Unofficial results show Samaniego leading in race for El Paso County Judge

Unofficial results in Tuesday’s runoff election show Ricardo Samaniego in the lead for El Paso County Judge over John Cook.

Numbers shows Samaniego with 5,676 votes and 51-percent of the vote, and Cook with 5,441 votes and 48.9-percent of the vote.

While turnout seemed light at many polling places around El Paso County, local voters had some critical choices to make in Tuesday’s primary runoff election.

On the Democratic Party side, voters got to choose between former El Paso Mayor John Cook and businessman Ricardo Samaniego in the race for county judge.

The big issues in the county judge race are growth, flooding and the downtown arena, even though that is a city of El Paso project.

Democrats also picked between Lupe Valdez and Andrew White for the party nomination for governor.

There were also a handful of justice of peace and judicial races in the Democratic runoff.

Democratic voters in part of the Lower Valley also got to vote in the District 23 race for Congress. The winner between Gina Ortiz Jones and Rick Trevino will face Republican incumbent Will Hurd. This district has flopped between the two major parties in recent years and is always one of the toss-up House races from across the country.

Republicans, meanwhile, had just one justice of peace race.