McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara defeated challenger Jeff Aguirre in a hard-fought race that went down the wire in Tuesday’s Republican Party primary.
McNamara received 15,825 votes or 53.7% against Aguirre’s 13,634 or 46.3%. Aguirre did not concede until the very last polling places had been tallied and reported. Efforts to reach the sheriff for comment late Tuesday night were unsuccessful.
With no Democratic candidate for the office, McNamara will be unopposed in the November general election and start his fourth term next year.
“We fought a fight no one else was willing to take on,” Aguirre said after all the returns were in.
He said he had hoped to bring a new style of leadership to the sheriff’s office, one focused on professional growth opportunities for all the personnel in the department as well as on recruiting and retention.
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“This is part of a plan much greater than ours, and God promised me the strength to run this race,” Aguirre said. “We will grow from what we have learned in this race and we will run again. We will be here for a special election, if that need should arise, or in the next general election.”
Getting out the vote in the sheriff’s race turned as much on McNamara’s ability to fire up crowds, telling stories of gunfights and sending the sheriff’s office helicopter to the border with Mexico, as it did on Aguirre’s grass-roots campaign with a message of better high-level leadership, a view to the future and countering emerging crime, along with his promise to get body-worn cameras for more personnel faster than the current plan.
Now an anti-gang detective with the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office, Aguirre’s law enforcement career spans 29 years, about a two-thirds of it either in the sheriff’s office or as a member of a counter-narcotics task force that worked very closely with the sheriff’s office.
Aguirre also spent around 7 years overseas working with the U.S. Department of Defense in Afghanistan as well as the State Department and the United Nations in Haiti.
Republican donors lined up behind McNamara early as he raised over $400,000 against campaign expenses of around $100,000 when he began fundraising around March of 2023. Endorsements from Texas Gov. Greg Abbott and McLennan County District Attorney Josh Tetens came later.
In Aguirre’s campaign he reported on Feb. 26 around $81,600 of in-kind contributions, around $23,300 of cash contributions, spending of around $8,800 and maintained a balance of about $30,300. The Hewitt and Waco police associations endorsed Aguirre along with retired Sheriff Larry Lynch, former Chief Deputy Matt Cawthon, Constable Walt Strickland and others.
Making their respective pitches to a McLennan County Republican Club luncheon crowd last month, Aguirre had about four or five tables that cheered and yelled really loudly for him. But the entire rest of the ballroom, about 465 people packed in standing room only, erupted in thunderous applause for McNamara.
McNamara said he sent the sheriff’s office helicopter down to the border two times.
“We were down there just last week with two of our pilots and a load of jet fuel,” McNamara told the crowd. “The border is godless. We were down there with 80 to 100 other officers, sheriffs, police, Border Patrol, game wardens.
“We were flying the river. We were backing up officers that were doing traffic stops on the highway,” McNamara said, receiving an ovation of applause.
Aguirre commended McNamara for signing up with Abbot’s Operation Lone Star.
“It’s absolutely necessary,” Aguirre said. “Our borders are open. We have an open front door. There are invasion levels of undocumented people coming to our country who seek to hurt us, not all of them. But definitely some of the them.”
Responding to a question about federal overreach, Aguirre said, “I will protect the citizens of McLennan County and any law set down outside of the prescribed laws where a citizen gives up their rights to own a firearm, any law set forth after that will not be adhered to.”
McNamara said he agreed with Aguirre that standing for the Second Amendment is important.
“We will not allow anybody, including the federal government, to come in and tread on our citizens unconstitutionally and try to take away our Second Amendment rights,” McNamara said. “We have that right.
“I would love to see the day when our citizens are armed and protected, because all the criminals are armed as we speak.”
Court of Criminal Appeals
Waco-area criminal defense attorney Gina Parker won the Republican primary for Place 7 on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, according to an Associated Press call Tuesday night.
“I think the people spoke out because they were really disappointed in the Stephens decision in which the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals took away the authority to prosecute election fraud from the attorney general,” Parker said after the result. “Ken Paxton is a force to be reckoned with in Texas politics.
“I hope to win in the general election this fall and serve the people as a fair-minded judge. I will uphold the rule of law and will not betray the trust of the people who elect me.”
Parker received 20,816 votes or 80.6% in McLennan County against incumbent Judge Barbara Hervey, who received 5,020 votes and 19.4%.
Statewide, with 58% of polling places reporting at about midnight, Parker received 66% of the vote to Hervey’s 34%, according to the Texas Secretary of State website.
Parker said she ran for a place on the Court of Criminal Appeals two years ago and decided to run again last fall. She only heard from Paxton a few weeks ago before he endorsed her. She said Paxton did not recruit her to run for the position.
County GOP chair
County GOP Vice-Chair Chris DeCluitt received 17,751 votes or 69% in the race for party chairperson, besting Ted Croy, who received 7,968 votes or 30.1%.
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