RAYMONDVILLE — Willacy County District Attorney Bernard Ammerman and Raymondville attorney Annette Hinojosa appear headed for a May 24 runoff election.
Unofficial results show former longtime District Attorney Juan Angel Guerra failed to make the runoff.
Unofficial results showed Ammerman won 1,278 votes while Hinojosa picked up 1,031 votes.
Guerra fell short with 1,007 votes.
Ammerman, running for his third term in office, could not be reached for comment.
Hinojosa said voters are calling for a change.
“It appears about two-thirds of voters didn’t vote for Mr. Ammerman,” Hinojosa said.
“That tells you people want a change. They’re not satisfied with things as they are. I’ve got to reach out to more people.”
Hinojosa said she planned to focus her campaign on the Raymondville area to pull more votes for the runoff.
She said her strongest support came from her hometown of Lyford and the Sebastian and Santa Monica areas.
A longtime Raymondville attorney, Hinojosa served as a public defender in state District court, where she has represented defendants prosecuted by Ammerman and Guerra.
Ammerman, who was elected president of the Texas District and County Attorneys Association this year, has said he is running on his record as a prosecutor who helped bring down the county’s crime rate to a 10-year low, slashing violence crime by 43 percent.
Ammerman won election in 2008, going on to win a second term in 2012.
Guerra, who was first appointed to office in the early 1990s, served as district attorney from 1997 to 2008, when he lost a primary election.
