According to data from the Elections Office, the 2026 city and school elections saw one of the lowest turnouts for a municipal election in Lubbock County. In total, just over 12,000 voters cast a ballot, less than 7% of the registered voters.
The election included races for Lubbock’s mayor and city council districts 1, 3, and 5, mayor of Abernathy, several Lubbock-Cooper ISD trustees, school bonds for Slaton ISD, and several other district and municipal elections.
Within the City of Lubbock, three of the four positions on the ballot remain unchanged in representation.
In District 1, incumbent mayor pro tem Christy Martinez Garcia received 64% approval from central and north Lubbock voters to continue her position on the city council, defeating opponent Pat Kelly.
Meanwhile, in Lubbock’s District 3, voters elected a new council member. Real estate broker and Lubbock County Republican Party chair David Bruegel saw a much narrower margin with 53% in favor to take the city council seat. Just over 200 votes separated Bruegel and his closest opponent, Adam Hernandez.
Outgoing city councilmember for District 3, David Glasheen, chose not to run again after serving his first term.
Incumbent District 5 city council representative Jennifer Wilson ran unopposed.
Facing three opponents, Mark McBrayer held onto his seat for a second term as Lubbock’s mayor.
“I'm looking forward to another two years serving as the mayor of this city that I love so much, disappointed more people didn't show up, but I'm happy with the results,” McBrayer said at the watch party from his home on election night.
He touched on the 70% favorability he saw from the 9,533 ballots cast in Lubbock’s mayoral race this year. “That gives me some confidence that at least the people who come out and vote, hopefully they represent the viewpoint of most of the citizens, they have confidence in how I'm leading the city and the direction we're going.”
As the local elections lead into the summer before budget season, McBrayer said one of the standout lessons from his first term is the challenge of balancing how to keep costs low while still delivering the services that citizens expect.
He touted new large industry projects that have come into discussion for the city, like the Chick-Fil-A Distribution Center announced in March, expected to be completed next year, and downtown redevelopment like the plans for renovation at the Lubbock Memorial Civic Center, as efforts to supplement the taxes local citizens pay and keep the cost of living low in Lubbock.
“We want to attract those kinds of people that will be paying property taxes, ad valorem taxes, so that we can do what we need to do for our citizens and without having to raise taxes on their homes,” McBrayer said.
A controversial new industry in West Texas that has brought a uniquely unifying concern from citizens across political aisles is the development of AI data centers, which have been incentivized with tax breaks from Texas and other states in recent years. McBrayer said that’s a development he’s watching more cautiously.
“We're very cautious about it, skeptical might be the wrong word. It's just that we want answers to questions,” McBrayer said. “The issues are always water usage, utility usage, what kind of abatements are they going to want? How many jobs are they going to bring to your city? Is there enough buffering around them so they're not a nuisance? They're not near neighborhoods. They're not near residences. Those are the kind of things we're looking at.”
McBrayer noted that he’s concerned about the “boom-and-bust” potential of this new AI industry.
Last year, a partnership between Texas Tech University and tech company Fermi America – co-founded by former Governor Rick Perry and Toby Neugebauer, the son of former Lubbock U.S. Representative Randy Neugebauer – announced one of the county’s largest hyperscale AI data center projects to be built outside of Amarillo. But now, Neugebauer has been removed as CEO, and Fermi’s stock price has dropped with no clients taking up the facility.
“We don't want big buildings going up and people saying, ‘oh, we hope somebody fills them up’ and then nothing happens,” McBrayer said. “Who knows where this is going? It may be a very solid thing, but we're gonna ask some serious questions about it. The public will be involved in that. We're not gonna just go vote on something and lay that on the public without their input.”
For the future, McBrayer said one of the things he is most excited about is the continued development of Lake 7, or Jim Bertram Lake, on the southeastern side of the city. McBrayer said the lake will reduce Lubbock’s dependence on groundwater like the Ogallala Aquifer, but he’s anticipating the new development that could come to that side of the city with a recreational draw like Lubbock’s canyon lakes system.
“I would love to see that developed over the next two to four years, because that has real value to, not just to our citizens, but as an attraction,” McBrayer said. “People coming in, they love to run those trails, walk those trails, kayaking, all that kind of stuff. It's a great asset for the city, a recreational asset. We'll have a great lake two and a half times the size of Buffalo Springs right here in our city limits.”
District 3’s new representative, David Bruegel, will join McBrayer, Martinez-Garcia, Wilson, and the rest of the council after results from the May election have been officially certified.