Michael Scott Rawlings (born August 25, 1954) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 59th

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Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

. A member of the Democratic Party, he won the nonpartisan

2011 Dallas mayoral election The Dallas mayoral election of 2011 took place on May 14, 2011, to elect the successor to incumbent Mayor Tom Leppert. Leppert decided not to run for a second term, deciding to instead run for United States Senate in 2012. The race is officiall ...

defeating former Dallas Police Chief David Kunkle. He was reelected in 2015 by defeating Dallas lawyer Marcos Ronquillo. Rawlings served as CEO of

Pizza Hut Pizza Hut is an American multinational restaurant chain and international franchise founded in 1958 in Wichita, Kansas by Dan and Frank Carney. They serve their signature pan pizza and other dishes including pasta, breadsticks and dessert a ...

from 1997 to 2002 and was also a former chief executive of the Tracy-Locke ad agency. In addition to his work in the city, Rawlings is also a prominent opponent of domestic violence, speaking at many events, including a

Ring The Bell Ring The Bell (1 September 1977 – 19 October 1993) was a Thoroughbred racehorse who won the New Zealand Derby in 1981, the second Derby win in three years for trainer Neville Atkins. As a yearling, Ring the Bell had been sold for $3,000. He ...

event at the

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alongside actor

Patrick Stewart Sir Patrick Stewart (born 13 July 1940) is an English actor who has a career spanning seven decades in various stage productions, television, film and video games. He has been nominated for Olivier, Tony, Golden Globe, Emmy, and Screen Actors ...

. Rawlings garnered national attention during the Ebola outbreak, the July 7th, 2016, ambush on Dallas police officers, and a dispute over the Dallas Police and Fire Pension System. On the question of Confederate Statue Removal, Rawlings stated in August 2017 that Confederate statues in Dallas city parks are "monuments of propaganda" and called for a task force to decide what should be done with them. Rawlings pushed for the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue in a city park. At the 2018

Conference of Mayors The United States Conference of Mayors (USCM) is the official non-partisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more. The cities are each represented by their mayors or other chief elected officials. The organization was founded i ...

, Rawlings, who was known as a supporter of the arts in Dallas, received the 2018 National Award for Local Arts from the United States Conference of Mayors and Americans for the Arts in Washington, DC.

Electoral history

2011 Dallas mayoral election

Initial Election

Runoff Election

2015 Dallas mayoral election

References

External links

Appearances
on C-SPAN programs {{DEFAULTSORT:Rawlings, Mike 1954 births 21st-century American politicians American business executives American Presbyterians Boston College alumni Living people Mayors of Dallas People from Borger, Texas Pizza Hut Texas Democrats Liverpool High School alumni