An envelope with zip ties for the ballot box at a voting site for the primary runoff election at La Quinta Inn near the Galleria in Houston on Tuesday, May 24, 2022.
Elizabeth Conley, Houston Chronicle / Staff photographer
A crowded six-candidate Republican field for Harris County judge has left two candidates standing, and thousands of voters to win over.
Orlando Sanchez, former Harris County treasurer and Houston City Council member, is facing off against Warren Howell, a local businessman, in the May runoff. It’s a race that will largely be colored by the GOP runoff for U.S. Senate between Sen. John Cornyn and Attorney General Ken Paxton, said Nancy Sims, a political science lecturer at the University of Houston.
“For the Republican primary, everything is going to be centered around the Paxton-Cornyn runoff,” Sims said. “That is going to drive their voter turnout much more than on the Democratic side, where they have a couple of statewide runoffs, but they’re in lower-profile offices.”
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The dynamic could lead Sanchez and Howell to align themselves with Paxton’s platform to target hardcore partisans, Sims said, but that would be a fraught path that could alienate moderate Republicans in November.
So far, Sims said, Howell and Sanchez appear primarily focused on winning over the thousands of voters who cast ballots for the other four candidates while maintaining the grassroots momentum that got them to the runoff.
“They want to win over those other voters and really make sure the people who voted for them in March come back out and vote for them again,” Sims said.
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Warren Howell – The businessman
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Howell, a businessman who’s worked in everything from roofing to risk management, is pitching himself as a non-traditional candidate who will leverage his experience leading companies to cut down on bloat in Harris County government.
The 75-year-old Air Force veteran promises to use the office of county judge to cut spending, refocus government on road maintenance and public safety and trim departments that he said have become mired with hundreds of overpaid employees.
“I’m running this campaign just like I run a business,” Howell said. “I have eight people just working their tails off to make darn sure we get elected. And that’s how we got in the runoff, because I had professionals, and we put it together. And of course, my message — we’re going to fix our government so we can have everything we need — resonated just enough to get us into the runoff.”
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Howell previously ran for Harris County judge in 2022, finishing fifth in the Republican primary. This year he took second place with 20.8% of the vote — barely edging out firefighter-turned-union-leader Patrick “Marty” Lancton, who finished with 20.6%.
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While Sanchez led the field at 26.5%, Howell said he feels confident he can make up that gap before the May runoff.
“Ninety-four thousand votes are up for grabs,” Howell said. “We had polling people at every polling station, and our exit polling showed us that we were number two every time — whether that was among voters who voted for Aliza Dutt or Marty Lancton, we were the runner-up every time.”
Among Howell’s priorities are empowering the county auditor to conduct forensic audits targeting fraud and waste, and exploring transferring the county’s public library system to the various independent school districts in unincorporated Harris County.
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Unlike the mayor of Houston, the Harris County judge has little power to unilaterally affect change. Instead, the judge’s authority is built on relationships with other elected officials. That dynamic could prove challenging for a Republican judge presiding over a court with a Democratic majority, but Howell said he plans to make alliances with commissioners he considers moderate to ensure the changes he wants to implement move forward.
“Me and (Republican Commissioner) Tom Ramsey would have to team up and talk (Democratic Commissioner) Lesley Briones into voting with us, because everything we bring, everything we do, is going to have so much common horse sense that you would almost look stupid if you didn’t vote for it,” Howell said.
Orlando Sanchez – The traditionalist
Orlando Sanchez, candidate for Harris County Judge, works the polls at Trini Mendenhall Community Center on Election Day in Houston, Tuesday, March 2, 2026.
Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle
Where Howell is campaigning as a political outsider who will boil county government back down to its core components, Sanchez is running as an established conservative with the experience and knowledge to be an effective champion for local Republicans.
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Sanchez led the March primary and said he plans to double down on the strategy that earned him that position.
“It’s all about going out to those same grassroots groups and voters that we talked to in the lead up to March and doubling down on our message,” Sanchez said.
MAP: See how your neighbor voted in the Harris County judge primary elections
That means returning to the Republican social clubs, senatorial districts, and to social media in a bid to amplify his message and hopefully reach some voter groups with whom he underperformed while maintaining the energy among those who embraced him, Sanchez said.
Sanchez is positioning himself as an experienced candidate uniquely qualified to leverage city, county and state resources to the benefit of Harris County taxpayers.
“Throughout all my years in elected office, I’ve learned how to build the relationships that we need to have with members of the Texas Legislature — both in the House and Senate, and with the Lieutenant Governor,” Sanchez said. “All of those are important to Harris County, and I have built those relationships across decades in office.”
The 68-year-old spent nearly 12 years as Harris County treasurer, serving from 2007 to 2018, when Democrats swept into power across county government. Prior to becoming treasurer, Sanchez was a Houston City Council member from 1995 to 2001. He ran for mayor in 2001 and 2003, and for city controller in 2019 and 2023.
It’s a political background that Sanchez said has helped him identify the issues that matter most to voters in Harris County. Among them are crime, property taxes — which he plans to reduce — and the general conduct of Commissioners Court, which he said has been dominated by the combative relationships that have emerged among the court’s four Democrats in recent years.
“The acrimony just isn’t pleasing to anyone on either side of the aisle,” Sanchez said. “Bringing a balance back to the court is important. Having someone like me that has those connections that allow me to pick up the phone and speak to the lieutenant governor, speak to the governor, members of our delegation — I think that’s important for the court, I think that’s important for Harris County and I think voters want to see that kind of balance restored.”