ELECTION PREVIEW - Check out candidate information with this voters' guide

Election signs for candidates from across Madison County were put up at the early voting site at the Madison County Ag Extension offices on North Parkway nearly three weeks before early voting began.

BRANDON SHIELDS/The Jackson Post

Posted Wednesday, July 15, 2026 9:45 pm

Brandon Shields

Welcome to the second wave of elections for 2026.

In May, we had our local primaries, and early voting for the local general and state primaries begins this week.

We’ll then round things out in November with the state general elections.

There are 26 contested races in Madison County that will be decided in this round.

At the state level, there are primaries in both major parties to decide the nominations in November for governor, and the Democratic Party is having a primary to decide the nominee to challenge Republican incumbents Senator Bill Hagerty and U.S. Congress District 8 Representative David Kustoff.

There are four contested races for County Constable, and there are a total of 10 in Madison County - five districts with two Constables apiece. There is a story here about the job description of a Constable with three of the incumbents speaking on what they do for their job and statements from the two opposed incumbents’ opponents.

That leaves 18 races here mainly within the county.

Two of those races are within their own party as there are contested races for both the Democratic and Republican State Executive Committee Woman positions.

Madison County’s Lee Eddleman is challenging incumbent Shannon Haynes, from Crockett County.

Both candidates in the Democratic SEC Woman race are from Madison County - incumbent and unopposed Madison County Commissioner Tina Mercer and Sabrina Parker.

The State Executive Committee has three members from each party for each State Senate District, so the four women running along with their unopposed male counterparts - Republican Mike Bryant and Democrat Byron Elam - represent not just Madison County, but every county represented in the State Senate by Ed Jackson (who’s unopposed in his campaign), stretching from Perry County to Jackson and going north to Lake County.

There is also a story about the County Mayor’s race between Republican incumbent A.J. Massey and independent challenger Fren’cherry Miller.

That leaves 15 other contested races that will be decided on Aug. 6, and candidates from those 15 races have answered a short survey of questions from The Post. Those answers are posted in Q&A form from each candidate to give voters a look at what each candidate stands for in their campaign.

Candidates in the Democratic primary for State House District 80 to replace the retiring Johnny Shaw, Jackson City Court Clerk, Madison County Juvenile Court Clerk, three Jackson-Madison County School Board positions and nine Madison County Commission positions were asked four questions and given strict word-count limits for their answers.

Their answers were edited for spelling, grammar, punctuation, etc. and trimmed if they went over the word count. Those edited answers were sent back to each candidate for review to ensure no candidate’s message had been altered during the editing process.

Those answers with as clear as possible messages are here for your viewing.

Thanks for the candidates for responding and being willing to put their name out there in this election.

Thanks to the voters who show up and make their choice known officially in the process.

Here are links to the Q&As for each race:

Mayor

State Representative District 80 Democratic Primary

Juvenile Court Clerk

City Court Clerk

County Commission - District 2, Position 1

County Commission - District 2, Position 2

County Commission - District 2, Position 3

County Commission - District 3, Position 2