Fort Smith, Arkansas, will return to the polls on December 1, 2026, to choose its next mayor, after none of the seven candidates in the November 3 general election won the outright majority needed to settle the race in a single round. City Director Christina Catsavis finished first, and Daniel Williams finished second, and the two will now face each other in a runoff that will decide who succeeds Mayor George McGill, who did not seek reelection after two four-year terms. The runoff winner is expected to take office on January 1, 2027, although the job itself is about to change in a deeper way than a simple change of occupant, because voters on the same November ballot also approved a sweeping change in how Fort Smith is governed.
That combination — a competitive mayoral runoff, a newly reshaped city council, and a voter-approved move toward a mayor-council system — makes the December vote more than a routine second round. It is the closing chapter of one local election cycle and, at the same time, the opening chapter of a two-year transition that will eventually give the elected mayor far more direct executive authority than the office holds today. For residents, the practical questions are familiar ones: which candidate has the better plan for streets, water and sewer systems, police and fire services, and the city budget, and which one can work with a board that will itself include new members. For the candidates, the challenge is different and narrower: in a runoff held just days after Thanksgiving, with no statewide races left on the ballot, they must persuade voters who backed five eliminated candidates to come back and choose again, and they must do it in a shorter, quieter campaign than the one that just ended.
All of the first-round figures reported here remain unofficial until they are certified, and that caution matters. Local reporting has consistently described the November 3 results as unofficial, drawn from Sebastian County returns, and the runoff pairing itself is presented as the expected outcome of those returns rather than a certified final result. Voters, candidates and newsrooms alike will be watching the certification step, but the shape of the race is already clear: a first-place finisher with a lead of just under nine percentage points over second place, a large pool of voters whose first choice is no longer in the race, and a December electorate that is widely expected to be smaller than the November one.
Fort Smith mayoral runoff results: how the first round ended
According to Sebastian County’s final unofficial election results as reported locally, Christina Catsavis led the seven-candidate field with 7,091 votes, or about 35 percent, while Daniel Williams finished second with 5,273 votes, or about 26 percent. A total of 20,276 votes were cast in the mayoral race, putting Catsavis 1,818 votes ahead of Williams. Because neither candidate cleared 50 percent, the top two advanced to the December 1 runoff under the city’s election rules.
Behind them, the rest of the field split the remaining vote in a way that explains why the runoff campaign will be fought so hard over endorsements and second choices. Shayne McKinney finished third with 3,604 votes, or about 17.8 percent, followed by Ward 2 City Director Lee Kemp with 2,825 votes, or about 13.9 percent. The other three candidates shared the remainder. That distribution means roughly two out of every three voters who took part in the mayoral race did not vote for either runoff finalist as a first choice, although some of those voters may of course have had a runoff finalist as a second preference all along. It also means that the December result will depend less on repeating November’s vote than on winning over people who, only a few weeks ago, preferred someone else.
The local significance of the first round goes beyond the mayoral contest itself. Reporting on the election has described it as the first contested November general election for Fort Smith mayor since 2010, when Sandy Sanders defeated incumbent Ray Baker. That framing helps explain the energy around the race: after years in which the mayoral contest did not follow this pattern, voters were presented with a genuinely open seat, a seven-person field, and a ballot question about the structure of city government itself. Turnout in a runoff is a separate question, and one candidate has already publicly expected it to be lower in December, precisely because the statewide contests that helped draw voters in November will no longer be on the ballot. Lower turnout does not make a runoff less legitimate, but it does make each vote proportionally more influential, and it raises the stakes for the ground campaign: phone calls, door-knocking, community meetings and early-voting reminders matter more when the electorate shrinks.
There is also a calendar effect that both campaigns must manage. The runoff falls on December 1, just days after the Thanksgiving holiday, a period when many households are travelling, hosting family, or simply tuned out of politics. One campaign has already signalled that it expects to keep campaigning through the holiday period rather than pausing. The other will face the same calculation. In practical terms, voters in Fort Smith should expect runoff messaging to continue through late November, and they should check their polling place and voting hours early rather than assuming that the November arrangements carry over unchanged.
Who are Christina Catsavis and Daniel Williams
Christina Catsavis comes to the runoff as a sitting member of the Fort Smith Board of Directors, where she has served for four years as an at-large director. She is a graduate of Southside High School in Fort Smith and has presented herself throughout the campaign as deeply rooted in the city. Her record on the board, as described in local campaign coverage, centres on resisting deficit spending, opposing cuts to police and fire services, and pushing for guardrails around capital spending. She has argued that the city reached an operationally balanced budget for 2026 before later spending decisions put pressure on that balance, and she has said that maintaining a balanced budget would remain a priority if she becomes mayor.
