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Turnout was low: 1.38 million Republicans and 470,000 Democrats; approximately 9.5% total turnout, a bit higher than the 2022 runoff, but much lower than the March 3 primary, which had a record 24% turnout.

The driver of Republican turnout was the US Senate race — John Cornyn versus Ken Paxton — which was the most expensive primary in US history. Over $29 million was blown just on the runoff, over $20 per vote, with the total amount spent on the primary topping $165 million, or $46 per vote.

Yikes!

Cornyn outspent Paxton 2.5 to 1 but still got trounced by him, 63-36%.

Cornyn had served 23 years in the Senate and was running to become Senate majority leader in 2024. To go from that to getting beaten so badly … it reminds one of 2018 when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — whose name had never once graced the pages of The New York Times, and did not have a Wikipedia page — beating Rep. Joe Crowley, a Democrat who was likely to succeed Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House, or four years before when the House Majority Leader Eric Cantor lost to an unknown college professor, David Brat, by 11 points.

That 2014 upset was of course on the heals of two wins by another professor and community organizer to the highest office in the land, which started with an upset against the Clinton juggernaut, and it foreshadowed the drain-the-swamp campaigns of Donald Trump.

What is going on with these wild upsets? The answer is an upset public and the civilizational-altering communications technology of the internet. See Martin Gurri’s The Revolt of the Public.

Here’s the results of the other races.

Statewides

Lieutenant Governor. On the Democratic side, Vikki Goodwin, a State Representative representing Austin, won the runoff decisively, defeating George Soros-backed Houston labor leader Marcos Velez 67-32%. Goodwin will face incumbent Dan Patrick in November, who won the Republican primary with 84% although it felt like he was unopposed.

Attorney General. Money played a big role in these races. On the Republican side, Mayes Middleton spent a ton of his own cash (he inherited the family’s oil business), upped his name recognition against Chip Roy, and beat him 55-44%. This was the most expensive Attorney General primary in U.S. history, at $15 per vote. On the Democratic side, State Senator Nathan Johnson — who represented a portion of Irving — won the runoff election, defeating former Galveston Mayor and aggressive progressive Joe Jaworski 60-39%, despite Jaworski having a massive lead in the March primary, almost winning outright at 48-26%. Johnson had deep-pocketed Dallas donors and Miriam Adelson, and was able to outspend Jaworski 2.5 to 1.

Railroad Commissioner. In the race for Railroad Commissioner on the Republican side, Bo French narrowly beat incumbent Jim Wright, 50-49%. This was another win for the activist base of the Republican party. He will face mainstream Democrat Jon Rosenthal, a Texas state representative from Houston, in November.

Court of Criminal Appeals Place 3. In the race for a seat on what is Texas’s supreme court for criminal cases, Thomas Smith (who is aligned with the Paxton wing of the Republican Party) beat Allison Fox 58-41%. Smith will face defense attorney Okey Anyiam, the Democratic nominee, in November.

Congress

Our breakdown of the Congressional primary race is here.

The results:

CD-24

March 3 Primary

• Democratic Primary: (Runoff Triggered)

  • Kevin Burge: 48.0% (28,968 votes) — Advanced to Runoff

  • TJ Ware: 26.1% (15,774 votes) — Advanced to Runoff

  • Jon Buchwald: 25.9% (15,612 votes)

• Republican Primary: (Won Outright)

  • Beth Van Duyne (Incumbent): 100.0% (71,351 votes)

May 26 Runoff

• Democratic Primary Runoff:

  • Kevin Burge: 79.7% (7,260 votes) — WINNER

  • TJ Ware: 20.3% (1,845 votes)

CD-33

March 3 Primary

• Democratic Primary: (Runoff Triggered)

  • Colin Allred: 45.5% (21,374 votes) — Advanced to Runoff

  • Julie Johnson (Incumbent): 34.0% (15,942 votes) — Advanced to Runoff

  • Carlos Quintanilla: 12.1% (5,677 votes)

  • Zeeshan Hafeez: 8.4% (3,950 votes)

• Republican Primary: (Runoff Triggered)

  • Patrick Gillespie: 35.5% (4,654 votes) — Advanced to Runoff

  • John Sims: 22.3% (2,922 votes) — Advanced to Runoff

  • Monte Mitchell: 21.7% (2,850 votes)

  • Kurt L. Schwab: 20.5% (2,692 votes)

May 26 Runoff

• Democratic Primary Runoff:

  • Colin Allred: 54.8% (7,782 votes) — WINNER

  • Julie Johnson (Incumbent): 45.2% (6,413 votes)

• Republican Primary Runoff:

  • Patrick Gillespie: 57.2% (3,786 votes) — WINNER

  • John Sims: 42.8% (2,836 votes)

CD-6

March 3 Primary

(Both fields were settled in March; no runoffs were required for this district.)

