Early voting continues for the HD120, HD139 and uniform elections.
HD139 Special: Twelve people voted early in person today in HD139, bringing the three-day in-person total to 55 people. More than 1,100 ballots by mail have been returned. Ballots by mail represent more than 95% of all votes cast thus far in this special election. We do not have the data to evaluate how much of an outlier this may be, but we do not recall an election where ballots by mail comprised that much of the total early vote.
In the 2016 Democratic primary election, a total of 1,406 people voted by mail in HD139, representing a quarter of the total early votes. Jarvis Johnson received 416 of those votes, finishing behind Randy Bates. Johnson is a candidate in the special election. Neither his runoff opponent, Kimberly Willis, nor Bates is running in the special election.
Ballots by mail represented just over half of the early vote in the December 2005 special runoff election for HD143. Ana Hernandez captured 74% of the ballot-by-mail vote and 73% of the total early vote. She won the election, 61%-39%, after receiving 55% of the Election Day vote.
Neither of these elections came close to the share of the vote represented by ballots by mail that we are seeing in the HD139 special runoff election.
SD24 open: Former candidate Ryan Downton endorsed Dawn Buckingham. Downton finished sixth in the primary with 4% of the vote.
CD19 open: Appearing on KFYO-AM’s The Chad Hasty Show, Glen Robertson announced he has been endorsed by the Lubbock Professional Police Assoc. The group previously supported Robertson in at least one of his mayoral campaigns and at least one prior city council campaign.