On policy, Catsavis has emphasised reinvestment in ageing infrastructure and in city employees, a stronger voice for small businesses in city government, and financial decisions made with the next generation in mind. Among her specific proposals reported during the campaign are the creation of a Small Business Council and the conversion of the mayor’s assistant position into a small business liaison who could help businesses navigate permitting and zoning. She has also spoken about the mayor’s most visible current responsibility, presiding over Board of Directors meetings, and has argued that more consistent adherence to formal meeting procedure could lower the temperature of meetings that she has described as unnecessarily contentious. Under the current city administrator form of government, the mayor presides over board meetings but does not vote, while holding veto authority that five or more directors can override, so the tone and conduct of those meetings are a real part of the job, not a cosmetic detail.
Daniel Williams presents a contrasting profile. He is not a sitting city director, and he has campaigned as an outsider to the board’s day-to-day politics, arguing that Fort Smith needs long-term vision and leadership rather than only competent administration of its existing operations. Williams, a pastor who has lived in Fort Smith since 2008, has said he first became involved in city government about three and a half years ago, when proposed increases in water rates prompted him to attend a Board of Directors meeting because he wanted to understand how higher utility bills would affect struggling families he had encountered through his ministry. That origin story has shaped his campaign’s emphasis on household costs, transparency and the lived experience of residents in neighbourhoods that feel overlooked.
Williams has put particular weight on what he describes as a systems problem inside city government. In campaign material and interviews reported locally, he has pointed to a city workforce turnover rate of roughly one in five employees each year, arguing that constant rehiring and retraining slows repairs, stalls permits and drains institutional knowledge. He has set out a goal of reducing that turnover rate substantially within two years, and he has proposed a public, multi-year capital plan that would inventory major city assets, rank projects by safety, condition, legal obligation, reliability, cost and impact, and attach named owners, milestones, estimated costs and confirmed funding sources to each one. He has also highlighted water infrastructure and the federal wastewater consent decree as major challenges, noting estimates presented to the board in 2025 that put the combined cost of a new large water transmission line and an upgrade to the Lake Fort Smith Water Treatment Plant in the hundreds of millions of dollars. For Williams, the argument is that Fort Smith cannot make credible long-term decisions about such projects without a published plan that residents can check.
Fort Smith mayoral runoff issues: spending, safety and infrastructure
The issues that dominated the first round are unlikely to change much in the runoff, because they are the issues that Fort Smith residents live with every day. At a mayoral forum held at the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith in October, six of the seven candidates took part, and the discussion ranged across city spending, public safety funding, the city’s investment in Parrot Island Waterpark, the proposed change in the form of government, and the use of automated licence-plate cameras. Catsavis used that forum to argue for zero-based budgeting, under which departments would have to justify their spending from scratch rather than starting from the previous year’s budget, and she said the process could identify programmes that are not producing results and redirect resources toward police and fire services. She pointed to morale in police and fire departments as a concern and argued that the city needs to take care of the people who take care of residents.
Other candidates at the forum emphasised the need to balance competing demands — police, fire, parks, streets, water and sewer infrastructure — while weighing the return on each investment, and they debated whether one-time funding should be used for capital improvement projects. The Parrot Island spending became a concrete flashpoint in that debate: local reporting has set out three board-approved expenditures totalling about 6.6 million dollars for the waterpark expansion, including an initial slide purchase, the city’s assumption of the county’s share of the project, and installation, pumps and piping. Catsavis voted against each of those measures, while Kemp, another candidate, voted for all three, and McKinney challenged that record during the forum. Voters in the runoff will not be relitigating the waterpark vote in isolation, but the exchange illustrates a broader divide that the runoff will test: how sceptical should the city be about large discretionary capital projects when core infrastructure and public safety budgets are under pressure?
Public safety itself is a second fault line. Fort Smith’s fire service saw seven vacant firefighter positions eliminated as part of the city’s 2026 budget reductions, although no firefighters were laid off, and that distinction — between vacant posts and serving staff — has been part of the local debate about what budget restraint really means. Candidates have also discussed police funding, the condition of roads, drainage and sewer systems, and the pace of work on projects that residents can see, such as street repairs and neighbourhood clean-ups. Williams has pointed to a specific example that he says illustrates the planning problem: the city bought property for a south Fort Smith police precinct for about 2.85 million dollars in 2024, studied it, and then the board voted in August to sell it, even as the police chief was reported as saying there was no secondary site and growth was moving south. Whether voters agree with his interpretation or not, the example captures a frustration that both runoff candidates, in different ways, have tried to address: residents want to see a plan, a timetable and a result, not a series of disconnected decisions.
Economic development forms the third strand of the runoff debate. Catsavis has argued that major employers matter but that smaller businesses deserve a stronger voice, while Williams has pointed to downtown Fort Smith, the United States Marshals Museum and the Unexpected mural project as assets that could support a broader strategy, and to Chaffee Crossing and activity associated with Ebbing Air National Guard Base as sources of future growth. He has also identified regulations and administrative requirements as potential obstacles for business and property owners, and he has linked issues such as foster care, homelessness and involvement with the criminal justice system to a need for greater cooperation among local organisations. The runoff campaign is therefore not only a choice between two individuals but a choice between two theories of how a mid-sized Arkansas city grows: one rooted in board experience, budget discipline and incremental reinvestment, and the other rooted in published long-term plans, workforce stability and a more systematic approach to capital spending.
