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ODESSA — When Craig Stoker pulled the flyer out of the mailbox, he chuckled.
It was a political mailer, considered one of many deployed this fall in Odessa, the West Texas metropolis within the coronary heart of the oil-rich Permian Basin.
His opponent, incumbent Metropolis Council member Denise Swanner, in contrast her stance to his. The 2 have been whole opposites apart from the truth that each have been in relationships with males.
It was the most recent try in a Republican stronghold to tie Stoker’s sexual orientation to his assist of the LGBTQ+ group and, by extension, the Democratic Social gathering.
The folks behind the commercial wished voters to elect candidates who superior conservative values, solely this election was imagined to be nonpartisan.
Whereas Stoker and his allies had hoped the native election could be about infrastructure and metropolis companies, his opponent tried to shift the battlefield to nationwide political points. Throughout the nation, Republicans have been working numerous assault adverts on Democrats for his or her assist of transgender folks.
The technique backfired — no less than in Odessa. The three Metropolis Council incumbents misplaced, a surprising outcome that analysts and longtime observers say revealed voters’ need for native elected leaders to concentrate on roads and rubbish decide up, not nationwide flashpoints.
Stoker, the scion of a outstanding Odessa household, turned the primary brazenly homosexual man elected to Odessa’s Metropolis Council. He received his at-large seat with 56% of the vote on the identical time President-elect Donald Trump received all of Ector County with 76% of the vote.
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“At the end of all of this, we are neighbors. You’re electing the people you live with,” Stoker stated. “And no matter what happens, what you say about each other, the energy you put out about each other, you still have to live together.”
Discovering his place
Stoker spent years determining his place on the earth. Like so many sons, he tried to comply with in his father’s footsteps.
Craig Stoker, far proper, and his mom Carole Stoker, middle left, ship a meal to Rosetta Cuba as a part of Meals on Wheels on Dec. 3.
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Julian Mancha for The Texas Tribune
Stoker and his sister have been adopted by Ray and Carole Stoker once they have been infants.
Ray Stoker was a revered legal professional who, in 1985, was appointed chairman of the Texas State Freeway and Public Transportation Fee. He later turned chair of the newly created Texas Division of Transportation, amongst different state appointments.
Like his father, Stoker attended Baylor College. He explored structure, communications and advertising and marketing levels, however none caught. Stoker by no means graduated.
Seven years later, he moved from Waco to Austin. His upbringing, he stated, had ready him to community his means by way of the political realm. He spent a couple of yr on the Capitol as a Senate messenger, fetching lunches and coffees and making copies for legislative aides.
He returned to Odessa in 2010, promoting cell telephones and insurance coverage. In 2014, he volunteered at a at Meals 2 Children, a program that provided meals for college kids. Later, this system’s board members invited him to attend their conferences. That led to a job as govt director. At the moment, Stoker is the chief director for Meals on Wheels in Odessa.
The job with Meals 2 Children, Stoker stated, had been the beginning of the civic engagement he had hunted for years in Austin and Waco however had not discovered.
The job was additionally revealing. He stated he started to note the customarily fraught relationship between enterprise homeowners, builders and the Metropolis Council. The proposal to open a luxurious lodge downtown confronted opposition. Meals truck homeowners needed to soar by way of complicated authorized hoops due to an ordinance that required them to ascertain a kitchen separate from the vans.
Pissed off with the stagnating development in Odessa, Stoker in 2018 ran for an open seat on Metropolis Council. He misplaced the race however was tapped by the winner to serve on a board to revitalize the downtown space.
Craig Stoker, who director of Meals on Wheels Odessa, speaks with employees member Alice Drake on Dec. 3.
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Julian Mancha for The Texas Tribune
Within the following years, Stoker remained civically energetic, performing because the voice that favored business-friendly initiatives and selling arts packages. These positions earned him reward amongst different civic leaders and the ire of conservative native officers.
Whereas he misplaced the race, he remembers it fondly. It had been the final pleasant election he remembers within the metropolis.
Odessa Metropolis Council strikes to the suitable
Two years later, the Odessa Metropolis Council would endure a dramatic transformation. Stoker and his friends have been shocked because the native GOP broke with custom to endorse candidates — Javier Joven, Denise Swanner and Mark Matta — who promised to outlaw abortion journey and different conservative insurance policies that have been exterior the norm of metropolis politics.
The three received, forming a majority on the six-member council. They adopted by way of with their guarantees, making Odessa the primary Texas metropolis to undertake an abortion-related ordinance, however solely after the state adopted its near-total ban. The group additionally had a combative relationship with the enterprise group, typically doubting whether or not initiatives just like the city’s first luxurious lodge have been definitely worth the funding. Additionally they dissolved a bunch liable for selling tourism and banned transgender folks from utilizing public restrooms.
Stoker stated the council’s typically antagonistic positions scared away different residents from participating with the town. He knew the battle to unseat the three members, together with Joven, who was mayor, could be troublesome and doubtlessly soiled.
“I understood the outcome was too important. If I could pull this off, what I would have the ability to do completely outweighed whatever they were slinging at me,” Stoker said. “And the ability to represent people who have probably never had a voice in the City Council chamber became too important to me.”
Native vs. nationwide points
The Ector County Republican Social gathering didn’t endorse any native candidates forward of this fall’s election. Donna Kelm, the native occasion’s new chair, stated that isn’t its position.
Kelm, who additionally presides over the Ector County Republican Ladies’s Membership, added that abortion and LGBTQ points must be left to the state, not the town council.
