In the history of El Paso’s 30 sheriffs only one person has won an election as a Republican. In the November 5, 2024 election Minerva Torres Shelton, a former El Paso police officer and a retired FBI agent is challenging Oscar Ugarte for the sheriff’s seat being vacated Richard Wiles. Ugarte won the Democratic primary on May 28, 2024 to be on the November 5 ballot.
The Democrats have generally prevailed in El Paso’s elections for decades with only a few Republicans holding county-wide seats in the past. The last Republican to win a countywide election in El Paso was Andrew Haggerty who won the County Commissioner 4 seat against Democrat Julio Diaz in 2014. Since 1998, the 13 general election ballots, including two special elections in 2005 and 2019, show that 62 Republicans have run countywide seats, including Henry Bonilla who won the US Representative District 23 seat which included a small portion of El Paso county in the far east. In addition to Andrew, Dan Haggerty won three contests as a Republican in 2002, 2006 and 2010 for the precinct 4 commissioner’s seat. Pat Haggerty has been the most successful Republican winning five elections since 1998 when he defeated John Cook for the State Representative 78 seat. Pat Haggerty ran unopposed in the next four elections after defeating Cook. In 2010, Dee Margo took over the State Representative 78 seat by defeating Joe Moody.
The four Republicans have been the only successful Republicans in countywide elections since 1988 with the last Republican win ten years ago.
Over the years it has been rumored that several Republican have run as Democrats to win seats, including the longest serving sheriff in El Paso since the sheriff’s office was instituted.
Only One Republican Has Been Elected Sheriff In El Paso, Possibly Two
The El Paso County seat has been in two other places before making its way to El Paso. There have been 30 sheriffs in El Paso since the county’s first sheriff, W.M Ford, was appointed in 1852 through today’s sheriff Richard Wiles. Wiles will retire as soon as the winner of the November 5, election is sworn in next year. Ford and the three other sheriffs that followed him were appointed by officials in San Elizario where the El Paso County seat resided.
In 1874, Charles Kerber was appointed the sheriff in the county’s next county seat, Ysleta. It wasn’t until 1890 when H.R. Hillebrand won an election for sheriff that the county seat was finally in El Paso.
Prior to Kerber’s appointed, another sheriff was suggested to be a Republican, Benito Gonzalez.
Gonzalez is likely the only sheriff to be appointed and win an election, coincidentally making him the first El Paso sheriff elected to office. While the county seat was still in Ysleta, Gonzalez was appointed sheriff in 1880.
The El Paso Sheriff’s website has a list of sheriffs over the years. However, although generally correct some of sheriffs on the list, like Benito Gonzalez, do not coincide with the historical record.
Benito Gonzalez served two terms as sheriff, first in 1880 when he was appointed and then replaced by Bautista Mariany later that year after a controversy arose over whether Gonzalez was allowing prisoners to escape jail. Gonzalez was indicted six times for allowing the prisoners to escape his jail.
However, for context it is important to understand that at the time, the district attorney was paid a fee for each indictment thus it was alleged that many individuals were indicted simply for the fee.
The first election ballot for an El Paso election is believed to be an 1880 “People’s Ticket” that listed candidates for office. It has been speculated that the ballot listed Republican candidates but a 1911 El Paso Herald Post article disputes the characterization by arguing that the names on the ballot included “less prominent, who have since been affiliated with the Democrats.” Whether it was a Republican ticket or not, the name Benito Gonzalez appears in it.
Nonetheless, Gonzalez won the sheriff’s seat in 1882 for a second term.
Although it is unlikely that Gonzalez’ party affiliation will be known, it was a Republican who won the sheriff’s seat in 1890 when the county seat finally arrived in El Paso. H.R. Hillebrand won the seat as a Republican.
However, Hillebrand may have been the first or second sheriff to win the seat as a Republican and the last.
Since 1892, the last twenty-one sheriffs have been Democrats.
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Controversial Sheriff’s Office
Benito Gonzalez, who was appointed and then reclaimed his seat through an election, was not the only controversial sheriff in El Paso’s history. It is the controversies that ensued that led to El Paso’s longest serving sheriff.
