With Election Results Made Official, Kirk Watson Narrowly Reelected as Mayor Without Runoff

Mayor Kirk Watson on election night (photo by Jana Birchum)

Kirk Watson has been reelected Austin’s mayor in a five-person race that nearly resulted in a December runoff. He will serve a full four-year term, leading a City Council that will retain the same pro-housing bent that enabled local leaders to pass a slew of land use reforms throughout the mayor’s first, shortened term.

Though Watson pulled in about 104,000 more votes than Carmen Llanes Pulido, the second-place finisher in the race, the mayor just barely avoided a runoff in which he would face Llanes Pulido. Watson cleared the threshold required to win a multiperson contest outright (more than 50% of the total vote) by just around a dozen votes.

After Watson held on to a tight lead following election night, Nov. 5, the final outcome came down to the late counting of mail-in ballots and the adjudication of provisional ballots in Travis and Williamson counties. The total number of ballots was around 4,000 – so more than enough to push the race into a runoff.

Llanes Pulido had previously hinted that she may pursue a recount given Watson’s narrow margin of victory – but she’s running out of time to act. The election results were officially canvassed at a special called Council meeting, Nov. 19, so Llanes Pulido has until Thursday, Nov. 21, at 2pm to request a recount, per deadlines set by the Texas Secretary of State.

As the Chronicle went to press, Nov. 20, Llanes Pulido had not said if she would request a recount. Either way, a recount will not affect the runoff election date (Dec. 15). Travis County Clerk Dyana Limon-Mercado estimates that it could take her office about a week to fully conduct the recount, based on how long it took her office to do a recount in a Leander City Council race this summer (she notes that, in that race, the original count matched the recount).

Regardless of the exact margin by which Watson fended off the field to win outright, the fact that he did so at all is impressive. Especially among a presidential electorate that is likely to have contained higher numbers of young, racially and economically diverse voters – the kind of voters who have, historically, preferred the demographics of some of his challengers (two women and an openly gay man).

Avoiding a runoff is not just important to the Watson campaign because it reflects a more decisive victory. It also prevents the mayor from having to campaign for reelection following Donald Trump’s commanding presidential victory – which could be an unfavorable electoral environment for Watson.

But, as Watson wrote to supporters in a Nov. 15 email, he’s looking ahead to a second term. “We’ve made a lot of progress,” the mayor wrote of his first, two-year term. “Now, I think we’re finally in a place to chart a new course for Austin’s future.”