On a January night on Austin’s 37th Street, neighbors gathered to count the final ballots and swear in a new mayor. The mayor-elect didn’t give an acceptance speech — instead, he barked.
Mo Bamba — a 25-pound pug-chihuahua mix with a prominent underbite — was sworn in as the new mayor of 37th Street, following the neighborhood’s fourth annual pet election that drew more than 12,000 votes. This year’s three-week campaign period was grueling, and Mo won by 130 votes, becoming the first dog elected mayor of the street.
His campaign slogan: “He won’t just fight for you, he will bark at you.”
“It was excitement and a bit of relief when he won,” said Spencer Schumacher, Mo’s owner and campaign manager. “That last night I was worried, hoping we were going to keep the lead.”
The annual pet election began as a playful neighborhood tradition four years ago, designed to draw attention to Austin’s upcoming human mayoral runoff election amid a season of notably low voter turnout.
“We were brainstorming ways to get people to go vote for mayor,” said Maddy Braat, who has lived on 37th Street for nine years. “We were like, ‘We should just simulate the election with pets.’”
They did not realize how heated the contest would become with campaigns, countercampaigns, smear campaigns and down-to-the-wire ballot counting.
The street is famous for its annual Christmas light display, a tradition that began in 1979. Every house on the block puts up unusual and eye-catching holiday decorations, attracting thousands of visitors each year with the motto, “The weirdest lights you will see this holiday season.”
“There’s the whole ‘Keep Austin Weird’ motto, and the Christmas lights on 37th Street honor that,” Braat said.
In December 2022, Braat and her neighbors held the first pet election during the light display, taking advantage of the event’s strong attendance. They decorated one house with a “North Poll” theme and began accepting votes. Any pets — living or stuffed — could run.
“They have to submit a photo and three things they’d like to do as mayor, and then they are in the process,” Braat said. “Our campaign filing is very simple.”
The lights go up the second week of December, and that’s when the campaign season begins. There is a three-week voting period, when people of all ages can cast a ballot.
“We try to keep the barriers as low as possible,” Braat said. “We just ask that you only vote once. We do investigate some voter fraud attempts.”
This year, there were six contenders in the pet election: Mo Bamba, Zapp (incumbent, a cat), Biscuit (a cat), Olive and Willie (a cat duo), Junior (a stuffed animal) and Benji (a cat).
“This was the first year that a dog ran, so it was a pretty big deal,” said Braat, adding that her own cat, Zapp — a self-described “pawgressive” — won the previous two elections.
Mo Bamba’s campaign platform was focused on improving the street, including installing fire hydrants at every house. He also vowed to give government contracts to anyone who would play fetch with him.
Schumacher and his wife, Erin, moved to 37th Street in September. When they heard about the pet election, they eagerly signed up Mo Bamba to participate.
“As a dog owner, I didn’t like that we were always being represented by a cat,” Schumacher said. “I wanted to step up and have a dog in the race.”
He and his wife adopted Mo Bamba from a rescue shelter in Round Rock, Texas, in 2023, when he was a few months old. They named him Mo Bamba, inspired by the popular song by Sheck Wes, which takes its name from NBA player, Mohamed Bomba.
During the short campaign season, people plastered the neighborhood with posters, and some candidates hit the streets to meet constituents.
“You could not walk an inch on our block without running into a campaign poster,” Schumacher said. “People loved the signs so much, they kept getting stolen.”
Mo Bamba captured a bunch of votes by charming constituents as he played fetch — his favorite activity — on his front yard every night with people came to see the lights.
“People loved that,” Schumacher said. “That was our secret sauce.”
This year, voter turnout was more than double what it was in previous years. Neighborhood organizers count the votes as they come in.
“Anyone who doesn’t trust our work is welcome to go count themselves,” Braat said, noting that the winner has no official mayoral duties during the year.
At times, the line to vote was 20 minutes long.
“You had kids begging their parents to wait in line so they could vote,” Schumacher said. “That was a really special experience to see the next generation of people fall in love with voting.”
When it was clear Mo was taking a lead, his opponents started jokey smear campaigns. His competition put up posters that said: “MO BOMBA WILL POOP IN YOUR YARD.”
Still, he was able to eek out a win. Neighbors counted the final votes on a porch on Jan. 6, and Mo was named mayor. The win was first reported by KUT News.
Schumacher gave an acceptance speech on his pooch’s behalf, declaring that Mo’s first order of business will be an attempt to install fire hydrants in front of every house on the block.
“Every dog deserves to pee on a fire hydrant,” Schumacher said.
Since the election, Schumacher said people often stop Mo when they’re out on walks.
“People recognize him and say, ‘Is that Mo Bamba? Can I meet the mayor?” Schumacher said.
Although the human mayoral elections aren’t until 2028 in Austin, the state’s primary elections are coming up in March.
There was a notable increase in voter turnout between the 2022 and 2024 mayoral elections — from 47.75 percentof registered voters in 2022 to 91.42 percent in 2024. The presidential election likely played a role, but organizers of the pet election on 37th Street like to think, perhaps, they played a small part, as well.
“I hope we got a lot of people thinking about voting,” Braat said.
The post After a hard-fought campaign, Austin neighborhood elects a canine mayor appeared first on Washington Post.
