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Attorney Jim Ross will face former council member and minister Michael Glaspie in a June 5 runoff for Arlington mayor, according to Saturday’s unofficial election results.
Ross won 47.39% of the total votes, with Glaspie coming in second with 21.12%, both short of the 50% required to avoid a runoff.
The candidates, along with five others, were vying to replace outgoing Mayor Jeff Williams, who was prohibited from running due to term limits.
Ross, a former police officer, was endorsed by Williams and widely seen as the front-runner.
“Here’s what you can anticipate from me: I will continue to work my butt off … to let everybody in Arlington know that we are taking this thing home for sure at the end of this runoff,” Ross said at his election night watch party, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Glaspie, a minister at Mount Olive Baptist Church, told the Star-Telegram he benefited from “pockets of support” from his civic engagement.
“We’ve been gaining momentum as we’ve gone along, so we’d like to continue to do that and make sure that we get our message out to people to understand more about me, the experience I have, the things I’ve done as well and the things I would like to do that would benefit Arlington,” Glaspie told the newspaper.
In recent weeks, the race saw a couple of unexpected turns.
One candidate, Jerry Warden, was ruled ineligible from running because he was a convicted sex offender. His name remained on the ballot, though, and he won 1.05% of the votes.
Just this week, the Star-Telegram rescinded its endorsement of Ross after it said he failed to disclose a previous bankruptcy in the newspaper’s voter guide questionnaire. Ross also failed to disclose it in The Dallas Morning News voter guide, which asked the same question. The News endorsed Glaspie.
Early voting for the June 5 election will run from May 24 to June 1.