Watson leads Austin mayor's race
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Photo Illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios. Photo: Hutton Supancic/Getty Images
It's not clear whether incumbent Kirk Watson will avoid a runoff in the crowded field for mayor, according to unofficial election results.
Driving the news: Watson held on to 50.01% of the vote in unofficial election returns from Travis, Hays and Williamson counties overnight.
- He'll need to maintain over 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff against any one of his four opponents, and Travis County can still count provisional ballots until next week.
- Carmen Llanes Pulido, the runner-up, would face him in a runoff, trailing with 20..1% of the vote compared to Kathie Tovo's 16.6%.
The big picture: The win would give Watson four more years in office as Austin grapples with housing affordability, police staffing shortages and homelessness.
- Watson, a Democrat and former state senator, also served as mayor from 1997 to 2001. He ran for mayor again in 2022, narrowly defeating former state Rep. Celia Israel in a runoff election.
- Carmen Llanes Pulido, an affordable housing advocate who runs the group Go! Austin/Vamos! Austin, has said she wants to bring more transparency around the police budget, improve city infrastructure and address affordability.
The intrigue: Watson remained the front-runner in the crowded field leading up to the election, vastly outraising his competitors and receiving an array of endorsements from labor groups and council members.
- His opponents had hoped his failed partnership with the Texas Department of Public Safety — an effort intended to help the Austin Police Department's staffing shortages — would move Austin voters away from him.
Zoom in: Watson served two years — rather than the usual four — because of a 2021 proposition that moved mayoral elections to the same year as presidential elections to boost turnout.
- In that time he managed to streamline the city bureaucracy, steered city investments into job training and oversaw an overhaul of city housing construction rules.
- But he received plenty of criticism over his DPS partnership, which led to widespread arrests of Black and Hispanic people before it was suspended.