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ST. LOUIS — In the last full week of the race for mayor, Mayor Tishaura O. Jones was on the attack. And Alderwoman Cara Spencer, the front-runner, looked to stay above the fray.

Jones was looking to make a big comeback. In candidate forums, public speeches and editorials, she and her camp doubled down on Spencer’s ties to wealthy donors and leaned into racial issues. They said Jones' accomplishments had been written off because she is a Black woman. They cast Spencer, a white woman from the South Side, as a bad bet for Black voters.

“She has no idea what they need,” Jones told a reporter Saturday.

Spencer, meanwhile, stuck to her message, repeating promises to get back to basics, fix sputtering city services and make people feel safer.

She brushed off a provocation in a midweek forum, ran ads that all but declared victory and declined to hold a big weekend rally, spending much of her time going from place to place with a small entourage of supporters without a public schedule.

“No reason to rock the boat,” said Charlie Goldstein, Spencer’s campaign manager.

It made sense. When Spencer won the March 4 primary with 68% of possible votes, compared to 33% for Jones, pundits said she was a near lock to win on April 8. Conventional wisdom holds that all she has to do is avoid any big mistakes.

Jones, on the other hand, needs to shake things up. She has to win back the progressive South Side wards that flipped to Spencer and boost turnout in largely Black north St. Louis, which barely showed up last month.

The week began with a forum organized by Black clergy on Monday night in north St. Louis.

�We can walk and chew gum’

Jones told the audience, sitting in church pews, about the millions of dollars in federal pandemic aid allocated to build new housing, pave streets, boost businesses and beautify North Side neighborhoods. She pointed to a she set up showing investments in the city in recent years and highlighted the mass of dots north of Delmar Boulevard.

“Usually when you see maps of St. Louis, the North Side doesn’t get anything, but you see the South Side getting everything or you see downtown getting everything,” Jones said. “But we can walk and chew gum at the same time.”

Spencer pointed out trouble with some of the investments, like a grant program that initially announced awards to businesses that only existed on paper, then pivoted to her focus: fixing services like trash pickup and road maintenance that have struggled under Jones.

“It’s imperative that we provide city services better in every neighborhood,” Spencer said.

Then Jones said she was already making improvements and attacked her critics.

“Can you imagine being held to such a high standard that you are never allowed to make an error, to mess up?” Jones asked. “That you’re never allowed to pivot and do something differently when you discover something that isn’t working? Well that, ladies and gentlemen, is the existence of a Black woman mayor.”

Spencer didn’t argue much that night.

But on Tuesday, her campaign, flush with fundraising cash, started another round of TV ads.

The ad showed a clip from primary night highlighting her win over Jones, then a clip from Spencer’s victory speech when she thanked her supporters, and then a clip of Spencer, speaking to the camera: “The people of St. Louis have spoken, and we’re ready for change,” Spencer says. “As mayor, I have big plans for St. Louis.”

Then she reeled off the back-to-basics message that carried her to the lead in the first place, promising to fill potholes, answer 911 calls faster, crack down on reckless driving and clear the ice off the streets during snowstorms.

The only explicit reference to the upcoming election was a “Vote April 8th” graphic at the very end.

There was another forum Wednesday night.

“Happy Groundhog Day to everyone,” Jones joked during her introduction.

The forum, on LGBTQ issues, was mostly civil. Jones talked about setting up an , installing gender-neutral locker rooms at recreation centers and directing the city health department to help residents access transgender health care.

Spencer said she was largely in alignment with the mayor on the issues.

But when the moderator allowed the candidates to ask each other a question, Jones jabbed at Spencer.

How, Jones asked, do you square taking campaign donations from Anheuser-Busch when they just pulled their sponsorship of Pride Fest downtown?

A murmur went through the room. Spencer bristled.

She conceded an allied campaign committee had taken money from A-B, which she noted is one of the larger employers in the region.

But she said she didn’t agree with their move and had called them to tell them so.

“I know where I stand on the issue,” Spencer said.

Then she declined to jab back: She asked Jones to name her favorite pizza. It was Imo’s.

�A little bit of a shift in the air’?

After the forum, Spencer shrugged off the exchange.

“I’m done throwing punches at this point,” she said.

Jones spent Thursday morning at Ozella J. Foster Funeral Services, where she renewed her North Side appeals.

Foster, who was opening her new building on Martin Luther King Drive after receiving a city business grant, hailed Jones’ vision and how it helped her business. Neal Richardson, who heads the city’s development arm, told a packed room that Jones was a fighter for north St. Louis and would be remembered as one regardless of how long she was mayor.

And Jones said there was more to come.

“This,” she said, “is just the beginning.”

On Friday, Spencer made a trip of her own through the North Side, with a little less fanfare. With just a small entourage of friends and advisors in tow, she went to Tripe City for dinner, Prince BBQ for more, the Grand Zodiac bar for a drink and the Fountain on Delmar for a nightcap.

Jackie Dana, one of the volunteers, said the way people received them was remarkable.

“ÁńÁ«ĘÓƵ were so excited to see her,” Dana said.

The next morning, Jones started her Saturday greeting people outside a North Side library hosting a polling place and projected optimism. Her message to voters was clear. And she had managed to bring some of her progressive supporters, who largely sat out the primary due to frustration with a lack of progress on jail issues and homelessness, back into the fold.

“I feel like there’s a little bit of a shift in the air,” she said.

And after an hour in the rain, she headed to her rally in a building downtown.

Inside were hundreds of people gathered for an event hosted by some of the city’s most prominent Black and progressive activists. They ate, they sang and the mayor danced the Wobble.

Then she took the microphone and asked for their help.

“Y’all have one job,” she said, “and that’s to vote. Get to the polls and vote.

“Call your friends, call your family, your enemies. Call your baby daddies and baby mamas. Make sure they get to the polls and vote.”