus. He door-knocked in Yale dormitories, promising to represent students as well as Dixwell.
“I believe in working with them throughout the years, not just using them for elections,” Morehead said. His organization appeared to have dwindled since 2009. In the course of an hour, Morrison brought far more Yale students to the polls than Morehead did.
Mike Jackson (left) talks to Morehead before running numbers to campaign headquarters.
Morehead said he had about 35 people working for him Tuesday, including his brother Nocko, who’s featured on his campaign rap anthem, which is addressed to the “haters” out there. Nocko planned to hit the streets at 6 p.m. in his Chrysler convertible and blast the anthem through the ward.
Tuesday showed no signs of conflict that has arisen in that contentious ward over the years, and as recently as two weeks ago, when Hopkins called the cops on Morehead for allegedly stealing campaign signs.
In a lull in the activity Tuesday, Morehead cradled his 2‑year-old son, Jonathan, who appeared to be catching some sleep. The day had been peaceful “so far,” Morehead said at 4 p.m. “I’m praying it stays that way.”
The lull proved to be a bad omen for Morehead, as more voters kept showing up for Hopkins and Morrison, and passing him by.
Meanwhile, Hopkins helped an elderly voter into the back seat of a car. She said she had no formidable Yale operation this year. She said she had about a dozen Dixwell community members helping her out.
The fourth candidate, Cordelia Thorpe, kept a low profile without any lawn signs at the polling station. She handed out a flyer and announced she’d be running again in November.
The race ended in a dramatic scene, as someone at the polls fell unconscious on the pavement. Morehead’s mother and wife said prayers over her body until EMTs arrived.
Morrison went into the polling station with some Dixwell community members and a trail of Yale undergraduates, whom she called her “team.” They hugged and hooted when the moderator announced her decisive win.
Meanwhile, a devastated Morehead contingent grumbled about the repercussions of the Yale influx.
“I just hope they’re there for the people who live here,” came a remark from the crowd. It was Christine Ulmer, a Morehead supporter who’s raising six kids on Adam Clayton Powell Place near the Monterey Homes.
“Where will they be after they finish school? They’re going home — we still stuck here in the ‘hood. That ain’t fair,” Ulmer said.
Morehead conceded the change of power: “If that’s who the community wants in office, that’s who they got”
But he added, “I was hoping it would be someone more knowledgeable about the neighborhood, who’s not being pushed by the unions.”
Morrison celebrated the win with a group of Yale undergraduates in Morrison T‑shirts, one of whom had been driving an SUV to the polls all day. Asked to comment about the campaign, one student shushed another: “we’re not allowed to talk.” They refused to answer any further questions, including who forbade them to talk.
Morrison was asked if she’ll be pushing a union agenda. “You mean a people’s agenda?” Morrison asked. “Union means people. We’re gonna carry out the people’s agenda.”
Asked about Ulmer’s criticism, Morrison said she, too, grew up believing there was an impenetrable wall between Yale and Dixwell. She vowed to “knock down the psychological wall” that separates the two. “We all live in the same district,” she said.