Early voter totals surged past 2,300 in Port Arthur on Tuesday afternoon, as four challengers to incumbent Mayor Derrick Ford Freeman sought some traction before the May 4 election, which appears to be becoming more acrimonious.

One candidate was accused of using racial slurs on social media but offered an apology and explanation.

City Secretary Sherri Bellard suggested early voting might approach record levels; more firm numbers will be revealed Wednesday morning, her office said. They were likely to surpass 2016 mayoral election numbers. Bellard said early voting this year appeared to surpass 2017 numbers, when City Council members ran.

Around 4 p.m. Tuesday, 2,328 of 30,491 registered voters in Port Arthur had voted early at either the Port Arthur Public Library on Ninth Avenue or at City Hall downtown, the two sites reserved for casting early ballots. Those voting sites were going to remain open until 7 p.m. Tuesday, the last day to cast early ballots for the May 4 vote. Voting officials were expecting heavier turnout after school let out Tuesday.

Campaign workers appeared to be relatively subdued Tuesday afternoon, even after social media reports reflected accusations that mayoral candidate Chuck Vincent of Port Acres had used racial epithets on his Facebook page.

Freeman’s Facebook page showed a host of racial or ethnic slurs that he said were attributed to social media posts by Vincent, a first-time candidate for mayor. Those posts appeared to target blacks, Hispanics and Middle Easterners.

Freeman said he was disappointed that people who know Vincent has “such a bitter heart toward anyone that doesn’t look like him” continue to support him.

“Once re-elected, I will continue to be about inclusion for all. Mr. Vincent and his supporters are welcome to join us as we continue to raise the level of excellence in our great city.”

For his part, Vincent said he had not reviewed the Freeman camp’s allegations but did not deny them. He said he’d told people on the campaign trail that his social media past might “bite him on the butt.”

Under a campaign tent in the library parking lot Tuesday, Vincent said he’d written things on social media that he deeply regrets now. And in a video that he showed on his Facebook site, he apologized and said, “My life has been changed.”

“There’s an old Chuck and a new Chuck,” he insisted.

Scant yards from the Vincent tent on Tuesday, Freeman supporters seemed upbeat about their chances of winning Saturday. The mayor’s mother, Deborah Freeman, was transporting voters to and from the polls, a day after completing chemo treatment for cancer, and as she was doing earlier during the early voting period when she was accused of violating campaign rules.

Vincent said the mayor’s mother was inside the library, well inside the 100-foot limit for campaigning, during voting hours. She said Tuesday that she transports handicapped voters the polls, and must enter the building to notify campaign officials that voters are waiting for them in the parking lot. She said voting officials go to her vehicle to help voters who have handicaps to cast their ballots there.

She said she doesn’t wear campaign garb inside the required distance and when she entered the library, she had been instructed to sit.

Most of the inter-campaign complaints came from the Vincent and Freeman camps, the only two candidates represented at the library Tuesday afternoon. Neither candidates Thurman Bartie nor Willie “Bae” Lewis were at the library when this reporter passed through. Nor was Lowra Harrison, who has seemed to run a lowkey campaign.

Bellard seemed nonplussed by the complaints, which she said are routine during a political season. Complaints, she said, had been “reported and recorded.”

“It’s an election,” she said. “It’s an election.”