Jesus “Junie” Herrera came out victorious in the only local race in Tuesday’s primary runoff—the Democratic candidate for Presidio County Precinct 2 county commissioner. Since he has no Republican opposition in the November General Election, he will assume the seat in January.
His opponent, Fernando Juarez, a former Presidio City Council member, withdrew from the runoff in mid May after he discovered the U.S. Hatch Act prohibits federal law enforcement employees from running in partisan elections. (Juarez had recently come out of retirement to work for Homeland Security Investigations.) Since ballots already had been printed, Juarez’s name remained on the Tuesday ballot, but he would have not been able to take office if he won the runoff.
Herrera won by a margin of 189-10 by Tuesday.
Herrera had come out on top in the March 3 primary with 46.88% of the vote, with Juarez at 36.95% and incumbent Margarito Hernandez at 16.37%, but Herrera was forced into a runoff by not securing more than 50% of the votes.Severally highly contested state runoff for both parties were also on the ballot. Notably, Attorney General Ken Paxton defeated U.S. Senator incumbent John Cornyn for the Republican U.S. Senate seat. In another key race, state Sen. Mayes Middleton defeated U.S. Congressman Chip Roy for the Republican nomination for attorney general. See all runoff results at texastribune.org.