El Pasoans cast votes in the 2020 Primary runoff elections last night. Two incumbents were unseated. Two Republicans and six Democrats were running for a spot in the upcoming November elections.
Unofficial final results show that in the two Republican seats, Irene Armendariz-Jackson (65.48%) beat Sam Williams (34.52%) for the U.S. Representative District 16 race. In the U.S Representative District 23 Republican spot, Raul Reyes (51.93%) beat Tony Gonzalez (48.07%).
In the six Democratic spots, two were statewide. For the U.S. Senator Democrat spot, Mary Hegar (64.21%) beat Royce West (35.79%). And for the Railroad Commissioner spot, Roberto Alonzo (47.19%) was outperformed by Chrysta Castañeda (52.81%).
There were four countywide Democratic races. For the 383rd District Court, Lyda Ness Garcia beat Lucila Flores by 2,937 votes.
For the 388th District Court, Marlene Gonzalez beat the incumbent, Laura Strathmann by 2,179 votes. In that race, Strathmann was videotaped taking her opponent’s political sign. When confronted, Strathmann tried to cover up the sign theft by asking her neighbor to provide inaccurate video testimony that he had asked her to remove it from his property. Subsequently, in a second video, the neighbor stated that Strathmann had compelled him to lie on the first video.
For the District Race, Yvonne Rosales beat James Montoya by 1,208 votes. There was some controversy in that race because of the involvement of Jaime Abeytia, an El Paso political operative, in Montoya’s race.
The County Commissioners for Precinct 3 was the closest of all the races. Newcomer Iliana Holguin unseated incumbent Vince Perez by 431 votes. Perez’ wife, Claudia Perez had won the House Representative District 76 seat in March. Political operative, Jaime Abeytia ran the Perez campaign.
