Juan Escobar and his supporters gathered Tuesday night in support of his victory over incumbent Kleberg County Judge Pete De La Garza. (Photo by Erika Hernandez) The March 2 Democratic primary election was a nail biter with two major incumbents, County Judge Pete De La Garza and District 43 State Representative Tara Rios Ybarra, losing their positions.

In perhaps one of the most talked about races locally, De La Garza lost to his opponent, former District 43 State Representative Juan Escobar, by a margin of 122 votes.

Escobar received 1,878 votes and De La Garza received 1,756 votes.

He has no opponent in the November general election.

“I am overwhelmed and excited with my victory, and I am ready to help the citizens of Kleberg County,” Escobar said.

“I plan to start working as soon as possible with the budget and find out the needs of the county so that I can better address them once I start in January.”

J.M. Lozano, center, who won the Democratic primary for State Representative, District 43 and his family and supporters celebrated his victory Tuesday night over Incumbent Tara Rios Ybarra. (Photo by Erika Hernandez) Escobar said he would like to thank the voters for their enduring support.

“I could not give enough thanks to the voters of Kleberg County for their trust and faith in me to hold this position, and I would also like to thank County Judge Pete De La Garza for his service in serving the county for 12 years.”

Kingsville businessman J.M. Lozano defeated Rios Ybarra in the Democratic primary by a margin of 1,455 votes in Kleberg County;

(See Election, Page 8A) Lozano received 2,523 votes and Ybarra received 1,068.

In district-wide voting that included Kleberg, Brooks, Cameron, Jim Hogg, Kenedy, and Willacy counties, Lozano received 8,855 votes while Ybarra tallied 6,708 votes.

“I would specifically like to thank Kleberg County for all their support and faith in me,” Lozano said. “I would also like to thank my family, who undoubtingly have been my biggest supporters. I was outspent in campaigning 2/1 in Kleberg County by my opponent and 4/1 in the Valley, but we ran a genuine campaign from the heart and I think we connected with every single person in the district.”

Lozano, whose job begins January 1, said he plans to get to work as soon as possible and will start holding forums in each of the six counties of District 43 in the summer.

“I want to hear the public’s concerns and start formulating plans in order to be able to draft legislation that I can submit for my first week in office,” Lozano said.

“I am looking forward to serving District 43 the best way that I can, in Kingsville and I will fight to bring more jobs to the area, better pay for teachers, and new programs to TAMUK including a Vet Tech school, a nursing school and also strengthen the engineering school as well.”

There will be three runoff elections based on Tuesday’s results including the offices of County Clerk, Pct. 2 County Commissioner, and Pct. 2 Justice of the Peace.

For the first time this year, results were posted online at the Kleberg County Clerk’s website however, once the early vote totals and first 10/20 precincts were reported the website crashed due to the high volume of citizens searching the website.

“There was a flurry of public inquiries looking for local election results statewide last night that caused the site to crash,” Kleberg County Clerk Leo Alarcon, top vote-getter in local Democratic primary races, said.

“I notified some of my contacts by email to see if Kleberg County was the only site not working but found out that it was many other counties websites as well so I wanted to see if CIRA (the company that hosts the website) could signoff the site to see if I could continue with the posting results and nothing worked until Wednesday morning.”

Alarcon said that CIRA hosts 184 county web sites and on a typical day the servers handle between 30 to 60 queries a second, however Tuesday night the totals jumped to 841 queries a second, 2800 percent more than normal.

Due to the website complications, many candidates relied on phone calls from their different sources for the latest totals and developments.

To win a race in the March primary, candidates had to capture at least 50 percent of the votes and in races where such was not the case, the top two candidates will battle it out on the April 13 runoff election. Early voting will be held one week prior from April 5 through April 9.

In the hotly contested district clerk race, Crystal L. Lomas, with 1,395 votes, is set to face off against Melissa Ruiz Salinas, who garnered 1,002 votes.

Jennifer Whittington-Silva came in third for the position with 960 votes and Lisamarie Erebia rounded it out with 176 votes.

In the Pct. 2 County Commissioner race, Incumbent Norma Nelda Alvarez, 392 votes, will face former Pct. 2 Commissioner Joe G. Hinojosa, 302 votes, in the Democratic runoff.

In the Republican primary for Pct. 2 Commissioner, Chuck Schultz defeated Robert W. Rabe Jr. after taking 157 votes over Rabe’s 34.

The winner of the Democratic runoff will face Schultz in November.

In the race for Pct. 2 Justice of the Peace, six candidates were vying for the position,however incumbent Mario Delgado received the most votes with 254 and will face off against Carmen Cortez, whose votes totaled 152.

the rest of the night as Pct.4 County Commissioner Romeo L. Lomas, 638 votes, defeated Faustino Erebia Jr., 232 votes.

the Peace Andy Gonzalez, 726 votes, defeated Lindsay N. Lewis who totaled 368 votes.

