Cyrier sweeps five counties in HD17 race
By LPR Staff
Editor/POST-REGISTER
Though voters spoke resoundingly on Tuesday night, Lockhart resident John Cyrier faces another challenge in his bid for the Texas House of Representatives.
Cyrier, who swept the five-county District 17 in Tuesday’s special election, did not earn a majority of the vote, and will therefore face fel
low Republican Brent Golemon in a runoff election later this month.
Cyrier and Golemon, both running as Republicans in the primarily “red” district, soundly defeated two Democrat candidates and one Independent; combined, the three left-leaning candidates picked up only 24 percent of the vote, nearly equal to Golemon’s totals alone.
Independent community organizer Linda Curtis made the best showing of the three candidates who will not progress to the runoff. She picked up a total of 1,046 votes (13.71 percent) in the five-county District. In Caldwell County, she earned 132 (8.51 percent).
Bastrop pastor and Democrat Ty McDonald, the wife of former Bastrop County Judge Ronnie McDonald, trailed close behind, with 907 total votes (11.89 percent), and 127 from Caldwell County supporters.
Shelley Cartier rounded out the field with 290 votes (3.8 percent). Of those, 81 came from Caldwell County voters.
That weeding out of the field left Golemon, an entrepreneur and the self-proclaimed “most conservative candidate in the race,” to earn 1,866 votes (24.47 percent). Golemon’s support was lackluster in Caldwell County, as he pulled only 269 of the 1,552 votes cast.
Golemon, the son of high-powered former Austin lobbyist R. Kinnan Golemon, has never held an elected office, but worked as a legislative aide for a Texas Senator and chief of staff for a Texas House Representative.
On his website, he promotes his conservatism, noting opposition for the Affordable Care Act and for sex education in schools, as well as strong support for allowing open-carry laws and students and professors to carry guns on college campuses.
He says the state needs “principled, conservative leaders.”
Cyrier, who carried all five counties and nearly escaped a runoff, earned 3,515 votes (46.1 percent). As one might expect, he gleaned strong support from Caldwell County, where he earned 943 votes.
Cyrier, the founder of Austin contracting firm Sabre Commercial and a former Caldwell County Commissioner, drew widespread support during the election, with allies across both sides of the aisle..
Those alliances were forged, according to supporters, during his time not only on the Caldwell County Commissioner’s Court, but during his stint with the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, where he represented Caldwell County in a wide variety of regional issues, focusing primarily on transportation issues over the last two years.
He is also a founding member of the Lockhart ISD Education Foundation.
He has said that his priorities are education and transportation, and he will focus attention on water rights. He is endorsed by the Bastrop County Young Republicans, as well as the Austin Firefighters Association and the Texas Farm Bureau AgFund.
The details governing the special election were not available at press time, but based on a reading of the statute which allowed former Governor Rick Perry to call the election, it is expected that the election will take place in the next 12-15 days.
Watch www.post-register.com for information and polling times as details develop.
Could this paper BE any more bias?!