• Democratic Primary: (Won Outright)

  • Danny Minton: 100.0% (41,790 votes) — WINNER

• Republican Primary: (Won Outright)

  • Jake Ellzey (Incumbent): 68.4% (36,175 votes) — WINNER

  • James Buford: 19.1% (10,092 votes)

  • Brian Stahl: 12.6% (6,648 votes)

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It was an exciting night of watching returns last night. Congrats to all the candidates — y’all ran great races. We need good people to run.

Mayor

Not because of the mayor’s race though, which Al Zapanta won as expected. Zhanae Jackson was a surprise vote getter, netting 18% citywide and coming in second place.

In last year’s citywide race 11,054 ballots were cast, so this is a drop of 19%.

Congrats to our mayor elect, Al Zapanta!

District 5

This one was also not surprising, as councilman Mark Cronenwett was unopposed.

District 6 Special Election

The special election in District 6 to fill the last year of Al Zapanta’s term was tight, with Dana Collins giving Fahad Ahmed a run for his money.

If Ahmed had lost just 18 votes, this would have gone to a runoff.

We might see a rematch of this race in a year.

District 3

This one was thrilling. Tammam Alwan had the lead after early voting:

But then when election day results came in, incumbent councilman Abdul Khabeer passed him to take first place

As the night went on, it Kejal Patel was fading and it looked like she was not going to advance to the runoff:

…until the midnight drop, when she gained 104 votes and Alwan gained only 8:

Check out this Joe Biden-level late-night comeback:

No word year on whether Alwan will be requesting a recount. The deadline for that is 2:00pm Tuesday.

As the second-place finisher, Patel will now get the chance to unseat the incumbent Khabeer in the runoff election.

The runoff is Saturday, June 13 — early voting will run Monday, June 1 - Tuesday, June 9.

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Irving ISD School Board District 1

This district covers the area around University Park and Irving Heights:

Irving ISD School Board District 2

This district covers the area around Northgate and north of N. O’Connor:

DART Withdrawal Elections

Of the three referendums to leave DART only Highland Park voted to leave:

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We have recommendations here and below are all the interviews we did with the candidates.

Mayor’s Race

Al Zapanta

Zhanae Jackson

Olivia Novelo Abreu

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District 3

Tammam Alwan

Abdul Khabeer

Kejal Patel

The only candidate who declined to be interviewed. This video about her candidacy is going viral.

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District 6 (Special Election)

Dana Collins

Fahad Ahmed

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Our overview of the election:

Note on this episode: District 6 candidate Dana Collins messaged us and clarified his views on an important issue, so we issued this clarification here.

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Collins wrote to us in an email: “I oppose SB 840 -- it was a terrible bill. Cities need control over population density and zoning issues.” He also adds: “I support the Council moving swiftly to mitigate the impacts of SB 840.”

He points out that his experience and legal background would be useful in helping get legislation limiting cities (like SB 840) repealed. For more on his views, see our interview with him.

A bit more on SB 840 for context on this important issue. Last session, in May of 2025, the Texas Legislature passed SB 840. Sen. Bryan Hughes carried the bill, which was strongly supported by the real estate developers. Sen. Hughes represents the northeast corner of Texas, and is a champion for the developers in the Texas legislature, frequently carrying bills that takes away zoning powers of cities.

That was the idea of the bill — to make it easier for developers to build apartments. Even if land is zoned for something else (office, commercial, retail, warehouse, or mixed-use) cities would be forced to multifamily residential or mixed-use residential. Apartments must be allowed “by right” in cities with over 150,000 people (Irving has 258,000).

(How can the state do this? It’s because — while home rule cities like Irving have a City Charter and inherent powers — they are still limited by state laws and the state constitution.)

What’s the problem with the bill? Wouldn’t it address housing shortages, but cutting out lengthy local zoning processes that slow down the building of new housing?

Basically, SB 840 could invite a surge of apartment projects in parts of Irving that were not planned for that level of residential use.

These projects could strain traffic, parking, emergency access, water, sewer, drainage, and electric infrastructure. The bill limits the city’s ability to require traffic studies, added parking, traffic-mitigation improvements, and utility upgrades beyond minimum service needs. If those impacts are not fully addressed by developers, burdens would be placed on Irving citizens — things like congestion, service demands, utility costs, and future public infrastructure spending.

The bill short-circuits much of the local political process that we use to deal with these concerns. In Irving, that process is led by elected representatives and involves public hearings, mailed notice, public comment, and the ability to question developers about site-specific impacts.

