Del Rio mayoral race heads to runoff, three council seats decided
Del Rio’s mayoral race moved to a runoff as Arreola led Valdez and DeReus, while Briones, Reyes and Hernandez won three council seats.
Outside the Val Verde County Courthouse, friends, family members and supporters waited as county election staff read off the first unofficial Del Rio results, and the stakes were immediate: the mayor’s race was headed to a runoff while three city council seats were decided the same night. The outcome will shape who steers city services, public safety priorities and the tone of City Hall over the next term.
The early count put incumbent Mayor Al Arreola first with 829 votes, followed by Efrain V. Valdez with 792 and Jim DeReus with 775. Val Verde County Clerk Teresa Esther Chapoy said 1,910 of 21,422 registered voters cast early ballots in person at the Del Rio Civic Center, and 133 absentee ballots were cast in the city election. In a race this tight, every ballot mattered, and the county’s preliminary reconciliation document warned that the unofficial totals could still change once provisional votes, mail ballots and additional reconciliation were added.
The city had already set the calendar for this contest in Ordinance No. O: 2025-108, approved Dec. 16, 2025. Filing for mayor, District 1, District 2 and At-Large Place C ran from Jan. 14 to Feb. 13, 2026, and the ordinance set June 13, 2026, as the runoff date if needed. That means Del Rio is now heading into a second round of voting with the mayor’s office still undecided and the final count still carrying real weight.
Arreola entered the race with a long local record, including service on the San Felipe Del Rio Consolidated Independent School District board, the Del Rio City Council, the Del Rio Economic Development Corporation and the Val Verde Regional Medical Center Board. The field also reflected other forms of local credibility, with Valdez running as a former mayor and former Val Verde County judge, and DeReus as the city’s District 2 council representative and mayor pro-tem. The result made clear that Del Rio voters were weighing experience inside several of the city’s key institutions, not just party labels or campaign slogans.
The council races were decided outright. LeRoy Briones won At-Large Place C, Elsa Reyes won District 1 and Leno Hernandez Jr. won District 2. Briones defeated a sitting council member and a former councilwoman, while Reyes and Hernandez prevailed in their own contested races, giving Del Rio a new council makeup even as the mayor’s contest continues. That matters in a city where Val Verde County’s November 2025 election results showed 30,239 registered voters and 3,431 ballots cast, a reminder that municipal races can turn on a relatively small number of votes but still determine who will control the next round of local decisions.
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