Between Hillebrand’s election in 1890 and 1916, six sheriffs, including Hillebrand, were elected to office. In 1929 Tom Armstrong was elected sheriff with the support of Tom Lea who was looking to clean up the corruption of the so-called “Kelly Ring”. According to Tom Lea, Henry Kelly ruled El Paso through intimidation, graft and voter fraud. Lea and others formed factions within the Democratic Party establishment in El Paso to defeat Kelly’s political faction in the polls.
Armstrong belonged to Lea’s political faction.
However, Armstrong was convicted but not removed from office when about $6,000 was found missing during the transfer of two prisoners to California. Chris P. Cox challenged Armstrong for the seat and became sheriff in 1933.
After Cox came a succession of nine sheriffs who resigned or were convicted of crimes and forced out of office.
In 1942 W.W. Hawkins was appointed by the county commissioners to complete Chris Fox’s term after Fox resigned to become the general manager of the Chamber of Commerce.
After Hawkins, Allan G. Falby became sheriff in 1943 and resigned on July 15, 1949 to become the manager of the Sun Carnival Association.
The county commissioners appointed Joe Campbell to complete Falby’s term. Falby was followed by Jimmy Hicks in 1951. Hicks, who committed suicide after an illness in 1958, left the sheriff’s seat vacant, when county commissioner Wesley Smith resigned so that his fellow commissioners could appoint him as the next sheriff on the same day.
Bob Baily, a deputy sheriff, resigned after Campbell was appointed, ran and won the sheriff’s seat in 1958.
It is three sheriffs that followed that allowed the longest serving sheriff to run on the platform to clean up and professionalize the sheriff’s office.
Only One Incumbent Sheriff Has Been Defeated In The History Of Sheriffs
After Bob Baily announced that he was not going to seek reelection, Mike Sullivan ran for and won the sheriff’s office in 1965. However, Sullivan was forced to resign after a conviction in August 1977. After the judge ordered Sullivan to vacate the seat, Ray Montes was appointed sheriff in 1977.
Montes was the second sheriff to be removed from office in 1982 for criminal conduct. He was convicted on December 10, 1982 of misconduct after an abandoned pickup truck was sold and the money was misappropriated. Montes was ordered to serve two years of probation.
On December 29, 1982, jail administrator Mike Davis was appointed by the county commissioners as El Paso’s next sheriff. Davis’ appointment would become controversial when three interviewees of the 14 that county commissioners interviewed complained that the selection was rigged from the beginning. Included in the 14 interviewees was then El Paso Police Deputy Chief Leo Samaniego.
Leo Samaniego Becomes Longest Serving Sheriff
Leo Samaniego joined the El Paso police force in 1956. By 1977, Samaniego had been promoted to captain and in 1978 was appointed Inspector of Detectives. By March 1979, Samaniego had been appointed deputy police chief.
To replace Montes, the county commissioners interviewed 14 candidates before controversially selecting Ray Montes on December 22, 1982. The vote was three-to-two with commissioners Pat O’Rourke, Rogelio Sanchez and Miguel Solis voting for Davis’ appointment and Charlie Hooten and Udell Moore voting against it.
After Davis was appointed, Samaniego and two others who interviewed for the spot, Corrin McGrarth and Tom Westfall criticized the election process. Westfall would become key to Samaniego becoming sheriff about two years later.
On January 3, 1984, Samaniego resigned from the police force and the next day he announced that he was running for sheriff to replace Davis. There had never been an incumbent sheriff to lose an election in the El Paso history of sheriffs.
During his press conference, Samaniego announced that his campaign manager would be Tom Westfall. His treasurer was Leon Metz.
Westfall was mayor of El Paso from 1979 to 1981. South El Paso activists accused Westfall of being anti-Mexican when he threatened to raze tenement buildings in Segundo Barrio. In 1980 Westfall was accused by the head of El Paso’s National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Jonnie M. Washington, of assaulting her on January 4, 1980. The two had been arguing after Westfall had failed to appoint a Black individual to the Housing Authority board.
