Police Chief Race: Griffith Surges on Election Day to Force a Runoff

SAN ANGELO, TX — Lt. Mike Hernandez built a significant lead in early voting results. With absentee and early voting ballots counted, Hernandez led the three-person field with 53.51% of the votes. There were 4,033 early votes counted at that time. Travis Griffith was in second with 42.40% of the vote. Chris Cimino has 4.09% of the vote.

Griffith surged in the votes cast on election day to deny the frontrunner enough to votes to win the three-way race without a runoff. Griffith's surge also elevated the spoiler impact of the third place candidate, Chris Cimino.

Generally, early voting returns preview what the final count will be. Early voting numbers in significant numbers is a fairly accurate convenience sample. This was not the case this time as Griffith flipped the election day results into his favor.

Hernandez still won the most votes, 3,279, to Griffith's 3,080, but Hernandez's total brought him to 49.52% of the vote, about a half percentage point below the threshold to win the race outright.

Two Wall ISD board trustees were elected tonight. Doug Wilde and Houston Guy led a five-candidate field through early and election day voting and both will be installed on the Wall ISD Board of Trustees.

In the Christoval ISD bond election, voters approved a $19.5 million bond to improve facilities and build a grades 5-8 campus. The bond passed by a margin of 55 votes out of 625 votes cast, or 54.40% to 45.60%. All final results from the May 4, 2024 election are here.

The police chief runoff election is June 15.