Mayor Stephanie Orman has won another term after defeating challenger Steve Galen.

Tuesday night’s unofficial results show Orman with 54% of the vote. By 11 p.m., Orman had received 11,243 votes, while Galen trailed with 9,560 votes. 

“We ran a positive campaign and we won,” Orman said. “I can’t tell you how proud of that I am. … I really can’t say thank you enough to this community.”

This will mark Orman’s second term — she was first elected mayor in 2018. 

The Bentonville mayor position is four years with no term limits, however, Orman’s first term was extended to six years because a state law moves the mayoral races for cities with at least 50,000 people to the presidential election year cycle. Bentonville broke the threshold with the 2020 census count.

Orman spent more than 20 years in marketing and communications before becoming mayor. She served on the Bentonville City Council from 2015 to 2018. Galen is a retired businessman who moved to Bentonville in 1996.

“I hope it puts pressure on the mayor to actually do the things we haven’t done,” Galen said Tuesday night. “There’s so many things we need to do, and that’s what I’ve been focused on.”

Both candidates framed the election as a decision about how well Orman did in her first term in office.

In her speech announcing a reelection bid, Orman shared a long list of city projects that had been completed — or started — during her time in office, sharing few details on plans for her next four years. During the race Galen was often critical of Orman, assigning a letter grade of “C” to Orman’s administration and saying that traffic and infrastructure had worsened during her time in office. 

The mayor’s annual salary in Bentonville is $149,255.