No one has won a recent KC Council race in this position. Brandon Ellington thinks he can

Get more than half the votes cast in your primary race and it’s almost a cinch you’ll win the general election for a seat on the Kansas City Council.

It’s happened 25 out of 25 times in the last three election cycles, which explains why Brandon Ellington is in danger of losing his bid for a second term representing the 3rd District at large.

Of the seven incumbents on the council seeking re-election, Ellington alone received less than half of the votes cast in his April primary contest.

In a crowded field, that might be understandable. But he came in a distant second behind his sole opponent, Melissa Patterson Hazley, whose landslide victory — she got 62.7% of the vote — makes her the favorite to prevail at the June 20 general election in this city-wide race.

Still, Ellington hasn’t given up hope that he can beat the odds and continue a string of wins that has kept him in elected office for a dozen years, eight in the Missouri General Assembly and now in his fourth year on the council.

“I plan on doing it,” he said during a recent interview at his campaign headquarters on the city’s East Side. But he also recognizes this as his toughest electoral challenge since making his first unsuccessful run for office in 2007 while still in college.

“This is the only race that I’ve had as much insider opposition,” he said. “And the same with the amount of money that was spent in the primary. I would say this is probably the most money that has ever been spent in a campaign against me. And we’re not even at the general election yet.”

Patterson Hazley has outspent Ellington, $86,000 to his $69,000. And she still had more than twice as much cash on hand as of the last reporting period: $49,000 to his $22,000.

Likewise, she has outdone him in collecting endorsements from a wide assortment of interest groups. Everyone from big corporate donors to powerful trades and construction unions, the Fraternal Order of Police and the Black political club Freedom Inc. is behind her.

With the notable exception of the political action committees representing fire fighters union Local 42 and the engineering firm Burns & McDonnell, Ellington’s financial support and endorsements are almost entirely grass-roots and fewer. For someone who takes pride in his independence and describes himself as a “full-time revolutionary” fighting for his community, the contrast is true to the brand Ellington has shaped for himself since he was a student at Paseo High School more than two decades ago.

“In order to realize my dream for my community I need to, in some way, spark the flame in people’s heads to say, ‘I want more than this. I want my community back,’ ” he wrote in a Martin Luther King Jr. Day essay that appeared in The Star in 1999.

One reason so many powerful interests may be lined up against Ellington is his reputation as someone who often casts the lone no vote on issues before the council. Especially those that dole out funds for things that don’t have some benefit for the predominantly Black neighborhoods on Kansas City’s East Side, where both he and Patterson Hazley grew up.

“Some people jokingly call me Mr. No,” he said. “But nobody has talked about what I pass on the council. They try to say that I create waves. And I guess the waves would be that I’m the only one on the council that votes independently, which is concerning to me.”

Ellington is not immune from voting yes and is especially proud of his leadership on creating an Office of Citizen Engagement that helps people get connected with city services.

Also working against him in this race is the strength of his opponent.

Although this is her first bid for office, Patterson Hazley is a savvy political operator who behind the scenes has run numerous campaigns for candidates and successful ballot issues, most notably the one to pass the Central City Economic Development sales tax.

As Jackson County’s representative, she went on to chair the CCED board, which recommends how those millions of dollars should be spent on new construction and redevelopment in the East Side neighborhoods within the CCED district boundaries.

Between 2019 and last year, she managed campaigns to renew the earnings tax and other issues.

“I’ve managed all of the ballot questions for Mayor Lucas, except for the ones that happened while I was a candidate,” she said during a recent interview over a cup of coffee at Crown Center.

Lucas appointed Patterson Hazley to the board of the Land Clearance for Redevelopment Authority in 2020, but she had to step down for her council run.

She has a political pedigree that’s recognizable for older Kansas Citians. Her late father-in-law was Charles Hazley Jr., a powerful councilman who represented the 3rd District from 1971 until 1991, when then-newly imposed term limits forced him out of office.

Patterson Hazley has a doctorate in educational psychology and is on leave from the University of Missouri-Kansas City, where since 2019 she has been the director of community research training and evaluation at the Institute for Human Development.

Ellington, who is the co-founder of several non-profit groups, describes himself on his city council web page as being “an advocate for the underprivileged and disenfranchised.”

He ran and lost twice for the in-district 3rd District council seat before running unopposed to win the 2011 special election to fill a vacant seat in the Missouri House.

He won a full term the next year and rose to become vice chair, then chair of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus and, in 2019, was Democratic Whip.

That same year, he ran for council and narrowly beat the Rev. Wallace Hartsfield II, which some observers said was partly attributable to backlash from voters to a racist mailer by Hartsfield supporters (he claimed no knowledge of it beforehand). According to a column in The Star that appeared at the time, the mailer juxtaposed “a photo of a rifle-wielding Ellington from the cover of a rap CD he put out years ago with an image of Kansas City’s Country Club Plaza.”

But that wasn’t the only reason, according to Ed Ford, a former city councilman who is treasurer of the political advocacy group Northland Strong.

“The Northland got him elected four years ago,” Ford said in a recent phone interview, but Ellington can’t count on that this year. Northland Strong endorsed Patterson Hazley largely because of his voting record.

“There were three key votes where he voted against the Northland,” Ford said, clicking off Ellington’s votes against a soccer complex, his support of a controversial redistricting plan and his vote with the council majority that sought to strip millions of dollars in funding from the police department. “So yeah, we’re not big fans.”

Another former councilman, John Sharp, said his group Southland Progress enthusiastically endorsed Patterson Hazley.

“Melissa checks all the boxes, because she’s highly educated, she’s been extremely involved in some of the major ballot issues that cities had on the ballot in recent years, that really deal with important city functions. And she’s been very, very visible in the community and shown an interest in our concerns out here,” Sharp said.

And Ellington?

“Brandon hasn’t been seen too much out here lately,” Sharp said.

Both candidates have incidents in their recent pasts that they could use against each other. Patterson Hazley is awaiting trial on a DWI charge from last August and Ellington is on probation for a misdemeanor charge of assault. But neither has mentioned those things publicly nor have they been critical of each other.

“I’m definitely not running against Brandon. I’m running for city council,” Patterson Hazley said.

On the major issues, the two have few substantive disagreements. Both rank better city services for average citizens as a higher priority than glitzy projects, such as a downtown baseball stadium. Both support greater investment in affordable housing and stress the need for business development within the city’s most disadvantaged neighborhoods.