Perry-Franks wins nod to challenge Republican incumbent Burrows for State Rep. seat
Scurry County voted heavily Republican and largely stuck to incumbent candidates in Tuesday’s primary elections.
In local races, incumbent Scurry County Sheriff Trey Wilson took 54.06 percent of the vote in his bid for re-election. Wilson collected 1,451 votes, compared to challengers Jeanette Pritchard’s 1,185 and Raymond Guzman’s 48. There is no Democratic challenger to face Wilson in November.
“We’re just going to continue moving forward and working for the people of Scurry County,” Wilson said. “I’m glad it’s over and I’m going to keep doing the best job I can for Scurry County residents.”
Both incumbents will retain their seats on the Scurry County Commissioners’ Court.
Precinct 1 Commissioner Terry Williams amassed 54.52 percent of ballots cast with 199 to challenger Bob May’s 166.
Precinct 3 incumbent Shawn McCowen took 53.13 percent of the ballots. He collected 484 votes compared to 367 for challenger Dennis Poole and 60 for Jeff Gilbert.
“I was proud that it was a clean race,” McCowen said. “I appreciated the challenge. I’m going to continue to do what we have started to do to get this county back in stable financial shape. That’s the goal. The voters put their faith in me. I told them that’s what I was going to do, and that’s what I’m going to do.”
Unopposed incumbent Republicans including 132nd Judicial District Judge Ernie B. Armstrong, 132nd Judicial District Attorney Ben R. Smith, County Attorney Michael W. Hartman, County Tax Assessor-Collector Jana Young and County Chair Drew Bullard will retain their seats and won’t face Democratic challengers in the November general election.
Snyder’s Addison Perry-Franks will be the Democratic candidate for State Representative for District 83.
Perry-Franks took 54 percent of the vote across the district as a whole, amassing 2,893 votes to opponent James Barrick’s 2,461. In Scurry County, Perry-Franks garnered 56.54 percent of the total vote with 121 votes, compared to Barrick’s 93. Perry-Franks will face Republican incumbent Dustin Burrows in November.
“After several long months of campaigning, what I was aiming for was won tonight, in the Democratic primary,” Perry-Franks said in a prepared statement. “Now, all of us together, if we want to beat Burrows in November, must work to get even more voters to the polls, and I think all of us can achieve this if we all work hard.”
In the race for Democratic county chair, Lacey Franks defeated incumbent Ed Vinson with 57.94 percent of the vote, garnering 124 ballots to Vinson’s 90.
All told, 2,977 Scurry County voters — 31.95 percent of registered voters — cast ballots in the two primary elections. Of those, 2,717 voted in the Republican primary, while 260 voted in the Democratic primary. More local residents cast ballots early (1,527) than voted on election day (1,347).
“Normally you get the amount of early voters, and it kind of tells you how many you’re going to have on election day, because it’s about the same amount, normally, that you get at the end,” said Scurry County Chief Deputy Clerk Selene Gallegos.
Gallegos said 33.42 percent of registered voters cast ballots in the 2016 primary while only 24.09 percent cast ballots in the 2018 primary
In national races, Texan Republicans overwhelmingly supported incumbent President Donald J. Trump with 94 percent of the vote statewide. No other Republican candidate managed to amass a full percentage point of the vote.
Joe Walsh and Bill Weld each collected 0.8 percent of the total votes cast. Locally, 93.43 percent of Republican voters cast ballots for Trump.
On the Democratic side, Joe Biden managed to collect almost a third of the votes cast with 32.4 percent. Bernie Sanders garnered 29.7 percent, while Michael Bloomberg got 15.5 percent and Elizabeth Warren got 11.6 percent.
All other Democratic candidates have either dropped out of the race or amassed less than 1 percent of Texas Democrats’ votes. Biden also won Scurry County with 38.28 percent of Democratic votes cast.
In the U.S. Senate race, incumbent John Cornyn easily won the Republican primary with 76.3 percent of the vote over Dwayne Stovall with 12 percent, Mark Yancey with 6.1 percent, John Anthony Castro with 4.5 percent and Virgil Bierschwale with 1 percent. Cornyn took 68.45 percent of Scurry County Republicans’ votes. Yancey was the runner-up locally with 15.92 percent.
Democrats Mary “M.J.” Hegar and Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez will compete in a runoff election to determine which will face Cornyn in the fall.
Hegar garnered 23.2 percent of the vote statewide, while Ramirez got 13.9 percent. Ten other Democratic candidates all received significant slices of the electorate pie.
Those candidates and the percentage of the vote they won included Royce West, 12.8 percent; Annie “Mamá” Garcia, 10.3 percent; Amanda K. Edwards, 10.2 percent; Chris Bell, 8.4 percent; Sema Hernandez, 7.9 percent; Michael Cooper, 4.7 percent; Victor Hugo Harris, 3.3 percent; Adrian Ocegueda, 2.0 percent; Jack Daniel Foster Jr., 1.8 percent; and D.R. Hunter, 1.5 percent. Garcia took the most Scurry County votes with 19.57 percent. Hernandez took 14.78 percent locally, while Hegar and Edwards tied with 11.74 percent each.
Ramirez only received 6.52 percent of Scurry County ballots.
In U.S. House of Representatives District 19, incumbent Jodey Arrington defeated Republican challenger Vance W. Boyd, collecting 89.5 percent of the vote. Arrington will face Democratic candidate Tom Watson in November; Watson ran unopposed in the primary.