Only around 8.4% of Dallas County’s 1.4 million registered voters cast a ballot on May 3, and in some council districts, the fate of the next two years on Marilla Street was decided by only a few hundred votes. I experienced this voter lull firsthand when, as an election day voter at heart, I set out for a quick three-block walk to my neighborhood voting location on Saturday morning. It was 9:40 a.m., so polls had been open for nearly three hours when I was greeted as “the second voter of the day.”
Ouch.
Preliminary counts show that only 58 voters found their way to that voting location after me. Dallas County data shows my neighborhood’s election location was one of the dozens that failed to hit triple-digit voter counts on election day. Nonetheless, the results in all districts but two are in; in districts 8 and 11, candidates are headed to a June 7 runoff.
Inauguration is scheduled for June 16 at the Meyerson Symphony Center. In the meantime, here are four takeaways from election day that might hint at what the next two years at City Hall will look like.
Voter Turnout Highs and Lows
Last week, a column by The Dallas Morning News’ Robert Wilonsky highlighted the controversy surrounding the North Dallas redevelopment of Pepper Square as a catalyst for voter engagement and turnout in District 11. In a four-person race, candidates Bill Roth and Jeff Kitner came within 200 votes of one another and are headed to a runoff election.Roth, who received 48% of the vote, has been outspokenly against the Pepper Square rezoning plan, which is now paused thanks to a community-backed lawsuit. Kitner, who tallied 45% approval, has been more reserved on the subject. Even with all of the acrimony surrounding Pepper Square, though, District 11 saw 500 fewer voters this election than in 2023, preliminary voting data shows.
With 6,178 votes recorded, it was one of the highest-turnout districts overall, bested only by District 13’s 7,457 votes. Sixty-five percent of those votes went to reelecting incumbent Gay Donnell Willis.
District 5 recorded the least number of votes cast out of Dallas’ 14 places, tallying only 1,585 votes. Incumbent Jaime Resendez won in a landslide with support from over 83% of the voters.
And in Districts 6 and 14, votes numbered 2,109 and 2,099, respectively. This is impressive for District 14, whose incumbent Paul Ridley ran unopposed, and a bit lackluster for District 6, where an eight-candidate field had us convinced a runoff would be required to decide who will represent West Dallas for the next two years. That runoff was narrowly avoided by candidate Laura Cadena, however. She managed to make it over the 50% of votes required to secure the seat.
New Faces
Cadena is one of the four new faces who will find themselves with a seat at the horseshoe later this summer.Maxie Johnson, representing District 4, and the winners of the Districts 8 and 11 runoff elections will join her in the rookie class. Candidates Erik Wilson and Lorie Blair are facing off for council member Tennell Atkins’ former seat, while Roth and Kitner are vying to represent District 11.
This won’t be Cadena’s first time at City Hall. Cadena previously served as Chief of Staff for council member Omar Narvaez, who served the maximum four terms in the District 6 seat, and emerged in the eight-person race as Narvaez’s heir-apparent. She has pointed to affordable housing and infrastructure management as two of the top priorities for her district.
In South Oak Cliff, Maxie Johnson will succeed the term-limited council member Carolyn King Arnold. Johnson has served as a Dallas ISD school board trustee since 2019 and is a pastor at New Morning Star Baptist Church. Johnson has listed affordable housing and public safety as two of his priorities in the council member role.
Cadena and Johnson are inheriting massive park projects in their districts. The $325 million Harold Simmons Park broke ground in District 6 several weeks ago, and officials with the Halperin Deck Park (formerly Southern Gateway Park) over Interstate 35 expect the park’s $112 million first phase to open next spring.
Incumbency Fatigue
After the November election, a great deal of political pontificating was done over the worldwide trend of incumbent candidates being ousted. Richard Wike, director of global attitudes research at the Pew Research Center, told the AP that frustration over the “political elites” had likely lent itself to the dozens and dozens of countries whose voters decided “out with the old.”That was not so much the case in Dallas’ municipal election, however.
All of the City Council’s incumbents were reelected Saturday. Council member Adam Bazaldua, who earned the title of most-challenged incumbent after drawing five opponents, avoided a runoff with more than 56% of the vote.
Council member Kathy Stewart was reelected with the highest margin of support, earning more than 92% of the votes cast in District 10. (Ridley, of course, was unopposed and received 100% of the votes cast.) District 3’s Zarin Gracey was reelected with the slimmest margin of the council’s incumbents, claiming 54% of the vote against two challengers.
November Elections
Low voter turnout in May municipal elections isn’t just a Dallas issue, and the Texas Legislature is considering a fix.A number of bills have been filed in the state legislature that would move Texas’ municipal elections, which are held in May of odd-numbered years, to November. Advocates say this change will save county elections offices money and drive more voters to the polls. Nearly 60% of Dallas County voters cast a ballot last November, so moving municipal elections to the same ballot could help drive some of that traffic towards the more meager city council elections.
Dallas voters have already voiced their support for this. Last November, they approved Proposition D, which changed the Dallas City Charter to allow for November municipal elections. But for that change to happen, it has to be approved in Austin first.
The legislative session ends June 2, and if Austin manages to pass legislation moving elections to November, Dallas’ next City Council election will be held in November 2027.
