Early voting is over, so now if you have not voted, then actual Election Day will be your only chance to cast your ballot. Early voting ended Friday, November 4, 2022, with 1,546 in-person votes and 104 ballots by mail being received. That is a total of 1,650 ballots cast so far out of the 6,368 total registered voters in Terry County and about 26% of the total voters. If the trend stays the same from the past three election cycles, that means there should be another 23% of the voters still waiting to vote. According to the Texas Secretary of State, in the 2018 mid-term election, there were 1,723 early votes, which is 73 more early votes compared to this mid-term election. Also in 2018, there was a total of 2,839 votes of the 6,659 registered voters in Terry County, which was 43% of all registered voters. In 2020 there were 2,879 early votes and which was 79% of all total votes, and the total votes of registered voters were 55%, or 3,608 voted out of 6,589 registered voters.
There is a lot on the ballot for this mid-term election. There are three contested local races in Terry County, which are Terry County Judge, County Commissioner Precinct 2, & County Commissioner Precinct 4.
So how did these candidates get here? In the county judges race, there is no incumbent. Prior to the filing for the primaries, current County Judge JD “Butch” Wagner did not seek re-election and decided to retire. Three candidates ran for the Republican nomination for County Judge, which was Geoff Cooper, Larry Gilbreath, and current Brownfield Police Chief Tony Serbantez. In the first round of primaries Gilbreath and Serbantez beat out Cooper, however, they did not receive 50% plus one vote to avoid a runoff. Serbantez had 796 votes, which is 46.66% and Gilbreath earned 486 votes, while Cooper earned 424 votes.
In the primary runoff election. Serbantez secured the Republican nomination with 68% of the votes over Gilbreath. Now, since early voting, Serbantez has faced Democratic challenger Scott Jackson in the November 8, 2022 Election. Jackson received 131 votes in the Democratic Primary.
In the Terry County Commissioner Precinct 2 race, Richard (Ricardo) Cavazos secured the Republican nomination beating out incumbent Kirby Keesee by one vote after all absentee and provisional ballots were counted. Up until late Wednesday afternoon August 10, 2022, Cavazos did not have a challenger, however, Edgar Rivera of Brownfield filed with the Terry County Joint Elections Office as a write-in candidate on the mid-term general ballot. Rivera had a choice of earning signatures to be placed on the ballot, however, he opted to just pay the filing fee as a write-in of $750.00. Cavazos went from unopposed to opposed, and now the ballot will have Ricardo Cavazos and space for “write-in”.
Moving to the Terry County Commissioner Precinct 4 race, incumbent Ernesto Elizardo is seeking re-election and ran unopposed in the primary giving him the Republican nomination. Shorty Martinez also ran unopposed in the primary giving him the Democratic nomination. Martinez recently two years ago ran unopposed in the Democrat Primary for the Precinct 3 Commissioners race, however, it was learned that he had voted in the Republican Primary and was disqualified from the General Election.
In the state races, the Governors seat is on the ballot and is probably the most polarizing race in the state. Between the two top candidates incumbent Republican Greg Abbott and Democrat Beto O’Rourke, they raised over $200 million in campaign money. There are two other Texas Governor candidates, Mark Tippetts (Libertarian) and Delilah Barrios (Green Party).
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick is seeking to be re-elected. Recently Lt. Gov. Patrick made a stop here in Terry County to visit with a few people and to show how important rural west Texas is to the whole state. Four years ago, Lt. Gov. Patrick was challenged by Mike Collier and will be challenged again this round. In the 2018 election, Lt. Gov. Patrick won by 400,125 votes which is about the population of Arlington Texas. There is a third candidate in the mix which is Shanna Steele (Libertarian)
Other state offices on the ballot are Attorney General, Ken Paxton (republican, Incumbent), Rochelle Mercedes Garza (Democrat), and Mark Ash (Libertarian). On the ballot for the Comptroller’s office is Glenn Hegar (Republican, Incumbent), Janet T. Dudding (Democrat), and V. Alonzo Echevarria-Garza (Libertarian). On the ballot for the Agriculture Commissioner is Sid Miller (Republican, Incumbent) and Susan Hays (Democrat)
