Republicans dominated Tuesday's municipal elections in Fort Wayne, taking all but two of the district seats and sweeping all three at-large positions.
Newly-elected Republican councilman Jason Arp was considered a long shot to win the fourth district against Fort Wayne mainstay Rusty York.
Arp defeated York with slightly more than 400 votes for the District 4 council seat. He’s excited to bring some changes to Fort Wayne through the City Council.
“You know, we’re going to take a good, hard look at the budget to spend the taxpayers’ money a little more effectively and go from there,” Arp said.
Councilman Glynn Hines represents District 6, and was one of two democrats elected for city council seats. He says it will be a struggle to help the mayor accomplish goals.
“But Geoff and I have a plan for how we can reach across the aisles to help this mayor get done what needs to get done, and we’re going to guarantee you that we’re gonna give it 110 percent to make Fort Wayne continue to be the great city that it is,” Hines said.
His fellow Democratic Councilman is Geoff Paddock, who represents District 5. He ran unopposed this election.
Democrat Terry Anderson ran for one of the three at-large city council seats, but came in fourth out of the seven people running.
“Throughout this political season, through candidate forums and interviews, I continued to say I’m not a politician," Anderson said. "I didn’t expect everyone to take that quite so seriously.”
Despite the losses, Democrats said they won’t be discouraged and would continue to play an active role in the Fort Wayne community.
