Jarratt, Townsend keep city, school seats; Lowery, Wimberly join GISD board

Unofficial final election vote tallies Tuesday night kept Jim Jarratt in the Granbury mayor’s seat and Granbury School Board president Barbara Townsend in the Place 6 position.

Overall, the election may have been a mixed bag for supporters of various candidates in hotly contested city and school races. Some candidates were clustered together in campaign materials and social media posts.

Townsend was grouped with Place 5 candidate Bill Wimberly, Place 7 incumbent Paula McDonald and Granbury mayoral candidate Tony Mobly.

Wimberly won, but McDonald and Mobly did not.

County Clerk Katie Lang and Precinct 4 Commissioner Dave Eagle, both Republicans who were challenged by Democrats, easily won new terms.

Tolar City Council and Tolar School Board races were also on the ballot.

The total number of ballots cast was 27,198, representing 55.75% of Hood County’s 48,789 registered voters. During the two-week early voting period, 14,880 ballots were cast, representing 30.57% of registered voters.

GISD

Wimberly led from the start in a three-man race for the seat vacated by Mark Jackson.

In early voting, he scored 5,986 votes, or 51.71% of the ballots cast, while John Mark Graves netted 2,087 votes (18.03%) and Terry Louvin received 3,502 votes (30.25%).

In final tallies, the vote count was Wimberly, 10,107 (49.81%); Graves, 4,051 (19.97%); and Louvin, 6,132 (30.22%).

Townsend as well maintained a strong lead throughout the evening, winning against challenger Jeff Hastings, the GISD’s former security chief, with 61.84% of the vote to his 38.16%. The final vote counts were 12,790 and 7,893, respectively.

The final numbers were a close reflection of what the two netted in early voting. For Townsend, early votes were 7,514 (63.88%) and for Hastings, the number was 4,249 (36.12%).

In the Place 7 race, Lowery outpaced McDonald in early voting, with 6,638 votes (56.95%) to McDonald’s 5,017 (43.05%). When all votes were tallied, Lowery’s total was 11,867 (58.08%) and McDonald’s was 8,564 (41.92%).

CITY OF GRANBURY

Jarratt, seated through a special election in June 2021, won with 58.52% of the vote to Mobly’s 41.48%. The vote split was 2,547/1,805.

Early voting numbers were 1,580 (57.48%) for Jarratt and 1,169 (42.52%) for Mobly.

Eddie Rodriquez won a second term in the Place 2 seat, besting challenger Pat Abell both in early voting and Election Day numbers.

The early voting numbers in that race were 1,931 (72.87%) for Rodriquez and 719 (27.13%) for Abell.

Final numbers were 3,000 (71.51%) and 1,195 (28.49%), respectively.

COUNTY

For Lang, her win against Harold Granek means a third term. Eagle’s victory against Grant Wood means a second term.

Early voting numbers in the county clerk’s race were 11,704 (80.55%) for Lang and 2,827 (19.45%) for Granek. Final numbers were 21,371 (80.56%) and 5,158 (19.44%).

In the Precinct 4 commissioner race, Eagle netted 2,399 (75.11%) of the early vote and 4,248 (75.21%) in final numbers.

Wood won 795 votes (24.89%) through early voting and 1,400 (24.79%) total.

TOLAR

Matt Hutsell will take the reins from outgoing longtime mayor Terry Johnson.

He won the mayor’s seat with 227 votes (70.50%) to Don Ives’ 95 (29.50%).

The early voting numbers were 50 votes (59.52%) for Hutsell and 34 (40.48%) for Ives.

For the Place 4 seat, Brian Gall maintained his early voting advantage over Kacy Brown, winning the race with 201 votes (67.22%) to Brown’s 98 (32.78%).

Their early voting numbers were 52 (64.20%) and 29 (35.80%).

For the Tolar School Board, incumbent Justin Deaver held onto his Place 7 seat, besting challengers Wayne Wienecke and Kimberly Miller.

Deaver’s early voting tally was 234 (56.39%) while Wienecke’s was 118 (28.43%) and Miller’s was 63 (15.18%).

The final numbers were 686 (57.12%) for Deaver, 330 (27.48%) for Wienecke and 185 (15.40%) for Miller.

UPPER BALLOT

In upper ballot races, deeply red Hood County gave strong support to Republican candidates.

Votes in Hood County for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott numbered 22,493 (83.02%) and votes for Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke totaled 4,272 (15.77%). Statewide, the total for Abbott was 4,420,160 (54.84%) and for O’Rourke it was 2,478,219 (43.77%).

In the lieutenant governor’s race, Republican incumbent Dan Patrick won 21,690 votes (80.54%) in Hood County and 2,868,185 (53.84%) statewide. His Democratic challenger, Mike Collier, netted 4,638 (17.22%) in the county and 2,460,236 (43.39%) across the state.

In the attorney general race, another Republican incumbent, Ken Paxton, won the confidence of Hood County voters with 80.61% of the vote to Democrat Rochelle Mercedes Garza’s 16.01%. Their vote totals were 21,660 and 4,302, respectively.

Statewide, Paxton scored 4,262,778 votes (53.51%) while Garza walked away with 2,457,706 (43.57%).

Locally, State Sen. Brian Birdwell, R-Granbury, won 22,990 votes (88.10%) while Libertarian challenger Jeremy Schroppel received 3,086 (11.86%).

Throughout District 22, Birdwell received 190,642 votes (74.27%) and Schroppel received 66,040 (25.73%).

A complete listing of races on the midterm ballot and Hood County vote totals for those races can be found at www.co.hood.tx.us.