AUSTIN (Talk1370.com) -- Five Austin City Council seats and the city's Mayor were all on the ballot Tuesday - with the city's 10-1 council set to see at least three new members after Tuesday's votes were counted.
Austin Mayor Kirk Watson led a field of four challengers in early returns, but that lead narrowed to just 50.01% of the total vote Wednesday morning in the unofficial final results from Election Day - putting Watson within a threshold where mail-in and provisional ballots could impact the final vote total and trigger a runoff election.
His closest challenger, Carmen Llanes Pulido, was second with nearly 20% of the vote. If the race proceeds to a runoff election on Dec. 14, the top two candidates will face off against each other.
Travis County officials say overseas and military ballots have a deadline of Nov. 12 and the races must be canvassed by Nov. 19.
Watson is seeking his third term in the mayor's seat, having been first elected in the 1990s and then narrowly winning election in 2022 in a runoff against Celia Israel.
Vanessa Fuentes and Jose 'Chito' Vela held comfortable leads in their races, with Fuentes leading District 2 with nearly 86% of the vote and Vela leading District 4 with just under 60% of the vote.
In District 6, incumbent Mackenzie Kelly was trailing by about 400 votes in Travis County, with challenger Krista Laine holding 51.67% of the ballots counted so far. Part of District 6 falls into Williamson County, where Laine led Kelly by about 400 votes with nearly all of the county's votes counted.
In District 7, a six-person race to fill the seat being vacated by Leslie Pool saw Mike Siegel leading the field with 41.84% of the vote; Gary Bledsoe was second with 18.85%. Those two candidates will proceed to a Dec. 14 runoff election as well.
And in District 10, the seat being vacated by Alison Alter, Marc Duchen held a slight lead in early returns, with 50.72% of the vote.
