Arlington elects Jason Shelton as next District 8 council member with more than 60% in runoff

by James Hartley | KERA News and Chris Moss, Arlington Report
June 13, 2026

UT Arlington professor Jason Shelton will be Arlington’s next City Council District 8 representative after securing more than 60% of the vote in a runoff election Saturday, according to unofficial results.

Shelton faced Melody Fowler, an Arlington ISD trustee, and claimed a lead in early voting he carried through the night.

Unofficial results show 9,225 ballots cast in the runoff election.

Shelton’s support in early voting would have been enough to win him the election — there were 3,701 early ballots cast for Shelton compared to Fowler’s total vote count of 3,444.

The two failed to surpass the 50% threshold during the May 2 election, with Fowler receiving roughly 46.9% of the vote and Shelton receiving roughly 38.3%. The race originally had three candidates, with realtor Corey Harris receiving roughly 14.8% of votes.

Early voting numbers were released when polls closed at 7 p.m. All eligible Arlington residents were able to vote in the election, because the seat is one of three at-large council positions. 

There was a total of 28 voting locations across the city.

Got a tip? Email James Hartley at [email protected]. You can follow James on X @ByJamesHartley.

Chris Moss is a reporter for the Arlington Report. Contact him at [email protected].

This article first appeared on Arlington Report and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.