ATHENS–Mark Smith will be the Republican Party nominee as Henderson County Judge in November (with no Democrat running), meaning the Eustace native is the next leader of the fast-growing county following the retirement of another Eustace native, Wade McKinney, who has been in charge since 2019.
Smith defeated Wade Carter in the GOP primary March 3, with the unofficial vote total from the Henderson County elections department showing Smith received 3,864 votes to Carter’s 2,959. The day after the election, Smith told The Monitor that his focus will be handling the county’s near-exponential growth.
“I think every candidate, probably including Mr. Carter, they, everybody’s just glad it’s over, No. 1. It’s an exhausting process to run for office like this, but I’m very gratified.”
Smith continued, “The county’s facing a lot of challenges, the main thing is going be how we handle the growth, a population that’s coming to the (Cedar Creek) lake area and all sorts of these to part of the county from Tyler.”
Smith, who said he has practiced law 45 years and is the son of the late Athens surgeon Joe Ed Smith and grandson of former Eustace ISD Superintendent Virgil Smith, commented that growth is going to cause “issues,” explaining “they have to be resolved, and then you have to allocate resources as best you can.” That includes maintaining county roads and controlling crime, Smith stated.
The next county judge added: “If we could use that growth and channel it to provide more economic growth for the county, that would benefit us all.”
In addition, incumbent Scott Tuley was selected by Henderson County Precinct 2 Republican primary voters in the Gun Barrel City, Eustace and Mabank area to face Democrat Benjamin Beene in the November general election and perhaps get his third term. Tuley’s 1,161 votes doubled up the combined total of challengers Edward Morse (260 votes) and Eron Hoops (237 votes).
“We expected to gain the 50-plus-one (majority finish), but we were excited that we got as many votes as we did,” Tuley told The Monitor. “Both of my challengers ran a clean race, and the race that we ran was a positive one, of everything that we’ve done for the Precinct 2 constituents, and to continue to lead the county debt free, and do the things that we said we’re going to do, and how we’re going to do it.”
Also, current Precinct 2 Justice of the Peace Jamie Fawns is headed to a May runoff with that precinct’s former JP, Dale Blaylock, after securing 662 votes to Blaylock’s 528 votes. James D. “J.D.” Jennings got 414 votes, keeping none of the three candidates from going over 50% and forcing that May 26 showdown.
Another closely contested Henderson County election was for Henderson County Attorney, an office emptied when its former occupant, Clint Davis, was appointed to be an Athens-based state district judge by Texas Gov. Greg Abbott.
One of Davis’ former lieutenants, Kenneth Strawn, won that spot over Athens attorney Christopher Tinsley by an unofficial total of 3,790-2,399. Davis, who had been selected to fill the remaining term of now-retired State District Judge Dan Moore, beat Athens attorney James Owen 4,857-2,111. There was no Democrat running for that judgeship, so Davis’ primary victory means he gets a full term starting in January.
Also applicable to Cedar Creek Lake-area residents was the election of former Tool City Council Member Michael Fladmark as Henderson County Democratic Party chair, while Krista Stutts assumed the chair of the county’s Republican Party hierarchy. Stutts’ predecessor, Athens attorney Daniel Hunt, was defeated by incumbent State Rep. Cody Harris of Palestine in his bid to become the next representative of District 8, which covers a portion of Henderson County alongside current State Rep. Keith Bell, who will face Democrat challenger Mark Moseley in November.
In addition, Henderson County’s Republican voters favored Trent Ashby over Rhonda Ward to succeed retiring state Sen. Robert Nichols for that upper body’s District 3, while the county’s voters cast more ballots for incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn over his main challenger, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, by an unofficial final count of 3,318-3,104. Cornyn and Paxton also will battle in May’s runoff election.
In Kaufman County, Republican voters favored Paxton over Cornyn and in for the GOP Kaufman County Court at Law No. 2 race, Bobby Rich defeated Rob Farquharson 6,494-6,491 and got 50.01 of the vote, meaning he’s the Republican Party’s unopposed November nominee. Also, Jody Deller beat Detrese Harkey by about 70-30% and will be the Kaufman County Republican Party chair.