Indy mayoral candidate Meriweather drops out, backs Shackleford – Indianapolis Business Journal

Gregory Meriweather is ending his Indianapolis mayoral marketing campaign in favor of supporting fellow Democratic candidate Robin Shackleford, he introduced Wednesday.

Meriweather reported no marketing campaign contributions for 2022 after asserting his choice to run in late November. At a joint press convention within the Metropolis-County Constructing, he introduced help for Shackleford in her try and obtain the Democratic nomination and unseat incumbent Mayor Joe Hogsett.

“She has the identify recognition and political expertise wanted to guide the town of Indianapolis into a brand new period of financial progress, security and variety,” Meriweather stated, including that he and Shackleford share the identical imaginative and prescient for Indianapolis.

Meriweather will primarily be a part of the Shackleford marketing campaign staff, bringing a “grassroots perspective,” he stated on the occasion. The 2 candidates’ agendas carefully aligned, so “coming collectively is smart,” he added.

Each candidates have been working with the hope of turning into the primary Black mayor of Indianapolis. Making certain that an African American candidate was aggressive performed into Meriweather’s choice to drop out.

“I feel we’d like one viable alternative, from my perspective, within the African American group. I feel we had been type of saturated from that perspective, however I feel that this brings it … to a head the place now you have got a viable candidate,” Meriweather stated Wednesday.

Shackleford known as Meriweather’s choice to withdraw “a turning level within the marketing campaign.”

Other than Hogsett and Shackleford, three different candidates are vying for the Democratic nomination: Clif Marsiglio, Bob Kern and Larry Vaughn. Vaughn is also Black.

Shackleford, who has represented close to east-side District 98 on the Indiana Statehouse for greater than a decade, is extensively thought-about to be the strongest Democratic candidate to problem the incumbent mayor. Shackleford stated Wednesday that the crowded main is indicative that folks need change.

Shackleford was additionally just lately endorsed by Jeffrey A. Johnson, senior pastor at Jap Star Church. The church’s essential campus is in her Statehouse district and she or he’s attended it for a number of years, she informed IBJ on Tuesday.

Shackleford has been important of Hogsett and the Marion County Democratic Occasion’s slating course of, which she has known as discriminatory. The celebration halted the apply in the beginning of this yr. Slating is the method  by which election hopefuls agree to not run in a main if they don’t seem to be the celebration’s endorsed candidate. 

Searching for to interrupt multiple barrier, Shackleford, 52, would additionally turn into the primary feminine mayor in Indianapolis historical past if she’s elected.