Voting News

Dallas City Council May 2025 election results in 2 runoffs

Dallas City Hall

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A new Dallas City Council was elected at an election on May 3, with two seats that will require a second runoff vote.

According to figures from Dallas County, the total turnout was 70,187 votes, with 68,701 in person and 1,469 by mail.

Nearly 50 candidates ran for the city's 14 districts. Out of those 14 districts, 10 had incumbents that were all re-elected for another two-year term.

Of the remaining four districts where a new council member had to be elected, two were successful:

District 4, the southern Dallas seat previously occupied by Carolyn King Arnold, was won by Maxie Alexander.
District 6, the west Dallas seat previously occupied by Omar Narvaez, was won by Laura Cadena, Narvaez' chief of staff.

Two will have to be determined in runoff elections. (In order to win, a candidate must earn 50 percent of the votes.):

District 11, covering Far North Dallas, previously occupied by Jaynie Schultz, will go to a runoff between Bill Roth and Jeff Kitner.
District 8, the southeast Dallas seat vacated by Tennell Atkins, will go to a runoff between Lorie Blair and Erik Wilson.

The biggest turnouts were in north Dallas, in Districts 11, 12, and 13.

DALLAS CITY COUNCIL RESULTS
Here's the 14 districts, with total votes counted and winners in bold:

District 1: 4,039 votes

Just south of downtown Dallas, includes North Oak Cliff, Bishop Arts

Chad West - incumbent: 2,374 or 59%
Katrina Whatley - realtor: 1,582 or 39%
Jason Vanhof - tech sales: 83 or 2%

District 2: 2,305 votes
Weird propeller-shaped district extends from Love Field on the West, through Deep Ellum, to Casa View on the east

Jesse Moreno - incumbent: 2,073 or 90%
Sukhbir Kaur - repeat candidate: 232 or 10%

District 3: 2,923 votes
Southwest Dallas

Zarin Gracey - incumbent: 1,589 or 54%
Jesseca Lightbourne - assistant professor at UNT Dallas: 479 or 26%
John Sims - repeat candidate, owner of a podcast/radio studio in Oak Cliff 585 or 20%

District 4: 2,971 votes
South Dallas. Seat vacated by Carolyn King Arnold who has reached the end of her term and cannot run again, despite her efforts.

Maxie Johnson, pastor and DISD board of trustees representative: 2,228 or 75%
Kebran W. Alexander, Dallas County Sheriff Department employee and returning candidate who ran in 2018: 635 or 21%
Avis Hardaman, teacher: 108 or 4%

District 5: 1,585 votes
Far southeast Dallas

Jaime Resendez - incumbent: 1,329 or 84%
Elizabeth Matus - Health Unit Coordinator at Children's Medical Center: 256 or 16%

District 6: 2,109 votes
West Dallas, with seat left vacant by Omar Navaerz, who has reached the end of his term.

Laura Cadena, Navaerz' Chief of Staff: 1,064 or 50%
Monica Alonzo - former council member prior to Narvaez: 522 or 25%
Machelle Wells - flight attendant and minister: 201 or 10%
Linus Spiller - success coach and repeat candidate: 137 or 6%
David Blewett - one-term council member, but in in a different district (District 14): 106 or 5%
Gabriel Kissinger - "filmmaker": 23 or 1%
Nicholas "Nico" Quintanilla, youthful entrepreneur: 21 or 1%
Tony Carrillo - return candidate who ran in 2017 and 2023: 21 or 1%

District 7: 2,642 votes
Far east Dallas, just south of I-30 including Buckner Terrace

Adam Bazaldua - incumbent: 1,497 or 57%
Jose Rivas Jr. - deputy ombudsman: 436 or 17%
Cydney Walker - repeat candidate and host of Coffee & Politics talk show: 379 or 14%
Brian O'Neil Hesson - community activist: 209 or 8%
Lamar "Yaka" Jefferson: 110 or 4%

District 8: 2,700 votes
Far southeast Dallas, finally vacant now that Tennell Atkins has reached his term limit.

