Harry Truman didn't lose in November 1948, and Barry Brown didn't lose in November 2024, as some reported. Mr. Brown has forced a runoff in the race for Steve Mosley's Maumelle council seat.

Two political rookies will face off on December 3, 2024. Early voting in Maumelle is the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving and Monday, December 2, the day before Election Day.

On November 3, 1948, Harry Truman joyfully displayed an early edition of the Chicago Tribune, which had famously declared that Thomas Dewey had defeated him. Barry Brown (right), one of three candidates for the Ward 1, Position 1, seat on the Maumelle City Council, awoke on November 6, 2024, to find similarly premature news about his race.

By Jay C. Grelen, Arkansas Moniteur

MAUMELLE, Arkansas | November 15, 2024 — At 5:01 p.m. today, Amanda Dickens, Election Coordinator for Pulaski County Board of Election Commissioners made it official: Residents in Maumelle’s Ward 1 will return to the polls on December 2 to pick their new council member.

In order to win outright in the general election, L.J. Wesley needed either 51 percent of the votes cast or more than 40 percent of the votes with a lead of at least 20 percent.

She took 1,176 votes to Barry Brown’s 686. She won by more than 40 percent, but the difference in their totals was only 19.975 percent. One more vote by 5 p.m. Friday, would have given her the win. Instead, she and Mr. Brown will have another go, which means Maumellians have a second chance to make the right choice for city council.

Early voting is November 26, 27, and December 2, at the Jess Odom Center in Maumelle. There will be no early voting in Maumelle the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Arkansas Newsroom flirted with taking the title of the “Chicago Tribune of Arkansas” with its premature and mealy-mouth declaration of the wrong winner of the race for Maumelle City Council, Ward 1, Position 1. The editor qualified the declaration by saying that “as of now” LJ Wesley “has won her race.”