{"id":36233,"date":"2025-11-05T10:36:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:36:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/36233\/"},"modified":"2025-11-05T10:36:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T10:36:17","slug":"dallas-incumbents-triumph-democratic-challenger-holds-on-for-seeming-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/36233\/","title":{"rendered":"Dallas incumbents triumph, Democratic challenger holds on for seeming win"},"content":{"rendered":"

An election season rankled by partisan controversy and concern over the district\u2019s deficit culminated Tuesday, with Dallas voters appearing to stick with their incumbents, alongside a Democratic challenger, according to results Luzerne County officials posted Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

With all precincts reporting, incumbent Dallas school board members Sherri Newell, Amanda Faneck, Christine Swailes, and Kelley Kavanagh-Watkins held the four top spots with 4,175, 4,122, 4,022, and 3,993 votes respectively.<\/p>\n

All four had won nominations to both the Democratic and Republican party tickets.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am honored and grateful for the support of our (Back Mountain) community,\u201d Newell said Tuesday night via text message. \u201cI am humbled by this opportunity to serve our community. Thank you to everyone who supported me through this journey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"NewellNewell (courtesy of Sherri Newell)<\/p>\n

Democratic nominee Amy Brakefield appears to have won the fifth and final open seat with 3,297 votes \u2013 just defeating Republican nominee Ron Zukosky by a margin of 146. Brakefield built a significant lead with mail-in ballots, leading all Dallas candidates with 1,474.<\/p>\n

This provided her enough of a lead to hold off a late surge from Zukosky, whose Election Day vote total of 2,567 was more than 744 more than that of Brakefield.<\/p>\n

Contacted for comment Tuesday night, Brakefield said she \u201cexhausted but very excited.\u201d<\/p>\n

The election comes as Dallas plans its recovery from a multi-million dollar general fund deficit.<\/p>\n

\"BrakefieldBrakefield (Tia Leigh Photography)<\/p>\n

A recent audit, which examined fiscal year 2024 (i.e. the period of time running from July 1, 2023 to June 30, 2024), found the district\u2019s general fund-balance fell $3.63 million, leaving the it with an unassigned general-fund deficit of $5.49 million, or 12.33% of its $44.57 million in budgeted expenditures in its 2024-25 budget.<\/p>\n

The audit was published after the Dallas school board voted by the thinnest of margins, 5-4, to raise property taxes 4.80%. It was the second consecutive year of tax increases, making for an aggregate two-year tax increase on Dallas homeowners of 9.94%.<\/p>\n

A Dallas electorate ostensibly frustrated by the tax hikes opted to oust one school board incumbent during the primary While all school board candidates have expressed broad opposition to any further tax hikes, the outcome on Election Day could impact what happens with the tax rate in Dallas as it works to navigate its way out of its deficit while mitigating any program cuts.<\/p>\n

Election Day came as the culmination of an election cycle that had turned divisive in Dallas. Several candidates criticized Brakefield for a letter she circulated urging voters to cast ballots for those she identified as registered Democrats in the race \u2013 herself and Swailes, who disavowed the letter. Brakefield has said the letter was a response to expressly partisan, pro-Republican advertisements she had seen. She also asserted that she and her campaign staff had been subjected to intense harassment by supporters of Republican candidates in the race.<\/p>\n

The results are preliminary and uncertified. They could be subject to change as provisional ballots or ballots otherwise not yet canvassed are taken into account.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An election season rankled by partisan controversy and concern over the district\u2019s deficit culminated Tuesday, with Dallas voters…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":9861,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[102,104,103,22899,409,251,7630,223,7631,287,9046],"class_list":["post-36233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-headlines","tag-dallas-news","tag-dallas-township","tag-election","tag-local-news","tag-luzerne-county","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-politics","tag-top-stories-cvc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9861"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}