The challenger in the only contested race for a seat on the North Little Rock City Council said he will try to persuade voters in the event the race goes to a runoff Dec. 1, which seems likely.
First-term incumbent Ronald Harris in Ward 3 was ahead of challengers John Parker and Harlan Hunter in unofficial returns after Tuesday's election, but not by a wide enough margin to avoid a runoff with Parker, who was in second place, based on initial results.
Unofficial returns released Tuesday evening showed Harris with 2,394 votes compared with Parker's 1,400 and Hunter's 1,325.
The margin between Harris and Parker appeared to be too small to avoid a runoff, though results from some ballots were still outstanding in the Ward 3 election, according to a North Little Rock official.
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According to Jim Billings, a North Little Rock city spokesman, on Wednesday City Clerk Diane Whitbey was awaiting the results from more than 1,000 provisional ballots in the Ward 3 race.
"Depending on which way the votes go, there may or may not be a runoff," Billings wrote in an email.
An email to Bryan Poe, director of elections for the Pulaski County Election Commission, was not returned Wednesday.
In an interview Wednesday afternoon, Parker said he would try to get Hunter's voters "to at least consider me rather than being totally disenfranchised."
In North Little Rock City Council races with more than two candidates, the first-place candidate must get 40% of votes cast plus 20% more votes than their nearest opponent to win the race outright. Otherwise, the top two candidates have to face each other in a runoff.
Parker, 73, is a former one-term North Little Rock alderman who served from 2005 to 2009 and a frequent candidate in the city's municipal elections.
He ran against Harris, 65, for the open Ward 3 seat in 2016, when Harris defeated him. Parker also sought the North Little Rock mayor's office in 2012, finishing fourth.
Parker works for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette as a digital district manager.
In addition to bringing individuals who cast their vote for Hunter into his column during a potential runoff, Parker said Wednesday that he would try to appeal to newspaper subscribers who, he suggested, "might be more inclined to vote for someone that they've worked with or has worked with them for 32 years than they would be somebody [who is] just a name on a sign somewhere."
Residents who vote during a runoff election will be "highly motivated individuals that have been encouraged to go vote again" because they want to achieve the political goal of getting their candidate in office, Parker said.
He said Wednesday that he had not spoken to Harris or Hunter.
The makeup of the city's government will look different regardless of the outcome of the Ward 3 race in light of the fact that two-term Mayor Joe Smith declined to run for reelection. Tracy Steele, a member of the North Little Rock School Board, and former mayor Terry Hartwick will face off Dec. 1 in a runoff to decide the mayor's race.
Two other members of the eight-member, four-ward City Council were unopposed in Tuesday's election: Maurice Taylor of Ward 2 and Charlie Hight of Ward 4.
Nathan Hamilton, a former employee in the North Little Rock mayor's office, was unopposed in his bid to replace retiring Ward 1 Council Member Beth White.