The increase in voting for the 2018 primary election is an indicator that citizens will engage in politics in elections that don't involve a presidential candidate. Across the state, Democrats vaunted a 105 percent increase while Republican voting only increased 15 percent. However, Republicans had more than 1.5 million votes statewide, while Democrats had a little more than a million.

In Denton County, Republican voters nearly doubled the Democrat output. According to the office of the Secretary of State, Republicans had more than 49 thousand votes to the Democrats near 27 thousand votes. 

Here are the results of some of the more closely followed races for Denton in the Democratic and Republican primaries. Numbers are from the Texas Secretary of State website unless otherwise noted.

Governor

With nine candidates running for governor in Democratic primary, the race wasn`t close as Andrew White and Lupe Valdez rushed the lead above a field of nine candidates total. Neither Valdez (43 percent) nor White (27 percent) got majority of the vote and will have a runoff election May 22.

As for the Republican primary, incumbent Gregg Abott raked 90 percent of the vote from his challengers Barbare Krueger and SECEDE Kilgore.

DEMOCRAT
Lupe Valdez - 436,337    42.89%
Andrew White -   278,616    27.38%

REPUBLICAN
Greg Abbott(incumbent) -  1,390,236    90.39%
Barbara Krueger -  127,230    8.27%

United States Representative, District 26

No surprise on the Republican side as Michael Burgess handily secured his nomination over Veronica Birkenstock with 77 percent of the vote. 

The Democratic election was up in the air until shortly before midnight. Early voting numbers favored Fisher by 3 points, but Fagan came out on top thanks to her margin of victory in Tarrant County. More than 21 thousand Denton County voters weighed in, and Fisher won favor by nearly 200 votes. However, Fagan had 67 percent of the vote with a little more than 4600 voters from Tarrant County.

DEMOCRAT
Linsey Fagan - 13,817    52.69%
Will Fisher - 12,402    47.30%

REPUBLICAN
Michael C. Burgess (Incumbent) - 42,290   76.92%
Veronica Birkenstock - 12,684    23.07%

State Representative, District 64

It was another close race in the Democratic primary for state representative district 64, but it lacked the same suspense with a runoff ensured by nearly 20% of the vote going to Matt Farmer, who dropped out two months ago. Pruneda can go into the runoff feeling good about having a 2 point edge in the primary vote, but Morris also has reason to believe he can sway the vote in his favor. They'll vie to pick up supporters of Matt Farmer while hoping to maintain the same turnout in an election set for May 22.

A subplot of the primary election is whether candidates backed by Empower Texans would be able take over incumbent seats in the Republican party. Mark Roy was one such candidate, but incumbent Lynn Stucky won with 64 percent of the vote.

DEMOCRAT
Mat Pruneda - 3,063   41.67%
Andrew Morris - 2,842   38.66%
Matt Farmer - 1,445    19.65%

REPUBLICAN
Lynn Stucky (Incumbent) -  8,575    64.33%
Mark Roy - 4,754    35.66%

County Judge

Diana Leggett is officially the Democratic pick for the Denton County Judge as gained 75 percent of the vote over Willie Hudspeth, a prominent Denton figure who has been protesting the monument for 17 years. 

The Republican pick is Andy Eads as he ran uncontested. 

DEMOCRAT
Diana Leggett - 18,442    74.82%
Willie Hudspeth - 6,208    25.18%

REPUBLICAN
Andy Eads - 34,976    100%

*Numbers from Denton County Election website

The General Election will be Nov. 6, 2018 with early voting held from Oct. 22-Nov. 2.

You can see more of the results for other positions on the website for the Texas Secretary of State. 

Header image by Mateo Granados
Header image layout designed by Mateo Granados