That didn’t cease native and nationwide politics from echoing one another in Odessa forward of the 2024 election.
Simply because the Republicans throughout america started to assault Democrats for his or her assist of LGBTQ+ folks, Joven and the conservatives on the Metropolis Council launched a proposal to ban transgender folks from utilizing sure restrooms in metropolis buildings.
Stoker confronted the brunt.
Melissa Michelson, dean of arts and sciences at Menlo School in California and a scholar on LGBTQ politics, stated Republican this election assaults have been targeted acutely on transgender points. Certainly, Donald Trump’s marketing campaign spent greater than $19 million on two anti-trans tv adverts, in line with CBS Information.
Landry Pugh and his spouse Christina Pugh marketing campaign on behalf of Metropolis Council incumbent Denise Swanner and different candidates exterior a polling location on Election Day in Odessa.
Credit score:
Eli Hartman
“We saw a lot of that during the 2024 election because public support isn’t quite there,” Michelson stated concerning the transgender group. “And because there’s not as wide a base of public support for transgender people, and because there’s still all these very robust myths circling around about them, it’s easier to attack them.”
The Odessa Accountability Challenge, a web-based publication describing itself as “exposing corruption and abuse of power by local politicians and taxpayer-funded organizations,” commonly criticized Stoker for supporting the LGBTQ group. Jamie Tisdale, who runs the publication, which primarily posts on Fb, additionally criticized any candidate over what they perceived as assist for LGBTQ folks.
“Cal Hendrick and Craig Stoker both promote LGBTQ’s agenda, are pro-abortion, anti-Israel, for gay marriage, and would have you believe the same or be called a hater and a bigot,” one publish stated. Tisdale additionally accused a neighborhood church of selling assist for the city’s LGBTQ group.
In a Fb publish after the election, Tisdale stated she would pray for the winners.
“I will also pray they continue moving this city forward and finish the great things outgoing council left in motion, as well as leaving a positive footprint of their own on a city that we all love and call home,” Tisdale wrote.
Tisdale didn’t reply to a number of requests for remark or interview requests.
One other household supporting the incumbents spent greater than $200,000 — a rare sum of money for a neighborhood election in a metropolis the scale of Odessa — on a political motion committee to rent marketing campaign employees that didn’t dwell in Odessa and marketing campaign on behalf of the candidates they thought of conservative.
Stoker stated he was not stunned by the assaults on his sexual orientation. The assaults on the church and his non secular beliefs — and the sum of money his opponent’s allies spent — stunned him extra.
Marketing campaign flyers for Mayor Javier Joven and Metropolis Council members Mark Matt and Denise Swanner sit on a facet desk inside Casa Ortiz, a neighborhood Mexican restaurant in Odessa. One Odessa household spent greater than $200,000 supporting the incumbent council candidates, hiring marketing campaign employees that didn’t dwell in Odessa and supporting messaging attacking Stoker’s sexual orientation and non secular beliefs.
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Eli Hartman/The Texas Tribune
Centering the controversy round social points could have price the incumbent and their allies the election, stated Craig Emmert, a retired political scientist who taught on the College of Texas Permian Basin.
Emmert stated that voters break up their priorities once they voted for presidential candidates, mayors, and metropolis council members, including that, within the native election, voters didn’t choose candidates out of partisan allegiance. He stated the election’s nonpartisan standing impressed voters to consider points, not events.
“I think the results would have been closer and might have even been different if they were running under partisan labels,” Emmert stated.
Rebuilding Metropolis Corridor
Civic leaders stated they hope that after years of prioritizing social points, the brand new Metropolis Council will tackle rising infrastructure wants and stabilize Metropolis Corridor. They need Odessa, recognized for its blue-collar workforce, to be aggressive and develop its financial system throughout a banner interval for the oil and fuel business.
Within the final two years, points with the town’s ageing water pipes resulted in two citywide outages that left 1000’s with out water. And the town has but to fill the ranks of its workforce, which noticed huge turnover below the final Metropolis Council.
The council’s first precedence can be discovering a everlasting metropolis supervisor tasked with working the town’s day by day operations. The latest metropolis supervisor, John Beckmeyer, employed by the final council, resigned after the election.
Renee Earls, president and CEO of the Odessa Chamber of Commerce, stated the town targeted on maintaining with the oil fields, quickly attracting employees. Now, metropolis leaders should discover methods to persuade employees to remain to bolster the native financial system. Stoker, she stated, has the expertise to cope with these challenges and assist the town develop.
“I think our eyes need to be open, our minds need to be open to moving forward as an overall community to elevate Odessa,” she stated. “We have competition across the state. We have competition across the country, we have competition 20 miles away to the east. So what we do for Odessa helps all of us.”
Craig Stoker at his first Metropolis Council assembly after successful his election. The reconstituted council’s first precedence can be discovering a substitute for the town supervisor who resigned following the election.
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Callie Cummings for The Texas Tribune
Stoker stated he hopes the result of this election evokes extra competitors and debate about on a regular basis points, including the assaults towards his beliefs and sexual orientation have been a distraction.
“None of it was truly about me. It was their fear of losing a seat, losing an election, losing the title,” he stated. “I came into this campaign with the mindset that I’m going to have to rely on the work I’ve done in the community and the reputation I’ve built preceding me. That’s all I got.”
Disclosure: Baylor College has been monetary supporters of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan information group that’s funded partially by donations from members, foundations and company sponsors. Monetary supporters play no position within the Tribune’s journalism. Discover a full record of them right here.