Erik Wilson - one-time city council member, running again: 1,129 or 42%
Lorie Blair - current member of the Zoning & Planning commission: 1,056 or 39%
Subrina Brenham - income tax professional, repeat candidate who ran in 2021 and 2023: 262 or 10%
Eugene Ralph - son of "Christian conservative" Eugene Ralph, is pro Proposition U, requiring Dallas to hire hundreds more police officers: 129 or 5%
Eliza Ruth Steward - has worked as a notary: 61 or 2%
Davante Peters - community organizer, return candidate: 43 or 2%

District 9: 3,947 votes
Northeast Dallas, Lakewood

Paula Blackmon - incumbent: 3,094 or 78%
Ernest P. Banda - served on the Red Light Camera commission in 2014: 853 or 21%

District 10: 3,763 votes
Northeast Dallas, Lake Highlands

Kathy Stewart - incumbent: 3,537 or 94%
Sirrano Keith Baldeo - litigious eccentric repeat candidate ran in 2019 and 2023: 226 or 6%

District 11: 6,178 votes
North Dallas/central — left vacant by Jaynie Schulz who chose not to run for another term.

Bill Roth - Lake Highlands lawyer who sued over an affordable housing project: 2,984 or 48%
Jeff Kitner - COO at North Dallas Chamber of Commerce, bicycling and schools advocate: 2,781 or 45%
Kendal Richardson - motivational speaker: 213 or 3%
Mona Andy Elshenawy - health care professional: 200 or 3%

District 12: 5,845 votes
Far North Dallas

Cara Mendelsohn - incumbent: 3,729 or 64%
Marc Rossouw - accountant and financial advisor: 1,775 or 30%
Jose Cavazos - poet-philosopher, anti-war & climate crisis activist: 341 or 6%

District 13: 7,457 votes
North/northwest Dallas

Gay Donnell Willis - incumbent: 4,860 or 65%
Diane Benjamin - the realtor in favor of "taking the liberal Marxist trash out in Dallas County and the city of Dallas": 2,597 or 35%

District 13 loser Diane Benjamin, once dressed up in an Indian outfit to portray U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren.Facebook

District 14: 2,099 votes
Downtown and Greenville Avenue

Paul Ridley - incumbent: 2,099 or 100%

election politics

Crime News

Dallas leaders launch initiative to ensure downtown is a safe place

Photo by Bryan Dickerson on Unsplash

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The City of Dallas and a group of public and private sector leaders led by Downtown Dallas, Inc. (DDI), and the Dallas Citizens Council have launched Safe in the City, a campaign to improve public safety and address homelessness solutions in downtown Dallas.

According to a release, the work was commissioned by DallasNews Corporation Chief Executive Officer and publisher of Dallas Morning News Grant Moise and is based largely on a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analysis conducted in 2024.

That work organized a group of business and civic leaders and public officials to address challenges with public safety, homelessness, and vibrancy and economic development.

“My goal was to pull a group of people together who had the collective resources and passion to ensure that we put downtown on a better trajectory to ultimately make it as safe and vibrant as we all want it to be,” says Moise in a statement. “With the right leadership in the room, we immediately got to work devising and implementing an action plan.”

The BCG report recommended six measures to ensure safety and security long term, which the Safe in the City campaign combines into three categories: Visible presence, visible interest, and vibrant downtown.

The measures include:

Increased policing and presence: Surveillance cameras and other technological infrastructure will be expanded for proactive crime detection and deterrence.
Increased coordination among police and security entities: All police and security personnel will have access to a shared communication channel to improve incident response and coordination.
Continue push for rehousing:
Expand Downtown Community Court
“De-magnetize” hotspots
Address needs associated with re-entry of formerly incarcerated individuals.

The initiative is in response to public safety and homelessness challenges post-pandemic, and concerns from residents and businesses. Coalition leaders stressed that work has been underway for nearly a year, leading to decreases in crime, and an “effective end” to street homelessness downtown.

“Over the past 15 months, business, civic, and nonprofit leaders were joined by police and security officials to study our challenges and come up with a series of sustainable solutions,” says DDI President & CEO Jennifer Scripps in a statement. “Thanks to our partnership with Dallas City Manager Kimberly Bizor Tolbert and the Dallas Police Department, we are reporting a 29 percent decrease in overall crime in Downtown this year to date, as well as substantial decreases in quality-of-life reports that the DDI security, homeless outreach, and clean teams address.”

According to BCG projections, full implementation of the six-pronged strategy could yield over $4 billion in incremental property value and generate hundreds of millions in incremental tax revenues.

politics downtown