Mitchell narrowly leads Tenorio, voters approve property tax increase

 Incumbent Mayor Travis Mitchell held a razor slim two-vote lead over Linda Tenorio  in early returns for the Kyle mayor’s race released this evening. Both bond propositions appeared to be cruising toward approval.

Yvonne Flores-Cale and Ashlee Bradshaw had significant leads in the other two city council races.

The early returns in the mayor’s race showed Mitchell with 5,172 votes (37.46 percent) to 5,170 (37.44 percent) for Tenorio. David Abdel (16 percent) and Peter Parcher (9.1 percent) trailed badly and appear out of the contest.

Interestingly, the early returns showed 254 more voters cast ballots in the bond proposition for the new police headquarters than in the parks bond issue. However, both were passing easily with 55.39 percent of voters favoring the police headquaters and 56.07 percent backing the parks.

Flores-Cale collected 60.28 percent of the early votes in her council race and Bradshaw commanded 60.92 percent of the vote.

Partisan races in Hays County showed a startling blue hue (Biden led Trump by over 12 percentage points and Hegar had an almost seven point lead over Cornyn). Two notable exceptions, however, were in races involving two former Kyle City Council members. Alex Villalobos (49.42 percent) narrowly trailed Gary Cutler for sheriff and Daphne Tenorio (49.87 percent) was slightly behind Jenifer O’Kane for tax-assessor collector.