David Spiller Wins Runoff for Texas House District 68
Tuesday was Election Day for the Special Runoff Election for Texas House District 68. HD 68 was vacated when Drew Springer won the special election for Texas Senate District 30 last month.
HD 68 is very large district, in terms of geographic area covered. 22 counties, ranging from the eastern South Plains, to southeast Panhandle, parts of Texoma and the Red River, and then a number of counties in the Big Country encompassing US Highway 380. (Complete list of counties: Childress, Collingsworth, Cooke, Cottle, Crosby, Dickens, Fisher, Floyd, Garza, Hall, Hardeman, Haskell, Jack, Kent, King, Montague, Motley, Stonewall, Throckmorton, Wheeler, Wilbarger, and Young)
David Spiller (R) and Craig Carter (R) advanced to the runoff for HD 68 after being the top two finishers in the original special election.
Turnout was low for Tuesday's election with less than 7,000 votes cast in the election. After all 22 counties in HD 68 reported their numbers, the results were:
David Spiller - 62.9% 4,158 votes
Craig Carter - 37.1% 2,452 votes
Once each county officially canvasses their votes, Spiller will be officially sworn-in into the Texas House. The Texas Tribune notes that, Spiller's current occupation is working as a lawyer in Jacksboro. He's also a school board trustee, a position he will have to resign before being sworn in to his House seat. Carter is a Nocona businessman. He also ran unsuccessfully for Texas Senate District 30.
When Spiller takes his seat in the Texas House, most likely in the first week of March, all 150 seats will be filled. The balance of power will be 83 Republicans and 67 Democrats. Spiller's HD 68 was also assigned to serve on the following House committees: Land & Resource Management and County Affairs.