Denying the charges, Westfall said that he “wouldn’t touch that lady with a 10-foot pole.”
While awaiting the outcome of the misdemeanor assault charges filed by Washington, Westfall was also criticized by Xavier Bañales the director of the League of United Latin American (LULAC) after Westfall said that LULAC had no bothered to offer names of prominent Mexican-Americans to appoint to the housing board. LULAC, according to Bañales, had provided him a list of six individuals.
On February 20, 1980, Westfall was acquitted of the assault charges.
Running as a Democrat, Samaniego faced several candidates in the primary including J.J. Armes. Armes was a well-known private detective that appeared on television shows.
On June 2, 1984, Samaniego successfully unseated the incumbent sheriff Mike Davis winning the election with 64% of the vote. However, Samaniego still had to contend with the Republican challenger, Corrin McGrath, and J.J. Armes who managed only 7.9% of the vote in the primary notwithstanding that he was the candidate that had loaned his campaign almost $100,000 to run.
The 1984 Democratic primary became controversial when it was discovered on Election Day that the names of 15 candidates had been left off the ballots in 25 of 96 precincts. The affected precincts were predominantly in the lower valley with two additional precincts on the east side of town. Helen Jamison, the County Elections Administrator, took the blame for the missing pages on the ballots. To rectify the problem, she had ordered 1,439 “makeshift” ballots writing in the missing candidates by hand. J.J. Armes and another individual filed a court petition asking the court to invalidate the election.
Hispanic leaders accused election officials of interfering with the election to help Davis keep his sheriff’s seat. Jamison had asked the sheriff to post deputies at certain polling stations and used sheriff’s deputies to transport replacement ballots to the affected polling stations. Hispanic leaders, led by Paul Moreno, labeled the use of the deputies as an intimidation tactic to help Davis.
Armes would make it difficult for Samaniego to win.
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After losing in the court challenge to order a new election because of the ballot problems, Armes signed up to run as a write-in candidate.
Armes had previously accused Davis of covering up for Pat O’Rourke when sheriff’s deputies discovered a “powdery” substance in his car. On February 26, 1983, two El Paso sheriff’s deputies discovered a “powdery substance they thought was cocaine or heroin” in O’Rourke’s car. Sheriff’s Captain Willie Hill ordered deputies Jim Beykin and Dwight Jefferson to “get rid” of the substance. Hill was later reprimanded for ordering the substance to be destroyed. O’Rourke was never prosecuted.
O’Rourke was one of three votes appointing Davis sheriff in 1982.
The primary election was not the only issue faced by Samaniego, the voters and other candidates in the 1984 elections.
Calling the November 6, 1984 election a “sewer trap” and promising to challenge the results all the way to the Supreme Court, J.J. Armes’ write-in candidacy delayed the count leaving Samaniego to wonder if he had won.
Four days after the election, 13 precincts were yet to be counted as Armes’ write in ballots required a manual count of the ballots. When the final ballot was counted, the count showed that Samaniego had won the election against the Republican with 61% of the vote.
For his part, J.J. Armes was only able to muster less than 1% of the votes.
Samaniego took office in 1985.
In 1988, Samaniego was challenged for his seat by Jesus “Chuy” Reyes, a deputy that Samaniego had fired upon assuming the office. Samaniego won the contest with 67% of the vote.
The next challenge to Samaniego’s seat came in 1992 when John Obermiller challenged him in the Democratic primary. Samaniego defeated Obermiller with 65% of the vote.
In 1996, Samaniego was again challenged for his seat in the Democratic primary. With 62% of the vote, Samaniego defeated three challengers, Mickey Duntley, David Marquez and Trini Rabe.
Duntley, a former police officer, was one of some 40 people who pleaded guilty or were convicted on public corruption charges stemming from the FBI’s Poisoned Pawns corruption investigation.
It was another El Paso police officer who would challenge Samaniego for the sheriff’s seat in 2004. Police chief Carlos Leon lost to Samaniego, who received 63.8% of the vote. On November 2, 2004 Samaniego went on to defeat Republican Fernando Peña, Jr. with 71.3% of the vote. It would be Samaniego’s last election.
