Joseph Shepard will be the sole new addition to the Wichita City Council next term, following an election night that saw incumbent members handily defeating their challengers.
Shepard’s win, along with the successful reelection bids of District 3 council member Mike Hoheisel and District 6 member Maggie Ballard, means the council will maintain the current balance between liberal and conservative voices.
“I definitely want people to know that the tears coming down my face at the time the results were named were tears of joy and just happiness of what can happen with the power of hope, help and joy,” Shepard said.
Nearly 15,000 people cast ballots in the city’s three city council races. That turnout was highest in Districts 1 and 6.
District 1
District 1 candidate LaWanda DeShazer ended election night with 2,295 votes to Shepard’s 3,343. Shepard will succeed District 1 council member Brandon Johnson, who did not seek reelection due to council term limits.
DeShazer spent election night surrounded by supporters at the Celebrations Event Center off of 13th Street.
Shortly before polls closed at 7 p.m., DeShazer posted a message to voters in a Facebook live video.
“It’s time to take Wichita in a different direction,” DeShazer said. “I’ve been there, I know what we need.”
Tuesday’s results largely reflected Shepard and DeShazer’s earlier performances in the campaign. Shepard won the District 1 primary in August, rising to the top of a field of five candidates with 48 percent of the vote. DeShazer was the second highest vote getter, with 20 percent of the vote.
Campaign contributions also showed a large difference between the two candidates. Shepard netted more than $72,000 in donations to DeShazer’s $14,000.
Both candidates offered voters policy platforms focused on developing more affordable housing, supporting economic development and improving public safety in the city’s north central district. In the later half of the campaign, campaign finance issues and the support of Wichita’s development community took focus.
Shepard issued refunds to several donors after DeShazer supporters called out donations made over the city’s $500 cap for contributions in the primary and general election periods.
DeShazer also repeatedly called out the number of major developers — like Jay Russell — supporting Shepard’s election bid. She claimed Shepard would be indebted to that support if elected.
In her election night video, DeShazer reiterated those claims.
“There’s a reason why so much money’s been put into this race,” DeShazer said. “It’s not about District 1, because if it was we would have economic development, we would have grocery stores, we’d have the things that we need like everybody else has.”
From his campaign watch party at Revolutsia, Shepard said that his supporters were a diverse group that included “many people who normally don’t pay attention to politics.”
He said he’ll spend the time between November and his swearing-in ceremony in mid-January “listening to the people who didn't vote for me and the concerns that they have, and working to bridge that gap.”
District 3
Hoheisel beat his challenger, Genevieve Howertown, by netting 1,710 of the 2,865 votes cast in the south central Wichita district.
Hoheisel, a small business owner, spent election night with his family and posted a victory Facebook video message to supporters from his living room.
“Thank you to everybody who cast a vote for me,” Hoheisel said. “I appreciate the support. I look at it like four years of hard work.”
Howerton also had a message for his challenger.
“You were brave enough to put your name out there,” Hoheisel said. “That’s not an easy thing, and I thank you for that because that’s how democracy works. And without an exchange of ideas like that we just won’t move forward in the country in any meaningful way.”
This was Howerton’s first city council campaign. Howerton is the daughter of state rep. Cyndi Howerton and the secretary of the Sedgwick County Republican Party.
District 6
Ballard beat challengers Brett Anderson and Margaret Wheeler Shabazz, garnering more than 3,700 votes. The victory means she will have four more years to represent the central district which includes historic neighborhoods like Midtown and Riverside.
Ballard said she sees her reelection as an opportunity to finish several major city projects that are in the works around homelessness and mental health.
From her campaign party at Public, a restaurant in Old Town, Ballard called out some of those projects: Second Light, the homelessness services and shelter; the construction of the new biomedical center downtown and expansion of the ComCare community crisis center.
“We still have a lot of work to do in the mental health area, but I know that we are working really hard on it, and we have a lot of awesome projects in the process,” Ballard said. “We’re just ready to see them be up fully staffed and in full capacity.”
