Inside the mayoral runoff numbers — Kyle reverts to non-voting status

 Back in November 2015, former Kyle mayor Todd Webster pushed to move municipal elections from May to November. He said at the time it would increase voter turnout, and I fully supported him. In the previous May’s municipal elections, a paltry 4.91 percent of Kyle’s registered voters took the opportunity to participate and in a story I published on Nov. 5, 2015, I wrote: “I will predict that moving Kyle’s municipal elections from May to November, as the mayor so adroitly recommended, will at least double the percentage of voters that now come to the polls here.”

I admit it. I was wrong. It turns out I grossly underestimated how it would effect the turnout. Last month, 58.63 percent of Kyle’s 26,389 registered voters cast ballots in the mayoral election, close to 12 times the percentage that voted back in May of 2015.

The city’s voters, however, reverted back to their non-caring ways when it came this month’s mayoral runoff when only 8.6 percent of the city’s registered voters took part. Of course, that’s a lot closer to the percentage I predicted back on Nov. 5, 2015.

Incumbent Mayor Travis Mitchell, of course, easily won the runoff by a double-digit margin. He won it by controlling 11 of the city’s 18 voting precincts. His runoff opponent, former council member Linda Tenorio (who finished ahead of Mitchell in November, but only by a quarter of a percentage point), won five precincts and two others finished in a tie. One of those two, however, Precinct 228, contains no registered voters in that part of the precinct that is actually located within the Kyle City Limits.

The largest number of runoff voters — 407 of 2269 who voted — came from Precinct 220, which is one of the two Plum Creek voting precincts in Kyle. Mitchell trounced Tenorio in that district, winning 80.59 percent of the votes cast in Precinct 220. Mitchell also won the other Plum Creek precinct, Precinct 221, which also includes a large swath of the Spring Branch subdivision, capturing 62 percent of the votes cast there. Those two precincts, alone, accounted for over a third of Mitchell’s votes.

Precinct 130, which encompasses the Steeplechase subdivision, contains the second most registered voters than any other in Kyle and Tenorio won that precinct, capturing 56.87 percent of the votes cast. However, while 13 percent of the registered voters in Precinct 220 voted this week, only 8 percent voted in Precinct 130. Most of Tenorio’s support came in Precinct 223, which includes Old Town and Silverado, where she supported by 71 percent of those who voted in that precinct.

The most tightly fought race was in Precinct 419, which is basically Hometown Kyle, a precinct Mitchell won by receiving 51.3 percent of the votes cast.

Precinct 126, which encompasses the Waterleaf subdivision, contains more registered voters than any other in Kyle, but only 6 percent of that precinct’s 3,312 registered voters cast ballots in the runoff and Mitchell won 54 percent of those votes.