It’s not over yet.
The race for Edinburg mayor will continue after none of the candidates running to lead the city received a majority of the votes in Tuesday’s election, according to results posted by the Hidalgo County Elections Department.
Former Edinburg City Manager Ramiro Garza narrowly led the race with 3,498 votes which amounted to 43.5% of the total vote share. Incumbent Mayor Richard Molina followed with 3,461 votes, or about 43%. The votes are unofficial until certified by the city council.
Molina and Garza will face off against each other in a runoff election to be held next month.
“I’m very grateful to all the people that have voted in the election,” Garza said Tuesday. “I know that we worked really hard to get our message out, to put ourselves out there, to get all the support we can.”
Garza said the election night watch party his campaign held Tuesday doubled as the launch for the final leg of the race, which will focus on getting voters to come out to vote once again.
“My approach is going to continue to reach out to as many people as we can to communicate what our platform is,” Garza said, “which is to bring back trust to our city and adopt a code of ethics for elected officials and initiate a 2040 vision plan for our city and bring about economic opportunities for all our residents.”
Molina did not return calls for comment.
Gilbert Enriquez, the former city council member for Place 2, came in third with 1,081 votes, or about 13.4% of the total votes.
Though disappointed in the results, Enriquez said he felt good about the campaign he ran.
“I ran a different campaign — I didn’t hire any politiqueras, I wasn’t buying people to come and vote for me,” Enriquez said. “I’ve always decided that that’s not the campaign I was going to run.”
“I didn’t block walk, I felt that my messaging was right, I felt that I was targeting the non-voters,” he added. “It’s sad that we’re a population of 100,000 people, only 38,000 city of Edinburg residents are registered and only 7,500 people come out to vote.”
“Am I disappointed? Absolutely. I’m a competitor, I don’t like to lose, but I also am a realist and if this is what the voters wanted then this is what they’re going to get,” he said.
Enriquez said he would continue being involved in the community, hoping to hold elected officials accountable. However, he has no plans to run for elected office anytime soon.
Molina, a former Edinburg police officer, launched a reelection campaign despite being under felony indictment on allegations he masterminded a voter fraud scheme during the 2019 mayoral election in which he defeated then-Mayor Richard Garcia.
As part of his campaign this year, Molina touted the city’s ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic, flooding, and the February freezing temperatures that left residents all over the state without power and water.
He also ran on the city’s efforts to improve streets and drainage, adding that one of the reasons he was seeking reelection was to see drainage projects through.
Enriquez said he was challenging Molina because he hoped to bring transparency and restore integrity to the city.
Garza also pushed for transparency and accountability from elected officials, pledging not to accept campaign contributions from vendors who provide “a direct service” to the city.
Both Garza and Enriquez advocated for lowering the property tax rate, given that property values continue to increase. This year, however, the council voted to maintain the same tax rate. So with property valuations going up, it effectively raised the tax amount residents had to pay.
