Incumbent Brown, Valdez headed for run off in sheriff race

By Maggie Prosser
Dallas Morning News

The incumbent sheriff and her predecessor are headed for a runoff election after none of the crowded field of Democratic candidates for Dallas County sheriff was on track to win a majority of votes late Tuesday, according to preliminary vote totals.

Brown led her former boss, Lupe Valdez, with 41.96%, according to final unofficial results. Valdez, meanwhile, received 37.77%.

The two were among five candidates vying to be the top elected official overseeing the county law enforcement fleet and jail.

Election results can be found at dallasnews.com/election-results.

“We had anticipated this going into a runoff election, and we’re glad with the direction that it’s headed,” Valdez’s campaign consultant, Michael Hendrix, told The Dallas Morning News. “We’re just going to wait and see how the rest of the races play out.”

Hendrix said Valdez’s camp “fully expected” Brown to “ride John Wiley Price’s coattails” into a runoff election. Price, who is also facing a primary election for county commissioner but pulled ahead by wide margins, and Brown seemingly campaigned for and endorsed one another, according to Hendrix. Price is one of the county’s most powerful and recognizable officials.

“We’re very excited,” Brown told The Dallas Morning News, thanking those who volunteered on her campaign.

In response to comments made by Valdez’s campaign, Brown responded: “It is really unfortunate that there is this negativity that is attached to us because of where we have all landed this evening. I think that we all need to assess what happens, what the end story is going to be for the night, then regroup and then run good campaigns — good, clean campaigns. Not all of this negativity. I choose not to engage in that.”

If no candidate wins the majority of the vote, the top two will go head-to-head in a runoff election. With no Republican challengers on the ballot, the winner will run unopposed in the November general election.

The Dallas County jail came under scrutiny in recent years, faced with staffing shortages, payroll problems and the effects of a bungled new criminal court database that has left inmates languishing in jail longer.

Brown steered the sheriff’s department through the COVID-19 pandemic and under her oversight, the jail passed its 2023 state inspection after failing years before.

Brown was Valdez’s third-in-command before the then-sheriff resigned to run for governor. She was endorsed by Valdez, appointed interim sheriff in 2017 — the first Black woman to hold the position — and won reelection in 2018 and 2020.

Valdez, who served as sheriff from 2005 until stepping down for higher office ambitions, said she was encouraged by elected, business and community leaders to make a political comeback and run for a possible fifth term. She ran on a platform that included boosting morale among jailers and deputies and addressing technical issues that she says have led to a rise in the jail population.

Valdez won the 2018 Democratic nomination for governor in a narrow runoff, making history as the first Hispanic female and first openly gay person to win a major party’s gubernatorial nomination in the state. She lost in the general election to incumbent Gov. Greg Abbott.

About 25 points behind the leaders was former Dallas County Precinct 4 Constable Roy Williams Jr., who ran for a third time. He garnered about a third of the votes in the 2020 and 2018 Democratic primaries. Ahead of Tuesday, Williams told The News, he was hoping for a runoff.

Police training officer Sam Mohamad — who ran against Williams and Brown in 2020 last election cycle — and newcomer Rodney Thomas trailed the rest of the field.

Thomas advocates for progressive criminal justice and jail reform, including addressing unsanitary work conditions for prison staff and inhumane living conditions for people who are incarcerated, according to his campaign website.

This story, originally published in The Dallas Morning News, is reprinted as part of a collaborative partnership between The Dallas Morning News and Texas Metro News. The partnership seeks to boost coverage of Dallas’ communities of color, particularly in southern Dallas.