While the city can still enforce generally applicable rules, the questions that could be debated through zoning — whether the location is appropriate, density fits the surrounding area, parking sufficient, and traffic impacts that are not too great — are no longer a question for the public zoning process, but rather a simple administrative review by staff.

In short, SB 840 strips the power of local self-governing units and hands it to developers. And of course they respond mainly to the profit motive.

Happily, Irving did not sit idly by. In a series of meetings detailed on the city’s website — irvingtx.gov/multifamily-by-right — Irving looked for ways to mitigate the impact of this bill.

They found one in minimum height.

The bill limits how restrictive cities can be on maximum height, but SB 840 does not have minimum height rules.

So that’s the direction Irving went in order to discourage these conversions. It makes the conversions more difficult because it is harder to finance. A 3- or 4-story garden apartment is more economical for developers than an 8 story apartment, since, instead of wood-frame construction, they would need concrete, steel, heavier foundations, and more complex engineering. Since it costs more per unit, the developer has to make up the difference through higher rents.

Here’s the discussion from July of last year:

It ultimately passed 9-0 on August 28.

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It is a long survey. Make sure to finish it! Otherwise your answers will be thrown out. Also, don’t click without looking at the questions: respondents who were identified as taking the survey too fast were removed as well.

The survey is a good opportunity to signify what the priorities of city leadership should be in the next couple years.

In 2024 those priorities were street maintenance (which always comes in #1) at 47%, and homelessness, which came in at a whopping 37%.

There is a dashboard that breaks down survey results from 2024 in different ways. A couple from 2024 caught our eye. (Note that percentages that are reported are the total of “excellent” and “good” ratings added together. )

First is the question, “Being open and transparent to residents.”

Overall, we are right at the regional benchmark. However it’s interesting to view this by age and length of time in Irving:

At the top is not a huge difference by age, so it is not a matter of old people being cynical.

The bottom shows a clear pattern. The longer people have been around — and presumably the more they know — the less they rate Irving as open and transparent.

The same thing happens with the question, “Providing residents the opportunity to offer feedback.”

The longer people have been around — and presumably the more they know — the less favorable they are on these two questions.

Any poll or survey is a snapshot in time. Any single given poll is not really meaningful. What is meaningful is the difference between results, as this can tell a story.

Past results are here: https://irvingtx.gov/resident-survey-results.

We put the survey results together since 2010. We included 2024, although actually it should not be included in this table (more on that below).

Here’s the survey results since 2010:

There are a couple stories here.

First, the numbers went up in 2012 (except for streets) and more or less stayed higher than they were.

That probably has something to do with property crime dropping sharply from 2010 to 2012. Irving police focused on the parts of the city with noticeable crime trends, e.g. apartments.

Second, when it comes to streets, the increase comes in 2020. That’s due to the Road to the Future program, which was launched in 2017. It is a long‑term initiative to rehabilitate, reconstruct, and proactively maintain city streets.

The numbers staying higher until 2022 is an achievement. Irving’s population increased from 216,290 in 2010 to 256,684 in 2020, over 18%. To grow so much and to maintain the positive ratings is pretty good.

The numbers drop in 2024. Why is that?

Well, it is an apples-to-oranges comparison, because the methodology changed.

Previously, the survey was not just an open link on the website, but a real random sample. The city drew a ZIP-code-based random sample of households, contacted them mostly by mail and email, and got around 1,000–1,200 completed surveys to represent the whole city.

But in 2024 the city used an outside vendor, Elite Research. On the survey itself, the wording was simplified and open-ended questions were increased. The vendor also used a different, and pretty sophisticated, methodology. They still used a random sample, but in order to get more responses included, they added an open-call component on top, which was promoted throughout the city generally. Then, they weighted the results to match population demographics (ZIP code, age, gender, ethnicity, race, and home ownership) — prior years did not do that.

It worked, and they got 5,011 valid respondents. That is a lot of respondents.

The weighting helps represent underrepresented groups — in the 2022 results Hispanics were underrepresented, for example. Still, since it is not completely a random sample, the 2024 survey does sacrifice statistical purity. The report says the results have a 95% confidence level and a citywide margin of error under 1.4%, however that actually cannot be determined without random sampling.

In sum, there is an argument that the 2024 survey is more representative. But it cannot be compared with previous years to find trends.

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As one attendee summed it up: “The two ladies are not serious candidates. Al is Al.”

However, Zha’nae Jackson gave quite a speech:

Her slogan is Irving First and her speech was eloquent:

We need housing opportunities and homeowner stability.

We need to expand opportunities for home ownership and encourage more responsible single-family housing development.

