Republican Michael Cloud (left) and Democrat Eric Holguin were chosen by voters as the two candidates for the District 27 congressional seat, which stretches from Corpus Christi to Bastrop.
An extremely low voter turnout in the May 22 primary runoff election determined which two candidates will face off in November to represent District 27 in Congress for the next two years. In the Democratic primary, Eric Holguin defeated challenger Raul “Roy” Barrera with 62 percent of the vote. He will face Republican Michael Cloud, who received 60 percent of the vote to Bech Bruun’s 39 percent.
In the Democratic primary race for governor, Lupe Valdez defeated Andrew White and will now face incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott in the Nov. 6 mid-term election.
District 27, which encompasses 12 counties, stretches from Corpus Christi to Bastrop. In the Democratic primary, Holguin defeated Roy Barrera 6,376 to 3,903. In the Republican primary, Cloud received 15,041 votes to Bruun’s 9,565.
All four of the candidates, plus five others, will face off again June 30 in an emergency special election to fill the remaining few months of the seat vacated April 6 by Republican Blake Farenthold. The four-term congressman first announced in December he would not seek re-election. That happened shortly after news broke that $84,000 in taxpayer money was used to settle a sexual harassment claim against him. He resigned in April just before the House Ethics Committee ruled against him in two investigations: one concerning the settlement, the other with using staff from his congressional office to work on his campaigns.
Joining the four primary runoff candidates on the special election ballot, which is not split into parties although party affiliations are listed, are Judith Cutright (Independent), Marty Perez (Republican), Christopher Suprun (Independent), Daniel Tinus (Libertarian), and Mike Westergren (Democrat).
The winner of the the emergency special election will begin to serve almost immediately after election day but would have to step down in January, unless, of course, the same person wins all three elections. In a further complication, if none of the nine in the emergency special election receives 50.1 percent of the vote on June 30, a runoff election will be held Sept. 28.
Early voting for the special election is June 13-26.
