by WES FERGUSON

It was a good day to be an incumbent in Hays County and Central Texas, with many familiar faces cruising to victory in Tuesday’s Republican and Democratic primaries.

Meanwhile, Buda resident David S. Glickler came storming back in the polls to force a runoff with former New Braunfels Mayor Bruce Boyer for the new 22nd Judicial District judge’s bench serving Hays, Comal and Caldwell counties.

“Hays is alive,” Glickler said shortly before midnight on Tuesday, after learning he had won Caldwell County in addition to his home base of Hays County. He managed to capture 24 percent of the total vote to Boyer’s 49 percent in the field of four candidates.

In the 22nd Judicial District race, Glickler, an assistant attorney general, said the extra campaign period leading up to the July 31 runoff election could give him an advantage to make up some ground against the popular Boyer.

“Our race sometimes gets buried behind the more attractive or volatile races,” Glickler said. “Now we will be the focus of the election. When all the voters become more educated both on what a district judge does and what our qualifications are, I think it will turn significantly in my favor.”

Boyer, for his part, said his broad career background as a prosecutor, mayor and business owner would put him over the top.

“We’ve had a gentlemen’s race, and I anticipate the runoff being the same,” Boyer said. “I just believe I’ve got more experience in the community and in business, and I have a proven track record of representing my constituents as mayor, being a good listener, and making good common-sense decisions based on conservative values.”

The runoff will likely come down to the candidates’ ability to get out the vote. Though the combined population of Hays and Caldwell counties is nearly double that of Comal, voters in Comal hit the polls in far greater numbers. Boyer received about two voters for every one that Glickler received in Tuesday’s primary.

Elsewhere Tuesday,

On a larger political stage, Lloyd Doggett, D-Austin, again thwarted the wishes of Republican policymakers who still haven’t figured out how to redistrict him out of office. Campaigning in Congressional District 35, which is heavily Hispanic and stretches from southeastern Travis County to its population base in San Antonio, including most of Hays County east of I-35, Doggett claimed 73.2 percent of the electorate and a whopping 88.7 percent of Hays County’s vote.

The longtime U.S. representative will be heavily favored in November’s general election against former San Marcos Mayor Susan Narvaiz, who claimed 51.8 percent of the Republican vote on Tuesday.

“Rick Perry thought he could pick and choose through his crooked map who will serve in Washington. He forgot that the people choose their leaders,” Doggett said in a statement.

In another major race affecting Hays County voters, incumbent state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, became the unlikely beneficiary of the tea party movement. A bruising campaign battle between Wentworth and the well-funded former Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones, replete with attack ads and a lawsuit, made room for the emergence of a third candidate, the tea party firecracker Donna Campbell.

Wentworth earned 35.8 percent of Tuesday’s vote and Campbell grabbed 33.7 percent — including 52.3 percent in Hays County — leaving Jones the odd Republican out with just 30.5 percent.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, a San Antonio Republican who represents western San Marcos and most of Buda, soared with 76.6 percent of the vote. He will face Democrat Candace E. Duval, who earned 61 percent in her primary race.

In the newly created Congressional District 25, Roger Williams garnered a leading 25.1 percent of the vote to enter a runoff with second-place Republican finisher Wes Riddle. The winner will run unopposed in November.

WES FERGUSON is editor of the Hays Free Press where this story was originally published. It is reprinted here through a news partnership between the Free Press and the San Marcos Mercury.