Watson wins
He never had a real opponent.
The final votes trickled in from Williamson County last night, allowing KXAN to call the race for Mayor Kirk Watson, who finished with 50.004%, avoiding a runoff by 14 votes!
I think Watson would have prevailed in a runoff anyway, but I'm sure the mayor and his team are very relieved to be done with this.
What does Watson's victory mean?
The smallest differences in elections can lead to dramatically different narratives. Trump just beat Kamala Harris by about 1 point nationally and 1-2 points in the swing states but it's being described as a landslide. In contrast, Biden won the popular vote by 4.5% four years ago but, perhaps because it was days before the election was called, the narrative was "holy shit that was close, Trump almost won!! Dems need to wake up!" (For the record, I happened to agree with this narrative)
Likewise, there are a couple different ways to look at Watson's performance. The more optimistic is that he finished 30 points ahead of his nearest competitor and avoided a runoff. The more pessimistic one is that, despite vastly outspending all of his opponents and enjoying the support of the entire local political establishment, he only got 50% of the vote.
