It’s fitting that Sandy Stimpson passed a baton to Spiro Cheriogotis after the former judge won the Mobile mayoral runoff election earlier this week.

Not only did the mayor-elect enjoy the backing of the incumbent throughout his campaign, Cheriogotis ascended to Mobile’s highest office by replicating the strategy that propelled Stimpson to three terms: running up the score with white voters.

Cheriogotis defeated State Rep. Barbara Drummond (D-Mobile) by an unofficial tally of 25,106 votes to 23,715, but like his predecessor, he struggled to make inroads in majority-black communities — Cheriogotis performed worst in the eight precincts where African-Americans make up 80% or more of the voting-age population.

Those precincts, primarily concentrated in the city’s east, supported Drummond b

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