ST. LOUIS – Election primaries are inching closer day by day, meaning the stakes are rising for the four candidates vying for the city’s most powerful seat.

Mayor Tishaura Jones, Alderwoman Cara Spencer, St. Louis Recorder of Deeds Michael Butler and lone Republican Andrew Jones faced off Tuesday night. 

”Through radical collaboration, come up with plans to address both of those issues as we’re moving forward over the next three years,” Jones said. “So we are committed to reducing homicides and gun violence by 20% for the next three years and we are also committed to eradicating homelessness.”

The Stray Dog Theatre was packed with residents of Tower Grove East, as each mayoral candidate took turns answering St. Louis citizens’ most pressing questions, like city efficiency through their employees and how to improve their productivity.

“We have to find commonality. Fighting the gov on state control isn’t going to result in us keeping our PD,” Spencer said. “We have to find ways through overlapping relationships, overlapping goals, and overlapping values if we’re going to be successful in protexting our communities.

Many candidates have commented on pay raises and improving workers’ quality of life, the looming state takeover of the St. Louis metropolitan police department and their political convictions. 

As the race has heated up, candidates have thrown jabs through social media. 

“I learned how to center a solution and not the politics of the situation and most people believe they are good people, and most folks in a legislative body or a gov body they want to get some good done and I focus on what we agree on first and then work on what we disagree on later,” Butler said.

The big question being: through their political differences, how are the candidates going to get issues solved.

The four candidates for mayor will be on the municipal primary ballot on March 4. 

“Running in this race, I’m not invited to all the farms. People laugh at me because I talk about all those issues and I stick to those issues because I know those issues work,” Jones said. “They work everywhere they’ve been tried and people will not embrace them and the ones who do see it they quietly humbly say okay.

The top two candidates will then face off in the general election on April 8. 

The last day to vote absentee in person is March 3.