Kansas City mayor’s race is now a face-off between two sitting city council people, Quinton Lucas and Jolie Justus

Kansas City Mayor Race 2019

Jolie “Money”  Justus vs. Quinton “The Professor”  Lucas


Current gig:

Justus: Councilwoman, lawyer, professor

Lucas: Councilman, lawyer, professor

Primary results:

Justus: 23 percent of the vote out of 11 candidates

Lucas: 18 percent — four points behind Justus and five points ahead of anyone else

Primary night party:

Justus: Tower Tavern, a midtown bar whereJustus holds weekly “office hours.”

Lucas: The newly renovated Black Archives of Mid-America, near 18th and Vine.

Previous bouts:

Justus: Justus grew up in conservative Branson as the only Democrat in her family. She went to public high school and played on a boy’s traveling soccer team. She graduated from Missouri State and then UKMC’s School of Law, where she is now an adjunct professor. Justice was Missouri’s first openly gay state senator. While on city council, she led the negotiations to build a new airport terminal.

Lucas:  Lucas and his sisters were raised by their mother on the east side. The family was poor and experienced homelessness. Lucus got scholarships to attend the elite Barstow prep school, then Washington University and Cornell Law. He is currently a law professor at KU.

Training:

Justus: She walked across the city from the southern edge at 163rd Street and Prospect Avenue to north of the airport. That’s more than 40 miles, completed over nine weekends.

Lucas: As part of his far-reaching efforts to connect on the campaign trail, Lucas seemingly sat down with anyone who’d schedule him. He appeared on local hip-hop podcast Nite Hype Show to talk about the Chiefs and met local TV news crews at M&M Bakery & Delicatessen for coffee.

Fight style:

Justus: While she’s been endorsed by outgoing mayor Sly James, Justus is more peaceable than the oft-feisty mayor, commenting that it’s sometimes better to stay silent as an opponent says their piece rather than try to counter points and prolong the battle. She’s been popular with city insiders and raised far more campaign cash than anyone else in the primary.

Lucas: Lucas is a scrapper who has run an intensely grassroots campaign, gently poking his opponent for being “more about airports and downtown housing development” while he’s working on problems like potholes, housing costs and crime.

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