First the easy ones, those two Richardson ISD elections for Board of Trustees. The incumbents won easily, Debbie Renteria receiving 64.7% of the vote and Eric Eager 56.7%. Both of the incumbents unreservedly expressed support for EDI, SEL, and the unofficial RISD slogan, "All means all." Voters rewarded them handily. After being such a divisive force the last few years, the anti-EDI, anti-SEL, anti-mask, anti-vax, anti-tax money stayed out of the election campaign this time. With that distraction temporarily at bay, the Board of Trustees can devote their full attention to the great challenges: securing an adequate and reliable source of funding for RISD, making up for the learning loss brought on by the pandemic, and improving the education for all students.
The other easy one, with even stronger support, was the City of Richardson Bond Proposition, which passed with 69.7% of the vote. I suspect voters figured, the City Hall burned down, we need to do something. We can't just live with City employees scattered to makeshift offices around the City. Should we use the insurance money and already approved bond money from a 2021 election to repair and upgrade a 45-year-old building, or approve $46 million more and get ourselves an $85 million new building? Although I sympathized with some of arguments against the proposition, the voters as a whole, like I did, came down firmly on the side of scraping and rebuilding from scratch.
The City Council race with the widest margin of victory was Place 5. Incumbent Ken Hutchenrider won in a landslide with 66.2% of the vote. Credit part of that to Hutchenrider, who is well respected in Richardson. Credit part of it to his opponent, Todd Hunter, who was an unknown with little to no experience in Richardson government or volunteer positions. The Wheel endorsed Hunter not out of enthusiasm, but because, as I put it in the voters guide, "I prefer a City Council that's independent of big businesses, not one that includes the top executives of those businesses." The voters obviously weren't concerned with the two (big) hats that Hutchenrider must inevitably wear.
The City Council race with the next widest margin of victory was Place 3, where Dan Barrios handily defeated Stephen Springs, getting 57.2% of the vote. This was Springs's first campaign. Barrios had banked a lot of goodwill from his 2019 race, where he lost to Janet Depuy in a close runoff. Despite the backing of the Richardson Coalition PAC, Springs couldn't overcome Barrios's support of his own from the Richardson Area Democrats PAC. Even though the RC spent money on a mailer endorsing Springs and the RAD only used its Facebook presence and word-of-mouth to promote Barrios, it wasn't enough to get Springs across the line. This was only the second time in its decade-long history that one of the RC PAC's picks was defeated. (Joe Corcoran defeated Kyle Kepner in 2021).
There were reports that the Richardson Coalition PAC was irreparably split on its pick for mayor. The PAC punted its chance to have an impact on the mayor's race by declining to pick between Dubey and DePuy. Between that and Barrios's win/Springs's loss, is the RC PAC losing its influence? Will it repair its internal splits? In contrast, the Richardson Area Democrats PAC brags that it backed six of the seven items on my ballot (the seventh was the mayor's race, which RAD unfortunately decided to punt on themselves), and all six won. Could RAD be the new heavyweight political kingmaker in Richardson? This could be the most interesting political story to watch in the next two years.
In the third City Council race, Curtis Dorian handily defeated G. Scott Waddell, getting 54.0% of the vote. Dorian campaigned hard and generally made a good impression. G. Scott Waddell stepped all over his own tongue in forums. In one forum, after answering a question about workforce housing, Waddell paused, then concluded by saying, "It's not a good answer." Someone described Waddell's campaign as "following Bob Dubey around joined at his hip." Unfortunately for Waddell, Dubey's good old boy charm didn't rub off on Waddell.
Those three City Council races were in, or close to, landslide territory. That brings us to the fourth race, the race for mayor. When all the votes were counted, Bob Dubey defeated Janet DePuy, 51.6% to 48.4%. That's closer than any other race I followed Saturday night, but in the end the 3.2% margin is decisive, if far from a landslide. And if you were following the vote count during the long evening, you'd be excused for thinking that the race was closer than it was. Dubey trailed in the vote count all evening until a final dump of votes in Dallas County at 11:15 pm went heavily for him, putting him over the top. Those largely came from four City of Richardson vote centers in Dubey's home quadrant of Richardson. If those polling places had reported early in the evening instead, the eventual outcome of this race could have been predicted much earlier.
So Dubey won. Decisively, if far from a landslide. How did he do it? Hindsight is 20/20, but here's what I saw. Dubey ran a campaign designed to win. He relied heavily on his career-long connections in RISD. I think it's significant that DePuy won the Collin County part of Richardson, which is in Plano ISD not RISD. Dubey presented himself as a champion of diversity and inclusion, a listener, with a promise of openness and transparency. I sincerely hope he lives up to this image in the mayor's seat more than he demonstrated it for the last six years in his Council seat. There were rumors about unseemly campaign tactics by person or persons closely connected to the Dubey campaign. There were also rumors of Dubey himself over-promising different things to different people. Without tape, I can't say anything specific about these allegations. If there was anything to these rumors, Dubey benefited, whether Dubey was behind them or not.
On the other side, it's said that every losing candidate is haunted by all the "shoulda, couldas" that all campaigns have. DePuy's campaign is no exception. People either loved or hated Dubey. DePuy evinced more of a "meh" reaction. There's no polling data to test this, but it seems possible that many of her votes were votes against Dubey more than genuinely supportive of her. DePuy was aloof, Dubey was gregarious. That she still came this close suggests she could have won with a slightly different campaign strategy. With each interaction, she needed to give people a reason to vote "yes." With groups and audiences whose support could have put her over the top, she needed to seek out common ground, not point out differences she had with those groups. Maybe all this required her to be someone she just isn't at heart. She also needed to utilize people like Mayor Paul Voelker and former Mayor Steve Mitchell in joint appearances and as surrogates in her campaign. She needed more money. Dubey raised over $6,000 more than DePuy. I personally don't think money was the difference in this campaign, but is it possible it could have switched just 151 votes? We'll never know.
These thoughts are based on the final preliminary election results for the contests The Wheel was following this year for City of Richardson and Richardson ISD.
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On Facebook, I was criticized for talking about rumors in this blog post. Here's my defense: I deliberately didn't mention any rumors before the election in a deliberate effort to avoid trying to influence the results of the voting with rumors. Now that the election is over, I feel free to report that rumors did indeed circulate, but I still don't feel it appropriate to give any details, because I don't have facts (other than the fact that I heard rumors, the details of which I don't choose to share). Maybe you consider that a distinction without a difference, but that's my defense.
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