Reprint from the Progress Times - March7, 2008
©Progress Times 2008 - All Rights Reserved

 

Primary elections post record voter turnout

 

By Jim Brunson

Voters came out in record numbers to support their favorite candidates in the March 4 Texas primary elections. Statewide, voters knew their vote was important in the presidential primary campaign, especially in the Democratic Party where Sen. Hillary Clinton edged out Sen. Barack Obama 1,455,959 to 1,356,330 votes.

Clinton captured 50.87 percent of the vote in Texas and 65 delegates, shoring up her campaign for the nomination. Obama scored 61 delegates in the Lone Star State with 47.39 percent according to unofficial totals provided by the Texas Secretary of state’s Office.

Hotly-contested local races helped to fuel the voter turnout in Hidalgo County where a record 92,012 voters cast their ballots. Voter turnout for the county was 31.59 percent of the 291,301 registered voters. Democrats cast 86,241 votes countywide, as Republicans cast 5,726.

One of the most heated races in the county was the all-out fight between incumbent State Representative Ismael "Kino" Flores and challenger Sandra Rodriguez.

Flores retained the District 36 seat in the House by a narrow margin of 928 votes. He secured 11,173 votes for 52.17 percent, to Rodriguez’s 10,245 votes, according to the unofficial tally by the Hidalgo County Elections Department.

The day after the election, Rep. Flores, who is unopposed in the fall general election, said, "People knew we had done a good job. At the end of the day, people didn’t listen to the negative campaign she waged against me."

Now it is time to salve the wounds created by a hard-fought campaign.

Flores said, "We’ll continue to work as hard as we have before for our area. I’ll start building a coalition with the people who didn’t vote for us." He said he wants to re-build the trust and support among his constituents.

In his next term Flores said the top two issues he wants to address are education and healthcare. He said he plans to explore ways to create a healthcare plan that would include more children in CHIP, the state-funded Children’s Health Insurance Program. But, he said, he wants to find a way to do this without raising taxes.

In another close and hard-charging contest, District 40 State Representative Aaron Pena also kept his seat by a narrow margin. He out-distanced challenger Eddie Saenz 9,839 to 8,761 votes, for a difference of 1,078 votes.

This is the second time Saenz has challenged Pena for the seat and lost. This time, however, it was a much closer contest than four years ago when Pena won comfortably with 63.6 percent of the vote.

Maxine Longoria-Nash, a Mission High School graduate, was defeated in her bid for District Judge for the 449th

 District Court. Challenger Jesse Contreras won the Democratic primary handily 40,512 votes to Nash’s 29,102, capturing 58 percent of the vote. Contreras will face the Republican incumbent, Danny Rios, for the post in November. Rios was unopposed in the Republican primary.

In another close contest, Dolly Elizondo narrowly defeated Juan Maldonado, becoming the next County Democratic Chair. Elizondo took 50.69 percent of the votes with 33,824 to Maldonado’s 32,903.

Perhaps the most shocking contest of the Hidalgo County elections was the decisive re-election of Walo Bazan as Precinct 5 constable. Bazan, who has been troubled by legal problems and criminal accusations, including a 2006 theft conviction, won the election by a landslide with 63 percent of the vote. Mario Leal came in a distant second in the three-way Delta-area contest, with just 1,764 votes to Bazan’s 3,708. The third candidate, Juan Diaz Aleman garnered only 407 votes.