Tempe voters choose to shake up the city council

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:00]Tempe voters shook up the city council in this week's runoff election with two progressive candidates ousting incumbents. One of those candidates was endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders and says New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani is a role model. 12 News journalist Brahm Resnik shows us why the Valley's bluest city is getting even bluer.

[00:00:20]Is she the reason you decided to >> Brooke St. George defeated her former boss to win a seat on the Tempe City Council. I felt that Tempe deserved I'm just going to say better leadership.

[00:00:32]St. George told an interviewer she wanted to shake things up at City Hall.

[00:00:36]Someone who would truly listen to the people and who was in it to serve the public. Incumbent Jennifer Adams wanted to stay the course. Adams finished dead last in the four-person runoff election.

[00:00:50]And having both Bobby and I in there is going to make it easier for us to find those allies on the issues that matter matter most to the voters. St. George will join another newcomer on the six-member council, Assistant Attorney General Bobby Nichols. Nichols is a Democratic Socialist whose campaign got the blessing of his hero, Senator Bernie Sanders. I began my political campaigning career making calls for Bernie Sanders and I'm actually getting goosebumps just thinking about it.

[00:01:19]>> The country's most famous Democratic Socialist, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, is another hero. Zohran represents a positive energy, a can-do attitude, and a focus on affordability politics that I've really tried to replicate in this campaign. St. George and Nichols are united on finding a new way for the city to serve the unhoused population. We are going to need to make sure that we are providing necessary public services, specifically housing, through the housing first policy that has been used to effectively eliminate unsheltered homelessness in cities around the world. The city council recently approved new restrictions on helping homeless people in parks. As we keep talking about how everyone needs to come to the table to help solve the unhoused issue, and yet there's no table to come to. And so we look forward to creating that table. In Phoenix, Bram Resnik, 12 News.