Now that the primary elections have wrapped up, El Paso voters will see some familiar names in the November midterm elections, but there was a surprise for two Democratic incumbents, who were ousted from Commissioners Court by political newcomers.
First-time candidate Annette Griego defeated County Commissioner Sergio Coronado, while Miguel Teran, also running in his first race, defeated longtime County Commissioner David Stout.
Political observers say a “perfect storm” of factors – including high turnout and voter concerns about taxes and spending – contributed to the primary defeats of the two incumbents.
El Paso County has about 523,000 registered voters, and saw a high voter turnout of about 18% – a total of 92,897 ballots cast, according to the El Paso County Elections Department. About 32,000 votes were cast in the Democratic races for El Paso County Commissioners Court and about 9,700 on the Republican ballot for those offices.
In the November midterm elections, Teran, 61, will face Republican nominee Thomas “Matt” Sistrunk, a 66-year-old U.S. Army veteran and cryptocurrency promoter who ran unopposed in the Republican primary.
Griego, 50, owner of the El Paso Family and Pediatric Clinic, will take on Leo Arcos, 40, an Army veteran who also ran unopposed on the Republican ballot.
Teran, owner of Roman Construction and Project Management, defeated Stout by 945 votes, winning with 53.1% compared to Stout’s 46.8%.
In a conversation with El Paso Inc., Teran said his “victory belongs to the many volunteers, supporters and community members who believed in our message of accountability, transparency and responsible leadership.”
The name Teran is familiar to El Paso voters. Another Miguel Teran – the younger Teran’s father – served four terms as an El Paso County commissioner before retiring in 2008.
Teran said he recently had breakfast with his father, who offered some “old school” advice for the upcoming November midterm elections, which in El Paso have historically favored the Democrats.
“He said not to take anything for granted. That’s what he has always lived by,” said the younger Teran about his father. “And I’m not going to treat this any differently. I’m not going to take anything for granted.”
“I approach this responsibility with humility and a strong sense of duty,” he continued. “For more than 30 years, I have worked managing complex construction projects and multimillion-dollar budgets, and I plan to bring that same level of discipline and oversight to Commissioners Court. I look forward to continuing to earn the trust of voters as we head toward the November election.”
Stout did not respond to El Paso Inc.’s inquiries.
Griego’s win over Coronado
Griego defeated Coronado by 2,572 votes, receiving 57.5% of the vote compared with Coronado’s 42.4%.
As a former intensive care unit director who also coordinated patient services for Tenet hospitals in El Paso, Griego says that experience placed her face-to-face with people frustrated with taxes and a lack of “strong leadership” from local governments.
“I was listening to every single person out there, with their concerns of why isn’t anyone doing anything about it? Why are we paying so much on these taxes? We’re not getting enough health care out here. Why is El Paso left out?” she said.
Griego and her staff would often help patients find resources for their problems, even when the issues were not medical, she said.
“And I thought, if I can do this for thousands of people across El Paso, why wouldn’t I be able to do that for my precinct? So that really motivated me to run and make a difference,” she said.
One of her priorities is helping struggling senior citizens. Griego also said she has seen a lack of fiscal discipline in county government.
“I personally can justify every role and every salary for every one of my employees, but the county can’t do that,” she said.
Coronado acknowledged he was surprised by the outcome of the race.
He said Commissioners Court, which governs El Paso County, was “losing a lot of experience with Commissioner Stout,” and added, “With me, they’re losing a lot of specialized experience because I have a legal background. I’ve been an assistant county attorney both in El Paso and in Travis County.”
Why did both incumbents lose?
Carlos Sierra, a political consultant based in El Paso, said it was noteworthy that both Democratic incumbents lost to primary challengers.
One reason, he said, may be that neither Stout nor Coronado had a signature initiative that inspired voters.
“They didn’t do anything to stand out,” Sierra said, particularly for voters who were concerned with the county’s fiscal responsibility.
“They weren’t part of any scandals or anything,” Sierra said. “But Sergio Coronado and Stout have been on the side of Commissioners Court that kind of raises our taxes, raises their salaries,” Sierra said.
County commissioners earn more than $133,000 a year.
Still, Sierra said, it was a big shock that Stout was defeated by such a margin.
“He’s had competition before, and he’s always been able to win. He usually runs a pretty good ground game, but that just wasn’t enough for this time,” Sierra said.
He attributed Stout’s loss to “a perfect storm” of factors.
One factor, he said, was name recognition.
“Teran’s family name is very well known in that area,” Sierra said. “So you had a high turnout, you had someone with name ID against him. Then his voting record didn’t help him.”
Another factor may have been the large turnout in the Democratic primary.
“Even though I don’t think either Coronado or Stout did a particularly good job with their campaign, you can’t blame everything on them. A lot had to do with this massive turnout. These voters that came out were really voting for the Crockett-Talarico race,” Sierra said.
The race for U.S. representative between Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico drew El Pasoans who don’t often vote out to the polls. Because campaigns tend to target high-turnout voters, Sierra said, the influx of new voters meant that many ballots were cast by people who had not been targeted by the political messages.
“When you’re dealing with that much turnout, it’s just hard to target voters,” he said. “I guarantee a lot of these voters that voted, they weren’t getting mail or text messages or digital ads or door knocking (from Stout or Coronado) because they just weren’t in the universe.”
Coronado said he was troubled by the technical glitches on Election Day that led some polling stations to turn away voters because of problems with voter check-in software.
“A lot of voters, I think, were disenfranchised because of that,” Coronado said. “I’m not going to challenge the results. I’m not going to cause an issue in the system, but I have concerns that this happened. And the voters should also have concerns.”
Lisa Wise, El Paso County elections administrator, confirmed to El Paso Inc. that “a majority of El Paso County’s poll pads” failed to allow voters to select their party at about 80 polling sites on the morning of election day. During the poll pad downtime, some voters left polling sites and told El Paso Inc. they would not likely have time to return to vote.
In a written statement, Wise emphasized that voting machines – on which actual votes are cast – “were fully functional and without issue throughout Election Day and voters were able to vote at any voting site countywide.”
By 1 p.m. on Election Day, the problems were resolved.
“El Paso County will work with the vendor to ensure the poll pad issue experienced during this election is fully addressed and does not occur for future elections,” Wise stated.
Commissioners Court discussed the matter during a recent closed-door session and is expected to discuss it publicly Monday.
Michael Aboud, chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, recalls hearing reports of problems early on Election Day.
“I thought, ‘What the heck is going on?’ It was a bit of a hectic time,” he said, adding that he is awaiting more details to come out about the technical problems and how they might have affected results.
Aboud said he has heard from “a handful of local candidates and a handful statewide” who are “considering challenging the results, and there’s some that are working on getting a recount.”
El Paso County Democratic Chairman Michael Apodaca did not return requests for comment.
Both Republican candidates for the County Commissioners race won their primaries unopposed.
Arcos, who will face Griego in November, said the Democratic primary results reflected voter frustration with “career politicians” and local Democratic priorities.
“Everybody who sits on (Commissioners Court), they’re all Democrats,” Arcos said. “They’re the ones who have been raising the taxes. They’re the ones who don’t want to lower your taxes. They’re the ones that are doing this bad mismanagement of money.”
Sistrunk, who will face Teran, acknowledged it will be difficult for a Republican to win a county commissioner seat in El Paso. Still, he said his conservative values resonate with voters.
“Having lived here for 38 years, I’ve come to know El Paso is a very conservative community that is very God-fearing, very family-oriented and very responsible when it comes to creating, producing and delivering value for society.”