Who’s running in county races decided in March primary? Here’s what we know few days before deadline

A few things are known ahead of the Monday, 6 p.m. deadline to file to run in the 2026 Texas March Primary election, there will be a new county clerk, new Precinct 2 county commissioner and a new local Republican chair.

LubbockLights.com asked local GOP chair David Bruegel and Democratic Chair Margie Ceja for highlights. Bruegel responded, but Ceja had not.

In the race for county clerk Kelly Pinion will not seek re-election. LubbockLights.com was able to confirm Kerri Padilla is running on the Democratic side. Rebeca Gonzales and Sandy Garcia are running on the GOP ticket.

In Precinct 4 (Northwest Lubbock County), Commissioner Jordan Rackler is seeking re-election. He drew former constable C.J. Peterson as a primary challenger, along with Chad Seay.

Three GOP candidates officially signed up so far for county commissioner Precinct 2 (which is the southeastern portion of Lubbock and Lubbock County). They are Kevin Pounds, Justin Martin and M. Trey Newton.

Incumbent Jason Corley is not seeking re-election but instead running for Congress to replace Jodey Arrington in Texas District 19.

Pounds is a battalion chief with Lubbock Fire Rescue. Martin is a homebuilder in Slaton. LubbockLights.com was unable to locate contact information for Newton and Bruegel said little is known about him in local Republican circles.

In the race for Lubbock County judge, Curtis Parrish signed up for re-election. His only other Republican opponent is Wesley Houck, a Wolfforth city councilman.

“He’s not made a public announcement yet, but he has filed an application with my office,” Bruegel said of Houck.

Houck is also a radio cohost on Christian radio station KWBF with Ken Adams, who signed up to run for local GOP chair.

Bruegel said, “I am not going to be seeking another term as Republican chair. And I intend to support Ken Adams to run for that. He’s the party vice chairman right now.”

So far Adams is unopposed and Bruegel thinks it will likely stay that way after Monday’s deadline.

“That office has gone unopposed for about the last 12 years at this point,” Bruegel said.

Bruegel has not yet revealed his future plans but said he would make an announcement Tuesday.

Bruegel will not oversee the race for Congress because it crosses multiple counties – and is instead overseen by the Texas Republican Party in Austin.

Nevertheless, he was able to confirm that so far four people from Lubbock announced their candidacies. They are the aforementioned Corley, Abraham Enriquez, Donald May and Tom Sell. We mentioned these four in our previous coverage of how the District 19 race is shaping up in this story.

Federal Ethics Commission records show James Bob Barbee is also running on the Republican side. Kyle Rable has filed paperwork to run as a Democrat in District 19.

Note: After the deadline, we added the following local races from the Democratic and Republican political parties.

Correction: After the filing deadline, LubbockLights.com reached out to the local Republicans and Democrats to get a list of candidates, which was then added to this story. One of the candidate names for Democratic chair was accidentally overlooked by LubbockLights.com. The name has since been added.

Update: The Democratic Party said Francis Ramirez is no longer on the ballot for Justice of the Peace, Precinct 3.

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