Three incumbents and one newcomer on the Falls Church City Council ballot were elected yesterday (Tuesday), while the winner of the final seat on the School Board hangs in the balance.
Challenger Arthur Agin prevailed in the City Council race, as did incumbents Laura Downs, Marybeth Connelly and David Snyder. Agin will take the seat of Debora Schantz-Hiscott, who did not seek re-election, in January.
Downs received 5,147 votes (24.6%), followed by Connelly at 4,404 (21.1%), Snyder at 4,161 (19.9%) and Agin at 3,304 (15.8%), according to preliminary figures released by election officials Tuesday night. Challengers James Thompson, Jr., and Brian Pendleton received 2,060 votes (9.9%) and 1,631 votes (7.8%), respectively.
For School Board, challenger MaryKate “MK” Hughes led the field with 4,498 votes, or 23.3%. She was followed by incumbents Anne Sherwood at 3,925 votes (20.3%) and Lori Silverman at 3,820 votes (19.8%).
For the fourth and final seat on the 2024 ballot, incumbent Kathleen Tysse held a 56-vote lead — 3,475 votes (18%) to 3,419 (17.7%) — over challenger Sharon Mergler in election night results.
“We’re probably going to have a recount,” city registrar David Bjerke said at today’s Electoral Board canvass of the vote totals.
The final results in the School Board race won’t be known until Wednesday, Nov. 12, when the Electoral Board adds in provisional and mail-in ballots. Collectively, that could add up to 150 ballots, causing the differential between Tysse and Mergler to tighten or expand.
If Tysse and Mergler end up separated by less than 1% of the total School Board vote, the candidate with the lower vote total could seek a recount.
While the School Board race is providing a political nail-biter, the victorious Democratic candidates for statewide office didn’t have much trouble running up big margins in the city:
- Abigail Spanberger received 84.5% of the vote for governor
- Ghazala Hashmi garnered 81.9% of the vote for lieutenant governor
- Jay Jones picked up 77.6% of the vote for attorney general
In the 13th District House of Delegates race, incumbent Democrat Marcus Simon garnered 82% of the vote in the city, with Republican Sylwia Olesky picking up 15% and Libertarian Dave Crance, Jr., 3%. Simon’s success in Falls Church somewhat outperformed his results in the Fairfax County portion of the 13th District.
Three constitutional officers were running unopposed in Falls Church. Matt Cay received 98.5% of the vote for Sheriff, Tom Clinton 99.1% for Commissioner of Revenue and Jody Acosta also 99.1% for Treasurer.
Turnout in Falls Church was about 66% of the city’s approximately 11,000 active voters and 63% of all registered voters. The Saturday before Election Day, 563 Falls Church voters cast early ballots at City Hall, believed to be the highest one-day total for early voting in the city.
On Election Day, one voter did become incensed by Virginia’s voter-identification rules when casting her ballot at the Falls Church Community Center, but otherwise things “went fairly well,” Bjerke told ARLnow.
Several days before Election Day, the Electoral Board and elections staff had made the decision to move the Nov. 4 voting at the Oak Street Elementary School ward from the school’s main building to a trailer on the school grounds. There had been concerns about the impacts of minor flooding at the school on voter accessibility.
“By and large, everything was fine” with the location switch, Electoral Board secretary Renee Bergmann Andrews said.
The November 2025 election will be the last on the Electoral Board for Andrews, who is moving outside the city. The Falls Church Democratic Committee will recommend names of potential successors to the Circuit Court, which will appoint a member from that party to fill out her term.
The election of Spanberger as governor means that, across the commonwealth, the next Republican member of each local electoral board whose term expires will be replaced by a Democrat. In Falls Church, that will not impact the status of Republican board members Alan Wisdom and Art DeCelle until January 2027.