On December 28, 2007, while still sheriff, Samaniego passed away.
On January 15, 2008, sheriff’s Chief Deputy Santiago “Jimmy” Apodaca was appointed sheriff of El Paso by the county commissioners upon the dying wishes of Samaniego. Apodaca retired on December 31, 2008 leaving the sheriff’s seat open once again.
Samaniego had served as sheriff for almost 23 years becoming El Paso’s longest serving sheriff.
Former Police Officer Becomes The Next Sheriff
In the March 4, 2008 Democratic primary, eleven candidates ran for the sheriff’s seat, including Carlos Leon and Richard Wiles. Leon and Wiles went into a runoff election. In the April 8, 2004 runoff election, Wiles defeated Leon with 60.9% of the vote. Wiles went on to defeat Republican George Rodriguez Stoltz with 72% of the vote later in the year.
Wiles drew his first challenger in 2016 when Republican Thomas “Tom” Buchino challenged hom for the seat in the November 8, 2016 ballot. Wiles defeated Buchino 64.2% to 35.8% of the vote.
In the March 3, 2020 Democratic primary, Wiles drew three opponents. Wiles defeated Raul A. Mendiola, Ron Martin and Carlos Carrillo with 57.7% of the vote in the primary. Wiles had no Republican opponent in 2020.
In May 2023, Richard Wiles announced that he would not seek reelection in 2024.
With the sheriff’s seat open again, five candidates competed for the seat in the Democratic primary. They were Robert “Bobby” Flores, Michael P. Gonzalez, Raul Mendiola, Oscar Ugarte and Ryan Urrutia.
Wiles introduced and endorsed Urrutia when he officially announced his candidacy for sheriff. But Ugarte did not make it into the runoff election coming in third.
Ugarte defeated Flores in the runoff election on May 28, 57.3% to 42.6%.
Ugarte, a constable now faces Republican challenger Minerva Torres Shelton, a former El Paso police officer and a retired FBI agent. The daughter of Mexican immigrants, Shelton has said that chose law enforcement after her father unfairly lost a court case and was forced to pay a fine.
Was Samaniego A Republican?
In 2006, Samaniego instituted checkpoints on county streets that critics alleged were being used to arrest undocumented immigrants. Although Samaniego always ran as a Democrat, the traffic checkpoints led people to accuse Samaniego of being a Republican running as a Democrat in the city where Republicans have a difficult time winning elections. On June 23, 2006, Samaniego suspended the checkpoints, stating in a written statement that the sheriff’s department does not “enforce immigration law.”
On August 21, 2006, the county commissioners approved a resolution calling for county employees to not single out people “based on their country of origin, religion, race, ethnicity or immigration status.” The resolution was adopted on a vote of four-to-one with commissioners Haggerty, the only Republican on the court voting against it. After the vote, Haggerty said that “as an illegal in this country, you should be afraid to call law enforcement agencies.”
Immigration is a key issue in the November election. That and the abolishment of straight-ticket voting has led some to wonder if the time for Republicans in El Paso has arrived.
Can Republicans Win In November?
During the 1984 election where Samaniego unseated an incumbent sheriff for the first and only time in El Paso history, pollsters were predicting that Republicans had an opportunity to win elections in that election cycle because Ronald Reagan was on the ballot. Pollster Tom Lee had predicted that Republican Corrin McGrath would win with 41.1% of the vote in the three-way race that included write-in candidate J.J. Armes. That was not case since Samaniego overwhelmingly won that contest.
Like the 1984 election, some Republicans have been speculating that the abolishment of straight-ticket voting in 2020 and several municipal elections may lead voters to vote for two Republicans on the ballot, sheriff’s candidate Minerva Torres Shelton and incumbent district attorney Bill Hicks.
Although there are several other Republicans on the ballot, the only viable Republican is Bill Hicks as he is an incumbent. Nonetheless as history has shown, Hicks and the other Republicans face an uphill battle in November to win over the Democrats they are challenging.