King defeats Landtroop in runoff

Canadian School Board President Ken King will represent Donley County in the Texas House of Representatives after he defeated incumbent Rep. Jim Landtroop of Plainview in yesterday’s Republican Primary Runoff Election.

King received 53.99 percent of the vote across District 88 compared to Landtroop’s 46 percent. Locally, the margin was much wider with 77.35 percent of Donley County Republicans supporting King.

Landtroop had been the top vote getter in the four-man race in May’s Republican Primary, but he fell short of the majority needed to secure his party’s nomination. Donley County voters also preferred King in May with Landtroop coming in fourth locally.

Following the primary, the other two challengers – Mac Smith of Pampa and former State Rep. Gary Walker of Plains – both endorsed King, and retiring State Rep. Warren Chisum also endorsed King in the final days of before the election.

With no Democrat running for the House seat, King is the presumptive winner of the November election and will represent District 88, which was formerly represented by Chisum but was redistricted to include Landtroop’s home base of Hale County.

In statewide GOP races, Republicans nominated Tea Party favorite Ted Cruz over Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst 56.79 percent to 43.20 percent to run for the US Senate seat currently held by Kay Bailey Hutchinson. Cruz will face Democrat Paul Sadler, who won his party’s runoff yesterday with 60 percent of the vote over Grady Yarbrough.

Locally, Donley Republicans favored Dewhurst, 55.96 percent to 44.03 percent; and county Democrats sided with Sadler 63.08 percent to 36.91 percent.

Warren Chisum fell short of his goal becoming the Republican nominee for Railroad Commissioner, losing his bid to Christi Craddick 40.19 percent to 59.80 percent. Local voters preferred Chisum, 69.81 percent to 30.18 percent.

Barry Smitherman was the choice of both state and local Republicans to fill an unexpired term on the Railroad Commission over challenger Greg Parker with the vote breaking roughly 62 percent to 38 percent at both the county and state levels.

State and local Republicans also picked John Devine over David Medina to run for Supreme Court Justice, Place 4 with Devine capturing 53.27 percent of the statewide vote and 37.46 percent of the local vote.