Last Tuesday, Starkville Mayor Lynn Spruill won the Democratic primary race for mayor during Starkville’s primary election during her bid for a third term.

Spruill received 1,422 votes – 50.93% of the total – in the race against former Fire Chief Charles Yarbrough, who received 1,252 votes – 44.84% of the total, – and Starkville High School teacher Brenna Betts, who received 118 votes – 4.23% of the total. The race narrowly avoided a runoff election between Spruill and Yarbrough, as Spruill secured just over the 50% threshold required to win outright.

Spruill will now move on to face Republican challenger Roger Bassett in the general election scheduled for June 3.

Despite Spruill’s win, she said she was disappointed by the low voter turnout, with only 2,792 ballots cast — nearly 1,000 fewer than the 3,737 votes in the 2017 Democratic primary. There was no Democratic primary for the 2021 election, as Spruill ran unopposed.

Spruill attributes part of the low voter turnout to “politics fatigue” after the 2024 Presidential election.

She said that while she enjoys working in government, the political side of campaigning and elections is not something she relishes.

“The other thing about it is, you know, it takes politics to get to government and I’m not a political person, ” Spruill said.

Spruill also said that, over time, people have become less patriotic and passionate about their right to vote.

“[The right to vote] was part of what people died for,” Spruill said, “what people, particularly women, would go to jail for. To not exercise that right just blows my mind.”

Prior to the general election against Republican candidate Roger Bassett on June 3, Spruill and her team plan on implementing social media strategies to engage potential voters. However, she said it has been challenging to reach people who do not want to be reached with information about the election.

Several on-campus organizations at Mississippi State University have been pushing students to become involved with local government and municipal elections. College Democrats president and senior political science major Matthew Reeves said that students in their organization spoke with all three Democratic mayoral candidates throughout the last semester, and the organization plans to continue to host municipal speakers in future semesters.

“They plan to have candidates come every semester to speak, hopefully ones that are running for election in a lot of cases, to continue trying to push Democratic values in the state because Mississippi is very red,” Reeves said, “and also to attempt to show different perspectives too, because not every candidate is the same, even if they’re from the same party.”

However, Reeves also said that many of their members, including himself, are not registered to vote in Starkville. The main reason is that many students choose to maintain their voter registration in their hometowns. However, he said that some students who are registered to vote here cannot vote in municipal elections because they do not live within the wards.

“A lot of the housing is not where the municipality is, especially a lot of people live in the county,” Reeves, who is also a contributor to The Reflector, said. “If you live on campus, then you’re in the county.”

Regardless, Reeves said that College Democrats makes a point to advertise Starkville’s elections and share with their students how important it is for them to vote outside the Presidential elections.

Historically, municipal elections tend to attract far fewer voters than larger state or federal elections. Reeves said that, in his view, this is because people are less interested in hearing the same platforms from incumbents who have been holding the same municipal offices for years with little or no opposition.

“I would say that in a lot of cases and in a lot of municipalities, it’s usually the same old, same old, ‘Protect people that have been in power for a long time,'” Reeves said.

Nedra Lowery, a Starkville resident who was running for Alderman of Ward 7, said at the polls last Tuesday that she thinks municipal elections are highly important for people to vote in.

“Local elections are important because they take care of everyone in the city,” Lowery said. “With Mississippi State being a part of the Starkville community, it is important to our students and to our constituents that live here alike to be a part of the process and to make the decisions that will affect your life.”

Lowery was defeated in the primary by incumbent alderman Henry Vaughn, who has held the position for sixteen years. Lowery cited Vaughn’s long tenure in office as one of the reasons she chose to run.

“As you know, everything has an expiration,” Lowery said. “Things have to change, and in order to get things to change, we have to have new, fresh ideas, and we have to have new people.”

In an effort to incorporate new ideas into her campaign, Spruill has reached out to Yarbrough to talk to him about what he would like to see from her campaign going forward. Additionally, Spruill has a longstanding monthly meeting with MSU President Mark Keenum and other county officials to discuss potential collaboration opportunities between MSU, Oktibbeha County and Starkville.

Spruill said that she has worked tirelessly during her term to make students at MSU feel at home in Starkville, and she wants them to know that they will have that home as long as they want it.

“I want them to think of this as home, and I want them to vote like it’s their home,” Spruill said.