Fran Wilson secured the Democratic primary seat for Akron City Council’s Ward 1 after defeating incumbent Samuel DeShazior and candidate Emily Durway with nearly 52% of the vote in Tuesday’s primary election.
Incumbent Bruce Bolden is the presumptive council member after he held on to his Ward 8 seat by defeating challenger and fellow Democrat N.J. Akbar with more than 56% of the vote. There is no Republican challenger.
Wilson’s ‘incredibly grassroots’ campaign is not over yet
More than 70 people gathered at the Highland Square Theatre to await election results and celebrate Wilson’s win Tuesday evening.
Wilson and their team ran an “incredibly grassroots,” campaign, they said, alluding to the months of fundraising events, door knocking and phone calls in hope of securing votes, not just from the politically-engaged residents of Akron, but from the people who are not in the habit of voting.
“We were reaching out to people who don’t vote, that’s who we were talking to,” Wilson said. “And clearly, that is an important thing to do. We need to keep doing it, not only for winning elections, but in our city.”
The campaigning doesn’t stop here. Wilson and their team plan to take a little break, then they’ll continue knocking on doors, Wilson said.
“We have one more race to win. We have to win in November to be sure. While it is a slam dunk, we have to secure this,” Wilson said in their victory speech. “And then in 2027 we have to continue to show up. All right? May 2027, every single City Council ward seat and the mayor’s seat will be on the ballot.”
Wilson may face an independent challenger in the November general election, Acacia Reynolds, whose petition must still be confirmed by the Summit County Board of Elections at their June 3 meeting.
“There’s a lot of representation needed for independent voters in Akron,” Wilson said, “so I welcome a challenge in November, a healthy campaign that’ll hopefully bring more folks out to the polls regularly.”
Akron has a ‘collective love,’ Ward 1 candidate says
Ward 1 resident Juanita Noell huddled under her umbrella outside St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Northwest Akron while she chatted with Ward 1 candidate Durway Tuesday afternoon.
Noell had just finished filling out her ballot inside the church, but she didn’t cast her vote for Durway. Instead, she voted for incumbent Samuel DeShazior because he lives on her street, and “he’s a good man,” she said.
“I know all of y’all are good because y’all work with people.… You’re doing good,” Noell said to Durway.
Chatting with residents gives Durway the feeling that she’s on the right path, she said.
“It’s been great because I think there’s a lot of collective constructive criticism, and at the same time, a collective love,” Durway said.
With the changing political landscape, she added, there is an energy for micro-organizing on a block level. In an earlier interview with Signal Akron, Durway mentioned initiatives such as neighbors helping maintain houses or educational classes and workshops for residents.
“There already are connections, and finding ways to focus those connections on doable tasks, I think is good,” she said.
Wilson wants more young people in local office
Ward 1 resident Ben Bisbee said he feels as though he connects with Fran Wilson on multiple levels — from potholes that need to be fixed in the neighborhood to police dynamics across the city — which made him excited to vote for the Ward 1 candidate.
“I just feel like Fran absolutely represents kind of what is the growing voice of legitimate concern around so many topics,” Bisbee said. “And there’s like, a fearlessness to that concern and a fearlessness to uncovering how to solve those problems.”
One of the issues Wilson said the city needs to be real about is the number of young people leaving Akron.
“I left Akron for a while because of lack of opportunity, because of a lot of cultural things and social things here,” Wilson said. “And I think if we want to maintain and build our population and keep young people here, that we need people that are young in leadership too.”
Wilson said they want to “elevate the conversation” around term limits for City Council members, to give more Akron residents, including the younger demographic, the chance to take office.
“With a city of 180,000 people, I find it interesting that we can’t open opportunity up for leadership a little bit more than we are,” Wilson said.
DeShazior wanted to be the ‘choice’ for Akron voters
Like Wilson, incumbent candidate Samuel DeShazior thinks that “young folks are the lifeblood” of the city. He said that he wants to make sure people look at Akron as a “producer,” which means he wants to see investment in new jobs and more workforce training, including for people who are coming out of school.
“We might not necessarily see it all the same way, but we’re investing in our futures here, and that’s part of it,” he said.
Because he was appointed to his seat when Nancy Holland resigned in January of 2024, DeShazior said that Akron voters selecting him to represent them would be validating.
“I want to be that choice, if I can be,” he said.
Akbar would have been Ward 8’s first Black council member
Ward 3’s Ta’Nita Upton passed out flyers endorsing Wilson and Ward 8 candidate N.J. Akbar in front of St. Paul’s Tuesday afternoon. Alongside Upton were four of her children, who excitedly asked for more flyers to pass out.
As a fellow for The Freedom Bloc, Upton has been knocking on doors and talking to people about the issues and candidates on the ballot.
“I’m trying to change the neighborhood,” she said. Upton was raised in Akron and feels like a lot hasn’t changed, she said, so bringing her kids out to the polls is part of her aspiration to make a difference.
Freedom Bloc endorsed Akbar because of the organization’s commitment to “building Black political power through political education, civic engagement, and leadership development,” according to a press release.
Akbar said he would be the first Black Ward 8 council member.
“Regardless of how it happens, I’ll either win or I’ll come very close to winning, and I’ll still have done better than any Black candidate in Ward 8,” Akbar said. “And I think that says a lot.”
Akbar said that, if elected, he plans to work alongside Mayor Shammas Malik, a former Ward 8 council member, to move the city forward.
“This is who I am. I believe in people. I believe in our community,” Akbar said. “I believe we deserve more than what we’ve been getting, and we deserve to have a greater voice in the process, and the table should be expanded, not shrunk.”
Akbar’s opponent, incumbent Bruce Bolden, would like to be Ward 8’s representative for as long as voters will elect him, he said in an April interview with Signal Akron.
The former Ward 1 council member was appointed to fill the seat vacated when James Hardy resigned in July 2024.
“I think the race is about how people, it’s what kind of representation they want,” he said. Residents want a level-headed council person who will work with other members and the administration “to get things done,” Akbar said.