Posted on 03/11/2004 6:03:03 AM PST by Theodore R.
Ciro claims narrow win
BY TRICIA CORTEZ Times staff writer
By an amazing 126-vote margin out of 48,542 total votes cast, Laredoan Henry Cuellar lost his second bid for U.S. Congress to incumbent Ciro Rodriguez (D-San Antonio) in the March 9 primary.
Cuellar was running in the Democratic primary against Rodriguez for the 11-county Congressional District 28 seat.
"We expected it to be a tight race, but not this tight," Cuellar said early Wednesday afternoon. "This should be a wake-up call to voters who say their vote doesn't count. Yes it does."
Cuellar received 24,208 votes, or 49.87 percent of the total vote, to Rodriguez's 24,334 votes, or 50.13 percent, according to the Texas Secretary of State's Website.
"It was a difficult race, a close race. I'm going to be reaching out a lot more and have a lot of work to do," Rodriguez said Wednesday afternoon while driving to Laredo.
"If this campaign taught me one thing, it is that we have to start early and keep working at it. We need to keep reaching out and pulling everybody together," he said.
Although his opponent Cuellar took 84 percent of the Webb County vote, Rodriguez said he plans to reach out and work with voters in the area.
Because of redistricting, Webb County and Laredo were carved into two congressional districts for the first time, with the east and southern portions placed in District 28.
"After they get to know me and I get to reach out more to them, con tiempo, I think we can continue to work together," Rodriguez said.
Meanwhile, outside of his downtown Laredo headquarters early Wednesday afternoon, Cuellar was calm and reflective soon after receiving word of the final vote tally.
"This election is not over, theoretically," Cuellar said, explaining that he and his advisers were going to review their options, such as requesting a recount and investigating delays and potential irregularities with the election offices of Zapata and Bexar counties.
"We owe it to the community, our supporters, my family, my wife Imelda, my mom, my brother and the many volunteers who spent countless hours phone banking and walking door to door. We got so close," Cuellar said.
Final results were not available until close to noon Wednesday because Zapata County had to hand-count ballots and did not report their election results in a timely manner to the secretary of state's office.
Furthermore, the Bexar County Elections Department once again experienced technical difficulties with their ballot counting machines, the Cuellar campaign reported.
Secretary of State Geoff Connor issued a statement Wednesday on the Zapata matter.
"I am extremely concerned and disappointed by the reporting of election results in Zapata County. My office made repeated requests for a timely processing of election returns and found local officials unresponsive," Connor stated.
"While other counties experienced some difficulties with equipment and their vote counts, they were still responsive to our requests for information. Of paramount concern is that election results are reported accurately, completely and in a timely fashion so as to ensure confidence in the integrity of our elections," he added.
In Laredo, many, like C.Y. Benavides III, also expressed "outrage" with certain aspects of the campaign, in particular, the support that certain local political leaders gave to Rodriguez.
"I'm flabbergasted. Our mayor (Betty Flores) and our state senator (Judith Zaffirini) should be ashamed of themselves for not supporting a homegrown boy, only because they are jealous of him," Benavides said. "Politically, they'll get theirs someday soon."
Because of redistricting, Rodriguez, legally, cannot open a congressional satellite office in Laredo to handle constituent concerns. The new districts do not take effect until the newly elected congressmen are sworn into office early 2005.
Rodriguez, however, may establish a campaign headquarters in Laredo for the November election.
"At this point, we will sit down and plan out what we need to do for each of the counties for November. I don't know who my opponent is going to be," Rodriguez said.
A Republican primary runoff election will be held April 13 to determine the Republican nominee for the November general election. One of the candidates is Laredoan Francisco "Quico" Canseco.
(Staff writer Tricia Cortez can be reached at 728-2568 or tricia@lmtonline.com.)
03/11/04
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