Victoria Farrar-Myers wins Arlington City Council runoff with ‘humbling’ turnout
Victoria Farrar-Myers will continue to represent the Arlington residents as the at-large District 7 City Council member, defeating first-time candidate Antoine Lane in Tuesday’s runoff.
Farrar-Myers received 7,386 votes, or 81.96%, while Lane received 1,626, or 18.04%, according to unofficial county election results.
While the turnout was a fraction of the over 100,000 ballots cast in the November general election, more people voted in the Council runoff than they have in past general elections.
“It was humbling,” Farrar-Myers said, to see the runoff results. “I’m so proud of Arlington for the turnout.”
Farrar-Myers ran her campaign on strengthening neighborhoods, improving streets and transportation, fostering small business development, responsible use of taxpayer dollars and support for public safety officers.
Headed into her third and final term allowed under city term limits, Farrar-Myers said she will focus on coronavirus recovery, listening to residents’ concerns and fortifying neighborhoods. She is also looking forward to the report from the city’s Unity Council outlining challenges and recommendations to creating equity in Arlington.
“I know we’ll have to roll up our sleeves and there’s a lot of work we’ll have to do,” Farrar-Myers said. “I think it’s important that a city like ours that’s rapidly growing and rapidly changing, continue to engage our community in a conversation about what’s happening.”
Since capturing 47.66% of the vote in the city’s most crowded general election, Farrar-Myers said she treated the runoff as a separate race by revisiting voters and asking them to return to the polls.
“I ran a whole complete other campaign where I took nothing for granted,” she said. “It didn’t matter how I did in November.”
Meanwhile, Lane campaigned largely on reparations for Black residents in form of a $500 million economic development package. He also advocated for city transportation to Arlington and surrounding cities and improved quality of education.
Lane said in a phone interview he will continue to advocate for those platforms. He said regardless of numbers, his campaign educated people on racism in the city, as well as motivated them to become involved in local government.
“I figured that it would be hard to win an election just with a Black agenda,” he said.
Lane faced criticism for his platforms, which some said were an attempt to divide Arlington. Tarrant County Republican Party chairman Rick Barnes wrote in an email to members that Lane “is a Marxist BLM radical who supports segregating the community by race and wants to defund the police entirely.”
“BLM,” or Black Lives Matter, references the social justice movement that became a rallying cry during protests for police reform over the summer in the wake of George Floyd’s killing.
Lane said he is neither a Marxist, nor is he affiliated with Black Lives Matter. And despite some voters’ calls and messages decrying his plans, Lane said he will never change his goals.
“There’s no way to infiltrate a system if I have to pander to voters who hate me and hate my people,” Lane said.
This story was originally published December 9, 2020 at 1:01 PM.
