That’s a lot of votes

Midland County voters cast 13,546 votes on Election Day for a total of 46,486 — a new general election record and the most votes for any Midland County election.

The previous record was 44,999, set in 2004.

Midland County also came out percentage-wise. The Midland County Elections Office reports 62.48 percent of the 74,396 voters cast a ballot, which was greater than the 61.4 percent hit in 2004 and the 55.9 reached in 2000.

There were less Election Day voters this year than 2004 (15,098).

Easy wins

Picking up easy wins were Mike Conaway (U.S. Representative, District 11) and Kel Seliger (Texas Senate, District 31).

With 362 of the 390 precincts reporting, Conaway had picked up 175,561 (88.4 percent) of the 198,523 votes cast. He was running against Libertarian John R. Strohm. Conaway picked up 85.6 percent of the vote in Tom Green County (San Angelo) and 88.5 percent of the vote in Ector County (Odessa).

With some precincts also not reporting, Seliger was soundly defeating Libertarian Lauren Pointdexter 175,134 votes to 16,920.

Seliger will appear at a town hall meeting (his 100th since taking office) at 1:30 p.m. today at the Wagner-Brown Auditorium on the Midland College campus.

Obama, not a favorite in Midland

Barack Obama was never going to win Midland County, but his 20.92 percent of the vote did beat Al Gore in 2000 (18.95) and John Kerry in 2004 (17.85).

Obama fell short of turning the best performance by a Democratic presidential candidate since 1992. In 1996, Bill Clinton picked up around 25 percent, running against Bob Dole.

Consolation prize for Bill Dingus

Despite falling to House Speaker Tom Craddick (33,166 votes to 18,831), former Midland City Councilman Bill Dingus can say he garnered more votes in Martin County (893-711).

Gilles comes out on top

The Midland County candidate with the most votes next to his/her name was 142nd Judicial District Judge Jody Gilles, who despite running unopposed picked up 36,782 votes. Congressman Mike Conaway ran a close second with 36,701. Another judicial candidate running unopposed, Judge Rick Strange, picked up 36,587 votes.