Mississippi Today profiled both Jackson mayoral candidates competing in the April 22 Democratic primary runoff. Read the profile of incumbent Mayor Chokwe Lumumba here.

State Sen. John Horhn had just finished standing on the bed of a shiny white truck, tossing packets of candy to the sparse crowd at the South Jackson Parade on McDowell Road, when a City Hall employee came up to him. 

“We need you down there,” she told Horhn. “Oh, we need you bad. Bad, bad.” 

A few hours later, another city employee pulled Horhn aside to say that she was looking forward to working with him when – not if – he’s elected mayor. 

A four-time candidate for Jackson mayor, Horhn first ran for the office in 2009 on much of the same platform he’s using today: Cleaning up crime and blight, pursuing more federal funding, and growing and developing the city. 

As his repeated interactions with city employees the weekend of April 12 illustrate, many Jacksonians feel these problems have only deepened. But Horhn, who has represented northwest Jackson and surrounding rural areas for 32 years, argues the mood around his campaign is much more optimistic. 

“There’s something in the air, and I think they sense that,” he said. “You know, the most often used word that I hear from people – young, old, rich, poor, Black, white – is ‘excited.’” 

So far, the numbers seem to support that. Earlier this month, Horhn, 70, took even his campaign team by surprise when he pulled 48% of the vote in a crowded Democratic Primary. His chief opponent, incumbent Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba, 42, lagged far behind at 17%. 

But Tuesday’s runoff – an entirely different race from the primary – will prove the real test of whether voters are buying Horhn’s message this year. 

The moderate Democrat has argued that Jackson’s basic city services are suffering and need to be improved. His election would be a marked shift from Jackson’s current administration that is guided by a commitment to radical politics grounded in Black self-determination. 

For this, Lumumba’s campaign and supporters have attacked Horhn as the candidate in the pocket of the city’s white business community located in the northeasternmost ward — even though a majority of Horhn’s votes came from Black Jacksonians. The repeated claim that Horhn will all but sell Jackson for parts – from the city’s airport to the Smith-Willis Stadium on Lakeland Drive – has become one of the defining narratives of this year’s election. 

As Horhn was talking to voters at the South Jackson Parade, for example, Lumumba’s campaign volunteers tabled with a sign that read: “Keep our city ours.” 

Horhn, who was raised in Jackson by a labor organizer and a cafeteria manager for Jackson Public Schools, adamantly rejects this narrative. So do many others, including Congressman Bennie Thompson, whose endorsement of Horhn noted the senator’s intention to defend Jackson’s right to control its own resources.

“Every attempt, either successful or otherwise, of the state taking over an asset of Jackson, I’ve been the lead senator against whatever that take-over attempt happened to be,” Horhn said over small water cups at the Taco Bell on McDowell Road. “I’ve been the go-to guy in the Senate when it comes to fighting that stuff. I’m not all of a sudden going to change my stripes and hand over the city.” 

In fact, Horhn said he thinks his style of politics is better suited to defending Jackson than the mayor’s. Horhn described his approach as deliberate, behind-the-scenes, using the existing legislative process to leverage resources, and best summarized by the following aphorism: No permanent friends, no permanent enemies, only permanent interests.

“It’s hard for people to understand how it is that you can be fighting one minute and working with them another minute, and for me it depends on the issue,” he said. “It depends on what’s at stake and what’s the best path of victory to get to the best interest of my community.”

Horhn concedes that most of the bills he authors never become law – the woes of being in the Legislature’s minority party – but he says he’s won significant funding for Jackson nonetheless, including $85 million for the downtown convention center, $20 million for the Westin Hotel, and $20 million for the JSU Metro Parkway. 

And he said he’s used the legislative process, from floor fights to bill amendments, to fight for Jackson.

Horhn cited the state’s ongoing effort to wrest control of the Jackson Medgar Wiley Evers International Airport as one example. 

The day the bill to regionalize the airport authority came up for a vote in the Senate in 2016, Horhn said the Jackson delegation was caught by surprise. 

“Of course we spoke on the floor against the bill,” Horhn said. 

As Horhn offered one amendment after another to kill, then water down the bill, he said Lumumba was watching from the gallery and even texted him encouraging words and suggestions for what to say on the floor. 

But the bill passed the Senate. Horhn said that members of the House Jackson delegation then went to meet with Philip Gunn, the Speaker of the House at the time, and the group came to what Horhn called a “gentleman’s agreement.” Gunn would not bring the airport bill to the House floor if the Senate Jackson delegation, including Horhn, agreed to help kill a bill that Gunn did not want to see passed. 

“Some might say it violates the quid pro quo oath that you take, but it happens all the time,” Horhn said. “We held up our end of the bargain. We killed that bill.” 

The former speaker told Mississippi Today he could not recall any meetings about the bill because it was nearly 10 years ago, but that he doesn’t “traditionally do a gentleman’s agreement.” 

Horhn added that some other House members then had their own meeting with Gunn that was not as cordial as Horhn thought it should’ve been. 