Many people in my generation want to build their lives here too.

But too often we are left choosing between aging apartment complexes or housing options that are simply out of reach financially.

At the same time, raising property appraisals and tax pressures are making it harder for families to stay in the homes that they already have. Homestead exemptions help, but they are not always enough when property values and costs continue to rise.

Then we have Dr. Olivia:

Hard to believe, but in 2020 she spent $320 and got 46% of the vote against Mayor Stopfer. She was on the ballot at the time with her “hero” Joe Biden.

Finally, Al being Al:

Nobody switches topics with reckless abandon like the General.

The election is May 2.

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In addition to the races, there are propositions on each party’s ballot which serve as an opinion polls. While the results have no legal force, they sure are interesting. South Carolina and Georgia are the only other two states that do this fun thing.

A couple of Irving connections on the ballot:

• Perennial candidate Tony Grimes is running for Dallas County Clerk in the Democratic Primary. The County Clerk is the primary custodian of county records. Grimes is not the nicest fellow though.

• In the Congressional primary for CD-6 (see our overview of Irving congressional districts here), Irving native Brian Stahl (see our interview here) is running against the incumbent Jake Ellzey.

There are probably on 4 or 5 people in the entire state of Texas who really understand how primary elections work. They are complicated.

Check your location before you go vote: the locations are on this PDF (you need to know your precinct number, which can be found here based on party: Democratic Primary election locations start on page 5, Republican Primary election locations on page 29).

Why two locations? Because the Democrats and Republicans are holding two separate primaries.

This has not happened for a few cycles.

In the last few primaries the parties held joint primaries, which simplified things. But after Allen West was elected Dallas County GOP Chair two years ago — defeating incumbent Jennifer Stoddard-Hajdu with 70% of the vote — the County Executive Committee (consisting of all the GOP precinct chairs) voted to hold a separate Republican primary for this election. They wanted to restore party control and avoid all the conflicts with Democratic election workers.

They also wanted to push for election integrity. In addition to ending countywide voting, using paper ballots that are hand counted is the gold standard. For anyone who is aware of the problems with voting machines, a shift to paper ballots is a necessity:

When a party runs its own primary, it enters into a contract for election services with the county elections administrator. Up until August, the Elections Administrator in Dallas County was Heider Garcia.

Garcia’s background is interesting.

Born to Venezuelan parents, he spent much of his early life in Venezuela. He graduated from university there with a degree in computer engineering in 2003, and began his career there as a software developer for the voting machine company Smartmatic, working for them for 12 years.

Garcia came to the US to serve as Elections Administrator first in California for a couple years, and then in Tarrant County from February 2018 to June 2023. What happened in our neighboring county — the largest red county in the country, where Trump had won in 2016 by 9 points — under Garcia? Tarrant flipped blue in the 2018 US Senate race and went blue again in the 2020 election, with Biden edging out Trump. A 9-point leftward shift in 4 years.

On the November 21, 2025 episode of Going Rogue, journalist Lara Logan interviewed Ralph Pezzullo, the author of the book Stolen Elections.

Lara Logan: And that’s what you document in this book is how it started in Venezuela and yes, it’s spread to the United States, but they have stolen elections all over the world.

Ralph Pezzullo: Yes, that’s correct.

Lara Logan: In fact, there’s that famous video on YouTube of the Philippines Parliament, when they excoriate a man called Heider Garcia, who’s an employee of Smartmatic.

Ralph Pezzullo: Yes, that’s correct.

Lara Logan: And they know that their election has been stolen. They know Smartmatic is responsible. And I mean, that guy sits there and he gets beaten-up by the parliament in the Philippines and then they banish him, right? They kick him out of the country. And where does he go? He ends up in Tarrant County, Texas, right?

Gary Berntsen: Forward, Texas. He’s the Election Commissioner!

Lara Logan: Yes, he’s the Election Commissioner.

Gary Berntsen: Then, he moved to Dallas and now, he’s the President of Hart InterCivic, I believe.

Here’s the clip out of the Philippines:

Garcia resigned from his position in Dallas in August.

Paul Adams took over for him in October 2025, coming from running elections in Lorain County, Ohio (population 325,000). The Dallas GOP made a valiant effort to show that a secure primary election could be run with paper ballots, hand counted. They were unable to get an acceptable contract from the county this time around to make it happen.

Separate primaries is movement in the right direction, however. The paper ballots, hand counted initiative has momentum. Many volunteers signed up to help couth with a tested “ECHO method.” It was an inspiring project led by heroes like Dr. Preeti Malladi, and one that must continue. Citizen volunteers need to take over and run our elections. There’s few things more important than this.

Happy voting!

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