Alexander claims runoff victory

By LPR Staff
Editor/POST-REGISTER

A widely-contested Democratic Party race for the nomination for Caldwell County Judge has ended with a former Commissioner earning the party’s nod.

Morris Alexander, formerly a Caldwell County Commissioner for Precinct One, emerged victorious on Tuesday night after facing Lockhart mayor James “Jimmy” Bertram in a

runoff election for the Democratic Party nomination. The pair was forced into a runoff after Alexander earned a plurality, but not a majority, of the votes in the five-way race in March.

Alexander rose to the top once again this month, earning 705 (66.8 percent) votes to Bertram’s 350 (33.2 percent).

Voter turnout, sluggish during the Primary, reduced even more as the runoff progressed, with a total of only 1,055 voters, fewer than half those that participated in the Primary, and less than 20 percent of the county’s 20,157 registered voters.

Alexander will face Republican nominee Tom Bonn, who resigned from his seat as Precinct One Commissioner, to run for County Judge.

A statewide runoff election between Rick Green and Debra Lehrmann brought 308 Republican voters back to the polls in an attempt to settle the race for Supreme Court Justice, Place 3, in that party.

Although Caldwell County voters chose Green, with 205 votes (66.6 percent) over Lehrmann’s 103 (33.4 percent), statewide votes had a different notion. Lehrmann, a family law judge with 22 years experience, earned 90,043 votes (53 percent) over Green’s 78,822 (47 percent). Lehrmann will face Democrat Jim Sharp, also a veteran judge, at the polls in November.