“The meeting did not go well and some things were said by some members that insulted the Speaker, and he became angry,” Horhn said. 

In the end, the efforts failed.

“That’s a battle that we lost, but it’s one that we should not have lost,” he said, “because cooler heads should’ve prevailed.”

The narrative that white, conservative, statewide interests want to take what rightfully belongs to Black, progressive Jacksonians persists, especially among Lumumba’s supporters. 

Horhn says he understands why. 

“There is so much mistrust it becomes something you can weaponize,” he said. 

Plus, narratives often possess a kernel of truth. 

This election, Horhn has secured the backing of Rethink Jackson, a coalition of city leaders and business people convened by Robert Gibbs, a downtown Jackson attorney and developer. Horhn recently touted an endorsement from a local developer named Gabriel Prado who is building apartments in north Fondren. 

And, a review of Horhn’s campaign finance reports shows that he accepted $4,000 from a political action committee named Build MS that primarily donates to Republican candidates, according to its filings with the Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office. Build MS declined to comment.

The PAC was started two years ago to promote “business friendly” candidates and is affiliated with a government relations firm co-founded by Austin Barbour. 

After he was asked about this documentation, Horhn reviewed his documentation and said he believed he received the check by mail and that he was not aware of the connection between Build MS and the Mississippi Republican Party. He went on to say that he’s received many contributions from a diverse group of donors — but it doesn’t mean he adopts their political ideology. 

He also pointed to the first donation he received: $10,000 from a Black woman who started her own home care company. 

“They’re all supporting our campaign because of one thing and that is because they want to see things change for the better in Jackson,” he said.

To be sure, Horhn, who has worked as a business development consultant, has never denied being a “business friendly” candidate. Neither has Lumumba. 

But the two candidates differ in what that means. Lumumba has historically focused on the idea of creating cooperatives in an effort to build a new kind of economy in Jackson. Horhn is not opposed to that approach, but he is more likely to emphasize working within the current system. 

“Folks want you to make a difference,” Horhn said. “You have to be able to work with the white business community. You have to be able to work with white statewide officials, because they control this state, and if you’re going to get resources you have to have some type of relationship. And we’ve been successful at getting resources.” 

When it comes to managing City Hall, Horhn said he thinks the current mayor has done a poor job, from keeping parks clean, helping businesses get permits, completing audits on time and answering questions from constituents. 

But that’s not all – he said he thinks it is Lumumba who has failed to defend Jackson’s resources. 

In early 2018, Jackson suddenly dropped its longrunning lawsuit opposing an effort by the West Rankin Utility Authority, which serves surrounding suburban communities, to build its own wastewater treatment plant instead of continuing to pay to use one owned by the City of Jackson. Lumumba’s public works director told him it wasn’t worth fighting.

With that, the city reportedly lost an average of $5 million in annual revenue. 

Horhn said he would’ve fought harder, because he believes the loss of West Rankin kicked off a series of incidents that ultimately led to Jackson losing control of its wastewater system to a third-party manager two years ago. 

“We’ve seen a deterioration of our wastewater since then, and what are we seeing now? The second rate increase in the last couple years that’s being implemented by the third-party manager, because we’re not taking in enough revenue to operate the system,” he said.  

Horhn also pointed to the state of west and south Jackson. If downtown Jackson is the trunk of the city’s economy, then the city’s outlying neighborhoods are withering branches, deprived of water and poised to fall off. 

Even though it’s not part of Horhn’s district, he said he’s tried to help these communities. He cited his efforts to assist Pearl Street AME Church’s community development corporation secure funding to transform an abandoned Holiday Inn on Highway 80 into a senior living facility.  

That work took years, Horhn said, and was made possible in part because of connections he had forged in the state Senate with organizations like the Gulf Coast Housing Partnership or the Mississippi Home Corporation. 

“The business of business is business,” Horhn said. “If you’re trying to do business, you have to do business with the people that are doing business, and if you’re trying to develop wealth in your community you have to follow some of the same codes around which wealth is created.” 

But if that was Lumumba’s goal, Horhn called it a “miserable failure.” 

During the April 12 parade, Horhn kept talking about how few people had come out to celebrate. Last year, when the Sonic Boom of the South and Alcorn State’s band played, he said thousands of people turned out. 

On Saturday, the floats and high school bands marched past a boarded-up beauty supply store, a defunct Chinese restaurant, an empty elementary school, abandoned homes and overgrown bushes. 

There was one new business: A plasma donation center. It used to be a pharmacy. 

Addressing the crowd at the festival, Horhn said on the microphone that turning around South Jackson would be the first thing on his to-do list. 

But it’s going to be a tall order. The neglect in this part of Jackson runs so deep that much more than economic development is needed. All the same issues Horhn ran on in 2009 are more pronounced now. 

Horhn and his campaign team made it back to their cars in a sunwashed parking lot outside a Save-A-Lot that had served as a staging ground for the parade. As they planned the rest of the day, parents picked up their kids, and a little girl hopped into a black sedan dotted with rusted bullet holes on the side. 

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