As the Chronicle went to press Wednesday, Nov. 6, the results in all but one City Council race were clear – and those results continue to show an Austin electorate strongly in support of local officials who prioritize housing reform.
Come January, when a new Council is inaugurated, it is likely that the current supermajority of nine Council members who regularly vote in favor of more housing will hold. It’s possible that the majority may even increase to 10-1 – an outcome that would have been difficult to predict even four years ago.
District 7 Running Off
Mike Siegel led the D7 field with nearly 40% of the vote, followed by Gary Bledsoe, who took in about 19% of the vote. The two candidates will face each other in a runoff. Most D7 candidates – Siegel included – were supportive of Council’s approach to addressing the city’s housing shortage. Bledsoe was skeptical, and the showdown in December will pit those two perspectives against one another.
In a statement, Bledsoe said his runoff campaign would focus on “making Austin affordable again with a land-use plan that works to keep working people, teachers, musicians, young people, and longtime residents in our city.” He noted that his late entrance into the race gave him less time to engage with voters – a factor he hopes to reverse in an electoral environment that likely favors him (runoff voters are usually older and wealthier).
But Siegel enters the head-to-head contest with a broad coalition behind him. He also thinks that the presidential result will motivate his base to get back to the polls to support him in a historically low-turnout runoff. “The minor policy debates we’ve been having in land-use policies pale in comparison to what we’re up against with a totalitarian president,” Siegel said. “We need a Council that will protect us in every way possible, and I have a track record of standing up to Greg Abbott and Ken Paxton, which has prepared me to do that.”
Two New West Austin Leaders
New leadership is coming for two of Austin’s west side Council districts. In the northwestern part of the city, challenger Krista Laine toppled District 6 incumbent Mackenzie Kelly, who was Council’s lone Republican representative, by just a few percentage points. Laine’s victory also continues a trend unique to D6 – no incumbent has ever won reelection since the district was created in 2014.
Laine and Kelly differed on their approach to local issues – particularly when it came to housing. Kelly was one of two CMs to vote against the ambitious housing reforms Council adopted last year – votes that Laine has said she would have cast differently. But because the race was the only one to feature a Democrat and a Republican (local races are technically nonpartisan, though party allegiance is often touted by candidates), the race quickly became nationalized. In a national environment where Republicans, overall, did exceedingly well, flipping the D6 seat was a small victory for Democrats.
In a statement issued Wednesday morning, Kelly conceded to Laine but vowed to continue fighting for her community. “Just because we’re down today doesn’t mean we’re ever out,” she said.
Laine said that through the year of campaigning she’s done for this race, she has heard a consistent message from D6 voters: “We want better and more reliable city services.” From now until January, Laine said, she is focused on staffing up her office and working on a transition with Kelly so that when she moves into City Hall she can “help improve 911 response times, make streets safer for all people, and help connect people in homeless encampments to more city services.”
In West Central Austin, Marc Duchen prevailed over Ashika Ganguly to succeed Alison Alter in Council’s D10. The race was close, with Duchen winning by just under 500 votes out of more than 40,000 cast.
Both candidates offered similar views on public safety but were distant on housing. Duchen showed much more skepticism toward some of Council’s housing reforms that aim to boost the production of market-rate housing throughout the city – in that way, he is likely to represent a continuation of the kind of representation D10 has had on housing over the past eight years. “We won this race by uniting Austinites,” Duchen said in a statement, “I’ll bring that same spirit of community collaboration to City Hall.”
Eastsiders Coast to Victory
Vanessa Fuentes and Chito Vela will return to the dais to represent D2 and D4, respectively. Neither of them had to sweat it much as their races were decided in the quarter-hour after polls closed on Nov. 5. Vela successfully fended off four opponents by raking in nearly 60% of the vote. Fuentes, on the other hand, basically ran unopposed (her opponent did not campaign) and ended the night with 86% of the vote.
This article appears in November 8 • 2024.