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Jim Arrington defeated Terry Stanford to regain his District 1 council seat in a special election on Tuesday.

Arrington won by a resounding 73-percent margin, earning 1286 votes (86.72%) compared to Stanford’s 197 (13.28%).

On Election Day, with turnout as low as it was, it appeared the election could be either candidate’s race to win, but Arrington’s experience won out in the end. Arrington will return to his former District 1 seat that he resigned to run for mayor.

A total of 1,483 votes were cast in the race out of 9,948 eligible voters, so the race saw a turnout of 14.9%.

“I’m very humbled to say the least, that the voters turned out in the numbers that they did and the percentage that they turned out for me,” Arrington said.

Arrington said winning by such numbers was a huge relief, particularly after coming off a mayoral election that he lost by a few hundred votes.

“Thank you, LaGrange District 1, for turning out for this,” Arrington said.

Arrington thanked Stanford for running a clean campaign.

“Thank you for running a clean race. Hopefully, we can still be friends. I don’t have anything against you, and I’m just glad we ended this away with a good clean race,” Arrington said.

Arrington said he is looking forward to returning to the council and bringing some stability.

“It seems like things are not going as well as it was before I had to leave, but I’m looking forward to getting back on there and hopefully being able to bring some experience and stability,” Arrington said.

Stanford said the race was a learning experience, and he congratulated Arrington on the win.

“I think it’s a good learning lesson for sure. And congratulations to Jim,” Stanford said. “With everything that’s happened, we’ve learned a lot. There’s a lot of things that have happened for the positive out of this whole deal. Now, we just hope that things can change for the city.”