Less than 1.5 percent of Arlington’s electorate took part in voting that likely will determine Arlington’s next two School Board members.
Zuraya Tapia-Hadley and Kathleen Clark came out on top after voting in the Arlington County Democratic Committee’s School Board caucus, and will move on to the general election.
With 862 votes (44.4%), Tapia-Hadley led balloting, followed by Clark at 768 votes (39.6%). Under the ranked-choice-voting rules under which the caucus was held, candidates needed at least 33.3 percent of the vote to win on the first round.
Chen Ling and Larry Fishtahler finished out of the running; their vote totals were not announced by Democratic leaders, but party chair Steve Baker praised “four terrific campaigns, four wonderful and terrific candidates.”
Turnout of 1,941 votes was about 1.2 percent of Arlington’s 160,000 active registered voters, emblematic of a race that was both out of sight and out of mind of the large majority of the county’s residents.
While there likely will be other candidates in the Nov. 5 School Board race, being endorsed by the Arlington County Democratic Committee is all but tantamount to election. No non-Democrat has served on the five-member body in two decades.
Under state law, school board seats are officially nonpartisan, and political parties can’t formally nominate candidates. But they can, and often do, endorse candidacies – which often proves a distinction without a difference.
Current School Board members David Priddy and Cristina Diaz-Torres, whose terms expire Dec. 31, opted not to seek second terms.
