El Paso News surveyed 10,000 El Paso voters yesterday via text messaging to see how competitive a candidate with little political name recognition would be against incumbent county judge Ricardo Samaniego. In recent weeks, several names have surfaced as potential candidates against Samaniego in 2026. Among the names included Oscar Leeser and Brian Kennedy. Leeser has said he is not planning on running against Samaniego.
In a telephone interview today, Brian Kennedy told us that our survey results were “fascinating” but “that it would take a deeper dive to see what happens.” Kennedy added that “at this time I am not ready to make any announcements about my future plans for office.”
In a survey we conducted in February we found that Leeser would likely defeat Samaniego in the March primaries. Since our report, Samaniego has held at least one fundraiser and has been increasingly appearing in public functions and on social media suggesting that his campaign understands it has a difficult path forward for his reelection. Recent reports suggest that Samaniego’s campaign is in turmoil. Reportedly, Lauren Zimmeran left the campaign shortly after the fundraising event.
Two days ago, Samaniego was among the four county elected officials who voted to raise property taxes for county homeowners by around $137 a year for the average homeowner. El Paso’s high property taxes are a significant friction point among the voters. Recent votes by Samaniego and missing a county commissioners meeting on April 22, 2024 because of his girlfriend have had voters looking for an alternative to Samaniego.
Many of the survey responders indicated that they did not know who Estrella Escobar is.
Who Is Estrella Escobar
The question on voters’ minds is likely who is Estrella Escobar? This was expressed to us by various voters responding to our survey. She has little name recognition among the voters and yet she polled well among the voters we surveyed.
Estrella Escobar is well-known among politically well-connected people. She was Oscar Leeser’s Chief of Staff during his two mayoral terms. Prior to that she was a Senior Advisor to Diana Natalicio for 17 years at UTEP. Before that she worked at the District Attorney’s Office and for former-mayor Carlos Ramirez.
Earlier this year, Estrella Escobar was interviewed by actor Eva Longoria for Revista Binacional for her public service career.
In 2020, Estrella Escobar was named a finalist for the Las Cruces city manager position. Currently she serves on the Governing Board of The Hospitals of Providence. She is fluent in Spanish and Portuguese.
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Estrella Escobar’s survey results in a match up against Samaniego showed how vulnerable Samaniego is in the upcoming election. She is not well-known to the voters. Nonetheless voters seemed to prefer her over Samaniego.
El Paso News asked political consultant Chris Hernandez about the survey’s findings. He told us that “I believe the survey confirms what I thought that right now the incumbent Samaniego would have a slight lead over any challenger.” We also asked him if Brian Kennedy could defeat Samaniego. Hernandez told us that “if voters are looking for a change, as your survey shows, Brian Kennedy is no doubt a viable candidate, however, it’s what happens on the campaign trail that will determine the outcome and at this point there is no way to predict that.”
We were unable to get a comment from Estrella Escobar about her intention to run for office.
However, an interesting issue arose from the responses to our survey – an interest by traditional Democrat voters to consider a Republican candidate.
A Republican Shift?
The survey of voters El Paso News surveyed was targeted at voters who traditionally vote for Democrats in elections. Responses to our survey included several responses suggesting that traditional Democrats would consider a Republican for county judge.
Pat O’Rourke was the last Republican to run for county judge as a Republican. He is the late father of Beto O’Rourke. The elder O’Rourke ran as a Democrat in several county commissioners’ elections starting in 1978, first as a county commissioner and later as the county judge. In 1982, the elder O’Rourke won the county judge seat without a Republican opponent. He served as county judge from 1982 to 1986. In 1991, Pat O’Rourke switched parties, registering as a Republican. The following year, the elder O’Rourke ran in the Republican Primary against former-television personality Chip Taberksi. He lost to Taberski. Both were looking to challenge Ronald D. Coleman for his congressional seat.
In 1998, Pat O’Rourke again ran for county judge, this time as a Republican. He ran because the county commissioners voted themselves a pay raise which led to “anger and scorn” from the voters, according to a September 15, 1998 El Paso Times’ editorial. O’Rourke was quoted by the newspaper as stating that the pay raise vote “was handled atrociously” and had the county commissioners “kept taxes down and been true to their mission of good government” they would not be seeing backlash from the voters. Pat O’Rourke lost to Dolores Briones on November 3, 1998. Briones would later plead guilty to public corruption charges.
Among the responses to our voter survey, included several from Democrat voters who wanted the opportunity to consider a Republican candidate for 2026. This is not without precedent. In the November 5, 2024 elections, there was a clear Republican surge turning out to the polls. Veronica Escobar lost ground to Republican Irene Jackson-Armendariz. Not only did Escobar lose ground to a Republican, but the same election saw silence from the local Democratic Party establishment when Cesar Blanco supported Renard Johnson for mayor, even though a Republican PAC was contributing heavily to Johnson’s campaign.
It remains unknown whether Republicans in El Paso will be competitive in 2026 but the survey comments, the Democratic Party’s silence on Blanco and the surge of Republicans in 2024 suggest that the easy Democratic victories in El Paso is ending.
However, an issue that the survey also revealed is that El Paso’s voters remain uninformed about the city’s political scene.
The Uninformed Voters
The latest survey results show that voters lack an understanding of what the county judge office is with several responses suggesting that voters believe that the county judge is a judicial office or that the elected position requires that the candidate be an attorney. The county judge is the equivalent of the city’s mayor and leads the county commissioners. Office holders are not required to be attorneys. Ricardo Samaniego is not an attorney.
Also, several responses suggested that the voter assumed Estrella Escobar was either related to congresswoman Veronica Escobar or that it was the same person.
Another example about the lack of knowledge among El Paso’s voters was shown by El Paso realtor Jose Rodriguez’ almost winning the District 3 city council seat without much campaigning and spending less than $500 to run for office. The voters assumed that Rodriguez was the former state senator by the same name.
The two survey results and the responses from El Paso’s voters suggest that the upcoming election for county judge will be a referendum over an unpopular incumbent with voters looking to vote for anyone but Ricardo Samaniego.