Fort Smith Board of Directors results and the government-change vote
The mayoral runoff is not the only outcome from November 3 that will shape Fort Smith’s next two years. In the Board of Directors races, Krystal Cadelli won the at-large Position 5 seat with 9,195 votes, or about 50.9 percent, securing the seat without a runoff, and Casey Millspaugh won the Position 6 seat with 8,970 votes, or about 51 percent, also without a runoff. Cadelli will succeed Catsavis in the at-large Position 5 seat if Catsavis moves to the mayor’s office, and Millspaugh’s win adds another new director to the board. Both new directors are expected to take office on January 1, 2027, alongside the runoff winner.
Those board results matter for the runoff because the mayor, under the current system, must work with the board rather than around it. Endorsements have already begun to reflect that reality: in the days after the first round, Catsavis secured endorsements from former mayoral candidate Shayne McKinney, who finished third, and from City Director-elect Casey Millspaugh, while other first-round candidates were still considering their positions. Williams, for his part, has argued that his message — no new taxes, a written plan for every ward, responsible budgeting and real transparency — resonated across the city and will carry him to victory on December 1. Voters should treat endorsements as signals, not as transfers of votes: a third-place candidate’s supporters do not automatically follow an endorsement, and in a low-turnout runoff, personal contact and local organisation often matter as much as a public statement.
The most consequential vote on the November ballot, however, may have been the one that was not about a person at all. Fort Smith voters overwhelmingly supported changing the city’s form of government, approving a proposal to replace the administrator form of government with a mayor-council system by 14,322 votes to 5,863 votes, or about 71 percent in favour against about 29 percent opposed, according to final unofficial results reported locally. The margin was 8,459 votes. The proposal reached voters after a petition drive submitted signatures on August 3, and the city clerk certified the petition as sufficient on August 18 after finding enough valid signatures to meet the statutory requirement of 2,607 qualified electors.
Under the mayor-council system, the elected mayor will become the city’s chief executive, responsible for administering city government, rather than leaving day-to-day management to an appointed city administrator who currently oversees a budget of more than 300 million dollars and more than 1,000 city employees providing safety, sanitation, water, sewer and other services to a city of about 90,000 people. But the change will not take effect immediately. Fort Smith will continue operating under its current system during a two-year transition period, with elections for officials under the mayor-council system scheduled for November 2028 and the new government taking effect on January 1, 2029. That means the winner of the December 2026 runoff will initially serve under the existing city administrator system, and will not serve a full four-year term in the traditional sense before the new system begins. For voters, the practical implication is worth stating plainly: the December runoff chooses the mayor who will lead the city through the transition, set its tone, and help shape the institutions that will follow, even though the formal powers of the office will change midway through that period.
What comes next for Fort Smith voters
Between now and December 1, the runoff campaign will narrow to a head-to-head contest, and voters can expect the two candidates to sharpen the contrasts that were already visible in the first round. Catsavis is likely to lean on her board record, her opposition to deficit spending and to the waterpark expenditures, and her argument that experience and budget discipline are what the transition period requires. Williams is likely to lean on his outsider case, his published budget analysis, his multi-year capital plan proposal, and his argument that the city needs a written plan for every ward and a more transparent way of making decisions. Both will need to address the same immediate concerns — roads, water, sewer, police and fire staffing, and the cost of living for households facing higher utility bills — and both will need to explain how they would work with a board that includes new members and, eventually, under a new form of government.
For residents who did not vote in November, or who voted for an eliminated candidate, the runoff is a second opportunity to influence the city’s direction, and local election officials will publish the usual practical details about polling places, early voting and identification requirements closer to the date. Voters should check those details through official Sebastian County and City of Fort Smith channels rather than relying on social media summaries, because runoff logistics can differ from general-election logistics. They should also remember that the November results, including the government-change vote, remain unofficial until certified, and that the runoff result itself will likewise be unofficial on election night before certification follows.
The broader lesson of the Fort Smith race, for observers of American local politics, is that the most important elections are often the ones that attract the least national attention. No national party leader has made Fort Smith a talking point, and no cable news debate has been devoted to its water transmission line or its board meeting procedures. Yet the decisions that the next mayor and board will make — about a water system that may cost hundreds of millions of dollars to expand, about police and fire staffing, about whether small businesses get a real hearing at city hall, and about how a new mayor-council government should actually work — will affect daily life in Fort Smith far more directly than most of the races that dominated national headlines on November 3. The December 1 runoff, quiet as it may be compared with the general election, is where those decisions begin to take shape, and that is why the turnout question matters so much: in a smaller electorate, the voters who do show up will have an outsized say in who leads the city into its new form of government.
Sources
USN reviewed reporting from multiple outlets for this story. Read more from Talk Business & Politics, Talk Business & Politics and Southwest Times Record.