{"id":119949,"date":"2026-01-12T14:23:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:23:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/119949\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T14:23:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T14:23:09","slug":"what-uncontested-primaries-mean-for-el-paso-voters-and-whos-already-advancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/119949\/","title":{"rendered":"What uncontested primaries mean for El Paso voters \u2014 and who\u2019s already advancing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Primary elections are the first round in the race for public office \u2014 a process that determines which candidates will appear on the November general election ballot.<\/p>\n<p>In El Paso County, voters will cast ballots in the Democratic and Republican primaries on March 3, with early voting running Feb. 17\u201327.<\/p>\n<p>Think of the primaries like the opening round of a tournament: Candidates compete within their own party, and the winners advance to the general election, where Democrats and Republicans face off in November. To move on, a candidate must win a majority of their party\u2019s votes. If no one clears 50% in races with three or more candidates, the top two advance to the May 26 primary runoff elections.<\/p>\n<p>In the primaries, you can only vote in one party \u2013 though you can vote for candidates of any party in the November general election regardless of which party primary you voted in.<\/p>\n<p>But in some races, there\u2019s no competition at all.<\/p>\n<p>Several local, state and federal candidates in El Paso drew no opponents in their party\u2019s primary, meaning they automatically move on to November \u2014 and in some cases, are effectively elected because no opposing party candidate filed.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/elpasomatters.org\/2025\/12\/09\/el-paso-texas-primary-elections-march-2026-candidates-democrat-republican\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">READ MORE: Who\u2019s running? Republicans look to challenge El Paso Democratic stronghold in 2026 elections<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Third-party groups such as Libertarians don\u2019t have primary elections and instead name their nominees at party conventions. Their candidates will appear on the November general election ballot.<\/p>\n<p>Below is a look at the uncontested races and candidates on the Democratic and Republican primary ballots.<\/p>\n<p>DEMOCRATIC PRIMARY<\/p>\n<p>U.S House of Representatives<\/p>\n<p>District 16: Veronica Escobar, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>Texas House of Representatives<\/p>\n<p>District 74: Eddie Morales, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>District 75: Mary Gonz\u00e1lez, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>District 77: Vincent Perez, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>District 78: Joe Moody, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>District 79: Claudia Ordaz, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>El Paso County judge<\/p>\n<p>Ricardo Samaniego, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>District clerk<\/p>\n<p>County clerk<\/p>\n<p>District Court judges<\/p>\n<p>327th District Court: Monique Velarde Reyes, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>243rd District Court: Selena Solis, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>210th District Court: Alyssa G. Perez, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>205th District Court: Francisco X. Dominguez, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>County Court at Law judges<\/p>\n<p>County Court at Law 1: Ruth Reyes, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>County Court at Law 3: Melissa A. Baeza, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>County Court at Law 5: Jesus Rodriguez, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>County Court at Law 6: Sue Kurita, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>County Court at Law 7: Ruben Morales, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>County Criminal Court judges<\/p>\n<p>County Criminal Court 1: Linda S. Perez, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>County Criminal Court 2: Robert S. Anchondo, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>County Probate Court judges<\/p>\n<p>County Probate Court No. 1: Patricia Chew, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>Justice of the peace<\/p>\n<p>Precinct 3: Josh Herrera, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>Precinct 4: Rebecca Bustamante, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>Party chair<\/p>\n<p>Michael Apodaca, incumbent<\/p>\n<p>REPUBLICAN PRIMARY<\/p>\n<p>Texas House of Representatives<\/p>\n<p>District 77: Humberto Perez<\/p>\n<p>District 79: Jesus Romero<\/p>\n<p>El Paso County commissioner\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Precinct 2: Thomas M. Matt Sistrunk<\/p>\n<p>Precinct 4: Leo Arcos<\/p>\n<p>168th District Court<\/p>\n<p>120th District Court<\/p>\n<p>Ben Ivey, appointed incumbent<\/p>\n<p>Related<\/p>\n<p>LISTEN: EL PASO MATTERS PODCAST<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Primary elections are the first round in the race for public office \u2014 a process that determines which&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":119950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[138,140,139,39794],"class_list":["post-119949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-el-paso","tag-el-paso","tag-el-paso-headlines","tag-el-paso-news","tag-election-2026"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}