County ballot are as follows by ballot order:

District 27: Solomon P. Ortiz-1,889

Glenn-54; Bill Dear-25; Farouk Shami-711; Felix (Rodriguez) Alvarado-415; Star Locke-28; Alma Ludivina Aguado-137; Bill White-1,949

Chavez-Thompson-2,307; Ronnie Earle-437; Marc Katz- 277

Ann Radnofsky-2,190

General Land Office: Hector Uribe-2,234; Bill Burton-710

Hank Gilbert-1,590; Richard “Kinky” Friedman-1,297

Weems-2,180 Place 3: Jim Sharp-2,234 Place 5: Bill Moody-2,160 Place 9: Blake Bailey-2,139

Appeals, Place 6: Keith Hampton-2,120

43: J.M. Lozano-2,523; Tara Rios Ybarra-1,068

Appeals District, Place 3: Linda Yanez-1,644

Judicial District: J. Manuel Banales-2,356

Escobar-1,878; Pete De La Garza-1,756

Lupita Mendoza-2,436

L. Lomas-1,395; Melissa Ruiz Salinas-1002; Jennifer Whittington-Silva-960; Lisamarie Erebia-176

Alarcon-2,677 Alaniz Cantu-2,520

No. 1: Andy Gonzalez-726; Lindsey N. Lewis-368

Precinct No. 2: Norma Nelda Alvarez-392; Octavio Xavier “Sonny” Alvarez-112; Joe G. Hinojosa-302

No. 2: Sylvia Mendietta Cantu-119; Carmen Cortez-152; Mario A. Delgado-254; Gus Guerrero-149; John Edward “Eddie” Moreno-93; Ramon R. Rodriguez-45

No.3: Sam Brown-566

Precinct No. 4: Faustino Erebia Jr.-232; Romeo L. Lomas-638

No. 4: Cheque De La Paz-705 Isassi-2,476

District 27: Jessica Puente-

Bradshaw-153; James

Duerr-310; William Willie M

Vaden-198; R. Blake

Farenthold-181

n Incumbents led the way

Incumbent Pct. 1 Justice of Results on the Kleberg

United States Representative, Governor: Clement E.

Lieutenant Governor: Linda

Attorney General: Barbara Commissioner of the

Commissioner of Agriculture:

Railroad Commissioner: Jeff Justice, Supreme Court, Justice, Supreme Court, Justice, Supreme Court, Judge, Court of Criminal

State Representative, District Justice, 13th Court of District Judge, 105th County Judge: Juan

Judge, County Court at Law: District Clerk: Crystal

County Clerk: Leo County Treasurer: Priscilla Justice of the Peace, Precinct

County Commissioner

Justice of the Peace, Precinct

Justice of the Peace, Precinct County Commissioner

Justice of the Peace, Precinct County Chairman: Alfred L.

United States Representative,

Governor: Kay Bailey Hutchinson-275; Rick Perry-541; Debra Medina-115

Lieutenant Governor: David

C C Dewhurst-757 a o

Attorney General: Greg r r Abbott-757 m t

Comptroller of Public e e Accounts: Susan Combs-757 n z

Commissioner of General

Land Office: Jerry Patterson-737 44

Commissioner of 32 Agriculture: Todd Staples-731 46

Railroad Commissioner: 26 Victor G. Carrillo-217; David 4 Democratic Republican Porter-611

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 3: Rick Strange-77; Rick Green-131; Debra Lehrmann-137; Jim Moseley-155; Jeff Brown-103; Rebecca Simmons-128

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 5: Paul Green-664

Justice, Supreme Court, Place 9: Rose Vela-513; Eva Guzman-279

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 2: Lawrence “Larry” Myers-683

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 5: Cheryl Johnson-685

Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 6: Michael E. Keasler-673

Justice, 13th Court of Appeals District, Place 3: Greg Perkes-462

District Judge 105th Judicial District: Angelica Hernandez-660

County Commissioner, Precinct No. 2: Chuck Schultz-157; Robert W. Rabe, Jr.-34

Precinct 3 Chairman: Ester V. Quesada-84

County Chairman: Connie Cashen-687

The Republican Party, on its ballot, asked for the public’s opinion on the following propositions:

Proposition 1- Photo ID. “The Texas legislature should make it a priority to protect the integrity of our election process by enacting legislation that requires voters to provide valid photo identification in order to cast a ballot in any and all elections conducted in the State of Texas.” For-828; Against-62

Proposition 2- Controlling Government Growth. “Every government body in Texas should be required to limit any annual increase in its budget and spending to the combined increase in population and inflation unless it first gets voter approval to exceed the allowed annual growth or in the case of an official emergency.” For- 819; Against-75

Proposition 3- Cutting Federal Income Taxes. “In addition to aggressively eliminating irresponsible federal spending, Congress should empower all American citizens to stimulate the economy by Congress cutting federal income taxes for all federal taxpayers, rather than spending hundreds of billions of dollars on so-called federal economic stimulus.” For-846; Against-46

Proposition 4- Public Acknowledgement of God. “The use of the word “God”, prayers, and the Ten Commandments should be allowed at public gatherings and public educational institutions, as well as be permitted on government buildings and property.” For- 872; Against-27

Proposition 5- Sonograms. “The Texas Legislature should enact legislation requiring a sonogram to be performed and shown to each mother about to undergo a medically unnecessary, elective abortion.” For-586; Against-293

In Bishop, Incumbent Pct. 3 Justice of the Peace Adolfo Contreras, with 578 votes, beat Roberto Gutierrez, 323 votes.

Gloria Caceres and Joe Gonzalez will go head to head in a runoff for the Democratic spot for the Pct. 2 County Commissioner post, and the winner will face Republican Gil Hernandez in November.

The Nueces County (Bishop) results were as follows:

Democratic

County Commissioner, Precinct No. 2: Gloria Caceres-1,159; Jose A. “JAG” Gonzalez-1,370; Jesse Noyola-1,057

Justice of the Peace, Precinct No. 3: Adolfo G. Contreras-578; Roberto R. Gutierrez-324

Republican

County Commissioner, Precinct No. 2: Gil Hernandez-1,745