The hotly contested race to represent Donley County and the rest of District 88 in the State House will go to a runoff after none of the four Republican candidates secured a majority of votes in last Tuesday’s primary.
Incumbent Jim Landtroop was the top vote-getter district-wide with 34.44 percent, but he fell short of the 50 percent plus one needed to avoid a July 31 runoff. Now he will face Canadian school board president Ken King later this summer. King received 30.17 percent of the district vote, followed by Mac Smith with 18.24 percent and former representative Gary Walker with 17.13 percent.
Donley County Republicans saw the race a bit differently. Locally, King led with 189 votes, Smith had 116, Walker was third here with 106, and Landtroop was last with 90 votes.
Walker has since endorsed King, and Smith has not publicly thrown his support behind anyone.
In other contested races of local interest, Donley County Republicans supported Congressman Mac Thornberry over his challenger Pamela Lea Barlow, 424-76, and favored State Sen. Kel Seliger over challenger Randy Rives, 399-90.
The races for US Senator and Railroad Commissioner will both go to the runoff as well, and the local party favored the top two candidates in each race with Warren Chisum leading Christi Craddick, 332-84, for railroad commissioner and David Dewhurst leading Ted Cruz for the US Senate nomination, 293-123.
Local candidates running unopposed received votes as follows: District Judge Stuart Messer 411, District Attorney Luke Inman 396, County Attorney Landon Lambert 382, Sheriff Butch Blackburn 424, Tax Assessor/Collector Linda Crump 443, Pct. 1 Commissioner Mark White 92, Pct. 3 Commissioner Andy Wheatly 106, Pct 3&4 Constable Doug Wright 197, and County Chairman Tom Stauder 405. Joe Hall got one write-in vote for County Chairman.
Texas Republicans chose Mitt Romney as their candidate of choice for president with 68.98 percent with Congressman Ron Paul his closest competitor with 11.94 percent. Donley County Republicans also saw Romney as their top choice with 384 votes, and Paul was their next favorite with 44.
In the Democratic Primary, more than 88 percent of Texas party voters threw their support behind President Barack Obama’s reelection effort. Local Democrats also gave their support to Obama with 33 votes, and 16 votes were divided among other candidates.
Democrats will also return to the polls for a runoff July 31 to decide who will be their party’s nominee for the US Senate. Paul Sadler received 35.11 percent compared to Grady Yarbrough’s 25.83 percent. Local Democrats, however, preferred Yarbrough, giving him 21 votes compared to 11 for Sadler.
Running unopposed for County Chairman, Jean Taylor received 39 votes.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.