IRVING — Voters elected David Pfaff to an at-large City Council seat during Saturday’s runoff, according to unofficial final returns, capping a race powered by outside spending and viewed by some as a proxy fight over the future of gambling in Texas.
The high-dollar race for District 2 pitted two political newcomers: Pfaff, a retired business owner and former chamber of commerce chairman who says he doubts gambling will ever be legalized, and Sergio Porres, an IT consultant who built his campaign around opposing the Las Vegas Sands Corp. proposal to build a casino resort in Irving.
Speaking to supporters at his election returns watch party, Pfaff credited volunteers for helping carry him to victory and thanked supporters, including the Irving Professional Fire Fighters Association.
“I didn’t feel like I was ever alone,” Pfaff said late Saturday, addressing dozens of people at a Las Colinas Country Club ballroom. “I didn’t feel like the weight of the world was on my shoulders because I had the weight of you with me the whole way — and it was a beautiful time for me.”
He ended his speech with two words: “Thank you.”
Unofficial early voting returns showed Pfaff leading Porres by about 160 votes — a margin that widened as Saturday’s ballots were counted. Final unofficial returns saw Pfaff with 53% of the vote to Porres’ 47%, the margin growing to more than 500 votes.
A few miles away from the country club, Porres attended a watch party at the home of an editor for Blaze Media, a conservative news outlet. A reporter from The Dallas Morning News was not allowed to attend.
In a statement through a campaign official early Sunday, Porres said the coalition of families, faith communities and residents that backed his candidacy had worked to “protect our city from casino interests and stand for values that matter.”
“We may not have won the seat, but like Las Vegas Sands isn’t backing down, neither are we,” the statement reads. “This movement is only growing, and we’re just getting started.”
Campaign finance disclosures for Pfaff and Porres, political action committees, and “dark money” groups — organizations that are not required to disclose the source of their funds — show that the race drew attention outside Irving.
The full scope of spending will not be clear until after the final filing deadline, but past disclosures have shown that political groups poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the District 2 race and the two others for council contests, decided in May.
Resort proposal drew reaction at City Hall, eyes on races
The impetus for much of the political spending appears to be a proposal by Las Vegas Sands Corp. to build a “destination resort” near the former Texas Stadium site, a key location that has been unused for years.
The proposal, unveiled earlier this year, drew opposition by the hundreds to city meetings where officials were considering a zoning amendment that included provisions for gambling.
The pushback, in part, led the casino giant to ask the City Council to strip the gambling portion from the proposal. The amended ordinance then passed in two separate 6-3 votes.
Miriam Adelson, whose family owns Las Vegas Sands casinos and bought a majority stake in the Dallas Mavericks in 2023, has poured millions in political donations into Texas in a push to legalize gambling — which fell short of winning lawmakers’ support during the 89th Texas Legislature this year.
To change the law, the Legislature would need to place a constitutional amendment on the statewide ballot for voters to decide.
The Sands proposal put renewed attention on the council races. The outgoing District 2 city council member, Brad LaMorgese, did not run for reelection.
During the May election, Pfaff earned 47% of the vote, while Porres received 45%, and a third candidate, Vicky Akinyi Oduk, garnered 5%.
Pfaff secured endorsements from the Irving Professional Fire Fighters Association and the Irving Police Association.
Porres, meanwhile, was endorsed by Oduk and Families for Irving, a local political action committee that supported four of the nine sitting City Council members.
Special interest groups pour money into races
Porres had drawn notable financial backing ahead of the runoff, reporting nearly $110,000 in contributions between April 24 and May 28, the final reporting period before the election.
The filing shows more than half of that total, $65,000, came from two political action committees tied to Tim Dunn and Farris Wilks, oil and gas billionaires who have built an influential donor network supporting Republican candidates across the state.
Porres had credited their support for his vocal opposition to the Sands proposal and casino gambling.
Before the May election, Pfaff was backed by Lone Star Conservative Action Fund, a group not required to disclose its donors. It spent more than $160,000 on ads, mailers and signs supporting three candidates, including Pfaff.
Pfaff has said he did not welcome their support and did not know who they were. A phone number listed in a state filing for the group also appears on disclosures filed in Dallas by a registered lobbyist for Las Vegas Sands.
Pfaff has said the City Council should not have considered the ordinance amendment requested by Sands.
Before the June 7 runoff, Texans for Fiscal Responsibility reported spending more than $150,000 for door knockers, printed materials and digital messaging to support Porres and two other candidates running for office in San Antonio, according to disclosures covering the group’s donations for May 4-29.
The group, which grades state lawmakers on their economic policy votes and publishes annual ratings, was closely tied to the now-defunct Empower Texans, a group backed by Dunn and Wilks. It’s not clear in the filing how the contributions were split among the three candidates.