El Paso voters are dumb, that’s it. It’s a fact that is likely to raise the ire of some readers, if not all, but it is the hard truth that no amount of “but” or “it’s not everyone,” varnish will erase because the sad truth is that El Paso voters are an uninformed lot. There are three types of voters in El Paso. From smaller to the largest number of voters, they are the tiny group of well-informed conscientious voters. This group is followed by the special interest voters, those that vote for paychecks. This group is motivated to cast a ballot for the politician that promises to spend more because they either work for the government, think schoolteachers or police officers/firemen looking for benefits no one else gets or their families are relying on the larger paycheck on the backs of the taxpayers. The largest group is the last group. They are the voters that mechanically mark a ballot because they remember a name. This latter group, the largest group, is the reason that El Paso voters keep choosing failed leaders that have led the city to one of the largest population declines in the nation and one of the highest taxed cities in the country.
One need not look far to see how uninformed and unmotivated El Paso voters are. The few El Pasoans that were paying attention saw this playout in real time over the last three months in the race for Justice of the Peace 5.
Here’s the thing that lays everything out in the open, in March around 8,000 people voted for two of the worst candidates ever fielded in an El Paso election – and that’s saying a lot – for a judicial seat that has the power to throw poor people out of their homes and rule on issues of law without ever stepping into a law school. It’s a vanity office that allows the winner to proclaim themselves a “judge” without having to do the hard work of becoming a lawyer, much less a judge.
There were five candidates running for the open JP-5 seat in the March primaries. One was an attorney and the others were, let’s just say, a member of a well-heeled family of politicians always seeking office and three others who have no business in office, much less standing in judgement of people while gleefully pocketing dollar bills for pronouncing two harried, and likely errant, people as married.
But before getting into the nuts and bolts of the JP-5 race it is useful to set the stage by pointing out other recent examples of dumb El Paso voters lest someone be tempted to argue that the JP-5 race is an anomaly.
Let’s start by once-and-for-all proving that the large majority of the El Paso voters vote on name recognition.
In November 2024, a realtor who spent no money and did not campaign received the most votes for the City Council District 3 seat simply because El Paso’s dumb voters believed they were voting for a former state senator with the same name. In a race where the four candidates spent $36,107.90 to motivate the voters to vote for them, the one who did not campaign or spend any money won the most votes. He would be the city representative today were it not for the number of candidates that forced a runoff election.
El Paso’s dumb voters cast a ballot for the realtor because of his name. Not because he was the better candidate. Not because they studied the numerous political mailers that landed in their inboxes. Not because it mattered. Almost 5,000 voters cast their ballots for the realtor because the name seemed familiar.
Some readers may be tempted to mark that up as an anomaly, but it is playing out again in real time today.
Enrique Holguin is on the ballot today. He is running against Bernardo Cruz to be the next judge for the 168th District Court. Holguin is not campaigning. He is relying on people confusing him for former City Council Representative Eddie Holguin, who is married to current County Commissioner Iliana Holguin. He is banking that El Paso’s dumb voters will again vote for him after 22,639 of El Paso’s dumb voters cast ballots for the one of the three candidates who isn’t serious about running for office in March, putting him on the ballot today. All because of his last name.
How many of the 18,905 ballots cast in the runoff election so far went to him won’t be known until after 7:00pm today but it is sufficient to know that however many votes go to him were cast by El Paso’s dumbest voters. If he wins the race by the time the last ballot is counted, well you can chock it up to ballots cast by El Paso’s uninformed voters.
And before anyone dares to argue that it is a Democratic Party thing, they should consider the ongoing runoff election where El Paso Republicans are voting today to choose who will represent them for one of El Paso’s two congressional seats on the November ballot. Of the two candidates on the ballot, one is a disgraced former judge, debarred lawyer and convicted felon who has no place being on the ballot but the Republican voters, nonetheless gave him 3,577 votes in March putting him into the runoff. Republican voters incredulously voted for an individual who traded sexual favors for favorable court rulings.
Worse is that the individual in question was thrown in jail as a Democrat and after a few more run-ins with the law miraculously reformed and became a Republican nearly winning the spot to represent the Republicans for a congressional seat in November.
The Republican voters are either too dumb (likely) to do their homework before casting their ballots or somehow believe that a former Democrat criminal turned Republican is the best El Paso has to offer them.
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The JP5 Race
To fully illustrate how dumb the El Paso voters are one does not need to look further than the two most unqualified women to grace an El Paso ballot in today’s runoff election – incumbent Lucilla “Lucy” Najera and challenger Dora Oaxaca Rivera.
Two non-lawyers and unqualified women were chosen by El Paso’s dumb voters over an attorney to sit in judgement of people.
Dora Oaxaca Rivera is a long-time fixture in El Paso’s political scene always playing shepherd behind such notable politicians as the county commissioner turned drug dealer “Godfather” to the “pachanga” state representative who threw plates of enchiladas to El Paso’s dumb voters for their votes. Enchiladas for votes only works in El Paso because of El Paso’s largest voter demographic of uninformed voters. If you do not know who the “Godfather” is you shouldn’t be voting or you just arrived in El Paso or are a newly minted voter.
Unfortunately pulling the strings of the “pachanga” state representative or the drug dealer politician is not Oaxaca Rivera’s worst sin. Oaxaca Rivera not only drove a city employee to allegedly attempt suicide, but her conduct was so egregious that the city council was forced to punish her husband for her conduct that at least one city official described as “brutal.”
Everything you need to know about El Paso’s lackluster voting bloc is understanding that Dora Oaxaca Rivera was not punished for her conduct because El Paso voters cannot vote for a district attorney capable of prosecuting a woman for conduct described as “brutal” that possibly led to an attempted suicide leaving the city council with the only recourse of punishing her husband for her actions.
Not be left behind, Najera once said that voter data was illegal, asked if the Democratic Party voter mobilization VAN software was a van to drive people to the polls, and said her campaign was driven by God. Her campaign represents the best El Paso has to offer, an AI-generated image, the wrong endorsement logo for an endorsement that went to her opponent leading to a cease-and-desist order and sending voter materials with misspellings because apparently AI is great for saving a few pennies but not for checking for words like “runoof” when intending to write runoff. The problem with using AI is the problem of mediocrity – looking to save a penny to win a race. After winning the office, Najera can best be characterized not for her work as a justice of the peace but for demanding cash payments to marry errant couples.
In March, 2,025 dumb El Paso voters cast ballots for Najera and another 1,997 cast ballots for Oaxaca Rivera. As of this morning, 2,601 ballots have been cast in that race.
Whoever wins today when the last ballot is counted, El Paso will be worse than it was this morning because of El Paso dumb voters exercising their right to be dumb at the ballot boxes.
Unfortunately, the fault lies not with the dumb voters who are doing the dumb things they always do but with the individuals that complain loudly about the high taxes, failing schools, declining population numbers, data centers and a myriad of other issues who simply do not vote.
Before complaining about El Paso’s failures, look closely at the race between Lucilla “Lucy” Najera and Dora Oaxaca to understand why El Paso is failing. It is failing because a judicial election is nothing more than a caricature of failed leadership driven by social media shenanigans and voters too dumb to care.
A final note: names were omitted to demonstrate that the few people who know who is being referred to in this article are the voters who choose to stay informed about who is running for office. Those that do not know who the candidates that are not named are either El Paso’s newest voters who may not know about the “pachangas” or, more likely, the uninformed voter who chooses that name on the ballot because the name sounds familiar. Google works wonders if a reader chooses to do some homework before casting a ballot today.