Two Irving city council candidates will face each other in a runoff for a citywide seat and two other races were neck-and-neck after unofficial results were tallied Saturday.
There were three candidates for the citywide Place 2 seat: Sergio Porres, David Pfaff and Vicky Oduk. Porres and Pfaff had the most votes but neither secured a majority.
Now Porres, who is backed by the Families for Irving PAC, and longtime Irving resident Pfaff will face off in a runoff in June, according to unofficial results from the Dallas County elections administrator.
The Families for Irving PAC's principles include 鈥渢raditional family values," school choice, and single-family housing. The PAC backs candidates who align with its priorities.
Place 1 incumbent John Bloch and Place 7 candidate Adam Muller, both backed by the Families for Irving PAC, appeared to have the majority of votes as of election night. Bloch was just ahead of Tony Grimes, while Muller was slightly ahead of Priscilla Vigliante. Candidates in both races were separated by less than 100 votes.
Families for Irving spent around $15,500 on its candidates this year. In the days before early voting, an organization called the Lone Star Conservative Action Fund poured $93,000 into campaign signs and text messages for the PAC's opponents, but many Irving residents decided it wasn't enough to sway their votes.
The Lone Star Conservative Action Fund is a 501(c)(4) organization. That classification allows it to legally conceal its donors.
However, the group's principal officer is Aaron De Leon, owner and president of consulting firm Leon Strategies. The consulting firm has worked with Republican campaigns along with the Texans for Opportunity and Prosperity PAC, which received tens of thousands of dollars from the resort company Las Vegas Sands.
Las Vegas Sands wanted a zoning change approved in Irving earlier this year to allow for a destination resort with a casino gaming element. (De Leon has not responded to 四虎影院鈥檚 requests for comment.)
While the Families for Irving PAC does not have an official stance on casino gaming, its candidates were vocal in their opposition to Las Vegas Sands.
Although casino gambling would have to be legalized at the state level before any decisions happened in the city, Porres said he was against the concept in Irving should it become legal.
"If we let this casino come in, it's going to fundamentally change the character of our city," Porres previously told 四虎影院. "These billionaires are very much attacking the middle class because that's the group that gets most impacted by a casino, from a data point of view, but it would undermine our local sovereignty here."
Porres linked his opponent's less vocal opposition to the casino as the reason why the Lone Star Conservative Action Fund paid for campaign signs in support of Pfaff.
But Pfaff told 四虎影院 he did not know who the Lone Star Conservative Action Fund was and that no one on his team had coordinated with them. And while Pfaff has said the casino issue is not an immediate city issue, he would leave it to residents to ultimately decide.
"This should go to a vote of the Irving citizens at the appropriate time when we know if it's even legal from the state Texas and what does that even entail," Pfaff said. "We don't zone for other illegal things at this point, so I'm not sure what we would do until we figure out what the state of Texas is going to do."
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