Black Female Senate Candidate Wins Primary, 'Didn't Spend A Penny' Campaigning

[SirReginald]

A sitting state senator was defeated in the primary election Tuesday night by a candidate who didn't even campaign. That's an extraordinary story but that's only where it begins.

Betty Jean Alexander pulled the biggest upset in the state of Michigan Tuesday night, beating incumbent David Knezek for the 5th District state Senate primary. She did all this without even really running a campaign.

While she may seem like an unknown, we've done stories on her before. She filed for bankruptcy at one point in her life and was sued for unpaid rent or other debts. We found that information when she was a a candidate for the Detroit school board and, as of November 2016, her address was listed as the same home as Lamar Lemmons and Georgia Lemmons. All three were running for the school board that year.


So now, the woman who didn't always have a house, could end up with a home in the Senate.


"She was never totally homeless because she always had us to depend on," Lamar Lemmons said.

Alexander is Lemmons' sister-in-law. He says he recruited her as a candidate to run in the 5th district primary even though she didn't really run for office, at all.

"She campaigned only through the phones, actually we campaigned for her, she did very little campaigning herself," Lemmons said.

He said she did spend a single penny on the race.

"We were trying to send a message, we didn't necessarily believe that we would win. Make this clear, this was a Hail Mary pass, but even a Hail Mary pass requires you to call the play and throw the ball. And sometimes, just sometimes, the receiver catches the ball," Lemmons said.

Lemmons says Alexander has a government clerical job and is a single mother raising a family. He says she's just like the people she hopes to represent and he says they're going to like her, once they get to know her.

"What they will be pleased with is that she's not beholden to anyone. There's no special interests," he said.

Knezek can still challenge the race by challenging her residency, if he chooses to do so. He said he's considering his next step at this point for his political career.

Michigan state senate candidate wins primary, 'didn't spend a penny' campaigning

 

[SirReginald]

There's more

Who is Betty Jean Alexander?

• By Dave Herndon dherndon@digitalfirstmedia.com @NHDaveH on Twitter
• Aug 8, 2018 Updated 12 hrs ago
  
• Comments

Betty Jean Alexander. Photo courtesy of Facebook

David Knezek posted to his campaign page, but otherwise didn’t respond to media requests.

Almost no one knows who Betty Jean Alexander is.

Despite that, nearly 19,000 people voted for her in the Democratic primary for the nomination for Michigan’s 5th District Senate seat. Her 18,926 bested Knezek’s 15,803. Knezek is currently the chairman of the Senate Democratic Caucus.

District 5 consists of portions of Detroit along with all of Dearborn Heights, Garden City, Inkster and Redford Township.


Alexander, 53, didn’t campaign at all, making her win all the more surprising. She doesn’t have a campaign Facebook page or Twitter account, nor did she post a campaign website. She filed a waiver that she would spend $1,000 or less on the campaign and didn’t post any campaign signs.

No photos show up in online searches for her, and she didn’t respond to emails or phone calls from The Press & Guide leading up to the election, or the day after.

She did however respond to messages send to a facebook account under the name of “Betty Alexander” telling a reporter to reach out to her campaign manager for comments. It was on that profile that the first public photos of her were also uncovered.

Her volunteer campaign manager, former State Rep. Lamar Lemmons, spoke briefly to media outlets, saying that she is a mother of two, and works in an administrative job. She lives in Detroit.

He said she wasn’t giving interviews at this time.


Knezek also didn’t respond to attempts to contact him after the election.

“I am going to collect my thoughts and prepare a longer statement when appropriate but I didn’t want my friends and supporters to wait any longer to hear from me personally,” Knezek said on his Facebook page. “The love and support you have shown me over the past 6 years feeds my soul in ways you’ll never know. Every one of you has become an extended member of my family. I thank you for such unconditional love and unwavering friendship.”

Alexander ran for the Detroit Public Schools Board of Education in 2016 and lost. Little else is available about her online.

DeShawn Wilkins was unopposed on the GOP ticket and will face Alexander on the Nov. 6 ballot.

The question of who exactly she is has been raised across social media. In the morning hours Aug. 8 a facebook page popped up called “Who in the world is Betty Jean Alexander?” was created.

Who is Betty Jean Alexander?

 

[SirReginald]

BUMP

 

[Cat piss martini]

It may be time for Piss to throw his
hat in the political ring.