Burnt Orange Report

San Antonio Update

By Karl-Thomas Musselman

Keep up with the returns here at the Bexar County elections website. Original election last month has returns here for comparison.

But as of 10:06 pm, in total votes, the race has narrowed enormously from the early vote numbers which put Hardberger over Castro, 58-42, about an 8500 vote margin. But now he leads 52-48, though Red State has just reported that they hear it's because Castro's boxes have come in first (Castro is leading by 6000 votes in Election Day totals.

Now, IF the runoff followed the regular election, there should be just over half (51-52%) cast on Election Day compared to early vote. And IF Castro's Election Day margin (60-40) holds out for the rest of the ballots or even weakens a bit, he would pull the vote deficit and win. But of course, that does not take into account the fact that not all precincts are equal and if have already come in to a greater degree, then it looks less bright for the Castro campaign. And remember, Republicans vote early, Democrats prefer Election Day, so that would explain the results so far if those Republican voters are indeed following the endorsement of their vanquished candidate. Of course, that may also mean that the hardcore active, "I'll do what's best to Stop a Hispanic" crowd has already voted, leaving Hardberger possibly weak in turnout in his better precincts today.

Of course, the runoffs for District 6 and 7 look to be headed to a larger turnout in the runoff than on Election Day, and those are both on Castro's turf.

Update: Hardberger’s lead shrinks to 1467 vote, down from his 8476 lead in early vote. Castro picks up 7000 votes against him as of now on Election Day, puling 58.4% of the e-day total. Margin now 50.79 - 49.21 with about 55% reporting. We could see higher turnout on e-day comparative to the original election, which helps Castro at this point.

Likely winners now in District 6 and 7, each leading by about 11 points, are...

6- Delicia Herrera (endorsed by the Sierra Club and Stonewall Democrats) beats Ray Lopez (endorsed by Mayor Ed Garza, the Express-News, and Police)

7- Elena Guajardo (involved with Stonewall and Tejano Democrats) beats Noel Suniga (also endorsed by the Express News, his website banner includes "family values" and "taxpayers" so I'm going to guess he was the more conservative of the two.)

Looks like a good night for those two races at least, even though I haven’t paid attention to them until now. If anyone has some info, post a comment.

Update: 10:37, 59% reporting.
Hardberger / 50.92% / 49,981
Castro / 49.8% / 48,167

Hardberger lead now 1814.

Update Red State says that these are the numbers by Commissioner precinct...

Pct. 3 ~ 69 out of 205 counted (33%)
Pct. 1 ~ 75 out of 125 counted (60%)
Pct. 4 ~ 66 out of 198 counted (33%)
Pct. 2 ~ 98 out of 156 counted (63%)

Here is the map (pdf) for the precincts for the county, with the council districts in them.