New Faces Win Several Races

Hunt County Precinct 3 Commissioner Philip Martin lost his bid for re-election Tuesday.

Larry Middlebrooks, the Republican challenger, received 3,892 votes to Martin’s 3,684.

As tight as that race was, it was nothing compared to the contest for Precinct 1 Commissioner between Republican Mike Pierce and Democratic incumbent Kenneth Thornton.

At the end, Thornton prevailed by a margin of just 10 votes, 3,384 to 3,374. There was no word on the possibility of a recount as of press time Thursday.

The position of Hunt County Sheriff went to Randy Meeks, the Republican candidate, by nearly a 2-to-1 margin over Democratic candidate Dewey Watson.

Meeks wound up with 18,863 votes while Watson finished with 9,840.

In other local elections, Republican Sandy Berger defeated incumbent Democrat Kenneth Peters, 9,956-6,349.

Among the precinct constable elections, Hunt County will have two new constables. Republican Kent Layton defeated incumbent Democrat Cullen Smith, 4,643-2,373, in the Precinct 4 Constable race.

Republican Terry Jones ran unopposed to take the Precinct 1 Constable position that Meeks held.

Democrat Don Morrison, the Precinct 3 Constable, turned back the challenge of Republican Roger Wolfe by a very slim margin of 40 votes, 1,096-1,056. Democrat Wayne "Doc" Pierce was unopposed in being re-elected to the Precinct 2 Constable office.

Longtime Hunt County District Attorney F. Duncan Thomas, a Republican, was successful in his bid to become judge of the new County Court-at-law No. 2. Thomas got 16,133 votes to Democrat Steve Shipp’s 12,258.

Taking the district attorney position was current assistant district attorney Noble Walker. The Republican candidate got 19,378 votes to defeat Democratic candidate Carol Day Gustin, who had 8,771 votes.

Hunt County voters heavily favored Republican incumbents in two federal races and one state race. John Cornyn won re-election to the United States Senate, Ralph Hall did the same in the House of Representatives District 4 election and Dan Flynn won another term in Austin as District 2 State Representative.

In the presidential election, Hunt County voters gave 20,571 votes to the Republican ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin, while 8,591 votes went to the eventual winners, Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Straight party voting in Hunt County went nearly 2-to-1 for the Republican side, a total of 8,485 to 4,459 for the Democrats.