(Seguin) — The race for Guadalupe County Commissioner Precinct 4 is headed to a runoff.
Incumbent Stephen Germann and challenger Joel Hicks will advance to the runoff election later this spring. The runoff is the result of the Tuesday night’s outcome in which no candidate secured the majority needed to claim the Republican nomination outright.
Although Germann led much of the race Tuesday night, he was unable to garner the more than 50 percent of the vote required to win the seat. Germann ended the night with 1,939 of the votes cast or 45.04 percent. The same goes for Hicks, who followed with the second-highest vote total of 1,264 votes or 29.36 percent.
A third candidate, Mark Allen, who will not advance — trailed in the race with 1,102 of the votes cast or 25.60 percent.
Germann says he is thankful for the continued support from voters and looks forward to making his case again in the upcoming runoff.
“We’re just going to have to get our supporters to go back and vote again. The key in a runoff is to get the voters to go back and vote again. This runoff will be the same way as the runoff I was in before. It will be behind some municipal and school district elections and so you have voter apathy. It’s hard to get them to go back, but they’re going to have to go back. We’re going to have to work on getting some votes from my other opponent, Mr. Allen, to come and vote for us, to put us over the top and that’s how we need to proceed forward,” said Germann.
Both Hicks and Allen were unavailable for comment following Tuesday night’s results.
The winner of the runoff election this spring will become the Republican nominee for the Precinct 4 seat. Since there is no Democratic challenger, the winner will begin a fresh term in January.