Travis County voters will find fewer contested races on their November ballot than the primary season suggested, after a combination of an uncontested judge's race and a lack of Republican challengers effectively settled two of the county's top local offices months before the general election.
Incumbent County Judge Andy Brown, a Democrat first elected in a 2020 special election and re-elected in 2022, ran unopposed in the March 3 Democratic primary, taking 100% of the roughly 159,500 votes cast, according to Ballotpedia. The Republican primary for county judge was canceled outright — no GOP candidate filed — leaving Brown unopposed heading into the November 3 general election as well. Brown will appear on the ballot as the only listed candidate for the office, a formality at this point rather than a genuine contest. He previously won the office in 2020 by defeating Republican Michael Lovins and was re-elected in 2022 over Republican Rupal Chaudhari with nearly 72% of the vote.
The county's two Commissioners Court seats up this cycle followed a similar pattern, though with more competition on the Democratic side. In Precinct 2, incumbent Commissioner Brigid Shea won renomination outright in the March primary with just over 57% of the vote, fending off civil rights attorney Amanda Marzullo, who took nearly 31%, along with two other candidates. Because no Republican filed for Precinct 2, Shea's primary win effectively secured her a fourth term. In an election-night interview with KUT News, Shea said she wants to keep pushing water conservation and clean-energy initiatives at the county level. "None of it is rocket science, none of it is wildly expensive. It's all doable," she said. "And that's the largest part of the reason I ran, is I feel like we have to get really serious about addressing climate change."
Precinct 4 was the more competitive of the two commissioner races. None of the four Democratic primary candidates cleared 50% in March, sending former Travis County Precinct 4 Constable George Morales and Del Valle ISD Trustee Susanna Ledesma-Woody to a May 26 runoff. Morales won that runoff decisively, taking about 54.9% of the vote to Ledesma-Woody's 45.1%, according to results reported by Community Impact and KUT. As in Precinct 2, no Republican candidate filed for Precinct 4, meaning Morales's runoff win effectively secures the seat for November. Ledesma-Woody had framed the race as a contrast in backgrounds — "I think that the biggest thing is whether people want somebody with policy and governance experience or somebody with policing experience," she told KUT before the runoff — while Morales, a 20-plus-year veteran of Travis County government, did not respond to requests for comment on his win.
For Travis County readers, the practical upshot is that barring a write-in or late independent filing, the county's top elected offices — judge and both open commissioner seats — are already decided, even though ballots won't be printed until the fall. The five-member Commissioners Court sets the county's property tax rate and oversees a budget of roughly $2.2 billion, covering everything from the county jail and roads to parks, health care and elections administration. With Shea and Morales set to join the court alongside Judge Brown, Travis County Republicans looking to contest county government will need to look toward down-ballot races, other countywide offices, or building bench strength for 2028, since none of this cycle's top three seats saw a general-election contest between the parties.