Arlington and Mansfield apparently like their representation, based on results of the May 4 election.
After residents cast thousands of votes for the Arlington elections, all incumbent candidates for City Council and school board were reelected.
The city will not have any runoff elections, as Mauricio Galante received 52% of the vote to become the District 1 council member. Galante ran in an open seat because Helen Moise is stepping down from the council.
Larry Mike received 42% of the vote to win the Place 3 seat on the Arlington ISD school board. A candidate does not need a majority of votes to win a seat on the school board, only a plurality. Place 3 was an open seat following trustee Aaron Reich’s retirement from the school board.
Arlington ISD board President Melody Fowler was reelected, earning 81% of 9,301 total votes cast, while her challenger Kendall Orr had 19%. Board Secretary Sarah McMurrough ran uncontested for Place 1.
Throughout the election, McMurrough, Fowler and Mike supported more public school funding and spoke against school vouchers.
“Vouchers are just a way for people to take money away from public schools, and we already need every penny that we have to make sure that we can enrich our programs for our students,” Fowler said after the election results were announced.
Parents told the Arlington Report they were seeking candidates supporting public education.
The results may reflect that Arlington voters have become increasingly diverse and tilted more to the left, said Christopher Chambers-Ju, assistant professor of political science at the University of Texas at Arlington.
“It seems like a vocal minority is highly supportive of vouchers, especially folks who want to send their kids to private, parochial schools, but certainly this is a sign that many, many Texans are skeptical of vouchers — and want policies that will strengthen public education,” said Chambers-Ju, an education politics scholar.
In the Arlington City Council race, District 7 council member Bowie Hogg won reelection against his challenger, Chris “Dobi” Dobson. Incumbents Raul Gonzalez of District 2 and Long Pham of District 6 ran unopposed.
Arlington resident Nikki Mohamed-Fawzy, 55, said she likes Gonzalez from the City Council race.
“He definitely votes for east side families, especially when it comes to the fracking issues. The rest of them apparently just don’t care,” Mohamed-Fawzy said.
David Hopkins, 47, voted at the Tarrant County Sub-Courthouse in Arlington on Election Day. He said he voted for council candidate Dobson and trustee candidate Fowler.
“I’m part of a group called Arlington Residents for Inclusion, and it’s very important for us to make sure that our representatives value inclusivity in all local decisions, particularly with the library, but also matters of LGBTQ inclusion,” he said.
In Mansfield, Tarrant County and Johnson County voters elected Jandel Crutchfield to the Place 2 school board seat. The result concludes a contentious election season, where the school board deemed Crutchfield’s opponent, Angel Hidalgo, ineligible for the election but still kept him on the ballot.
The decision caused parents and other interested voters to run a campaign on social media to reject the district’s $777 million bond campaign.
In the end, voters approved two propositions worth a combined $588.5 million, focusing on school renovations and technology updates. Three propositions, mainly focusing on stadiums and athletics and totaling $188.5 million, were rejected.
Voters also reelected Michelle Newsom to Place 1 seat on the school board.
Of the nearly 1.3 million people registered to vote in Tarrant County, only 6.52%, or 83,166 people, voted in the May 4 election, according to unofficial election results.
Reporter Emily Wolf contributed to this article.
Dang Le is a reporting fellow for the Arlington Report. Contact him at dang.le@fortworthreport.org or @DangHLe. At the Arlington Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
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