Shortly after Springer won the special runoff election for Senate District (SD) 30 in December, Gov. Greg Abbott called a special election for House District (HD) 68 to be held on Saturday, Jan. 23 with the deadline for candidates to file for a position on the ballot by January 4.
According to the secretary of state, four Republicans and one Democrat filed for the race:
- John Berry (R)
- Jason Brinkley (R)
- Craig Carter (R)
- Charles Gregory (D)
- David Spiller (R)
Brinkley was the first candidate to announce after the SD 30 election and resigned from his position as Cooke County judge to run for the open seat.
Cooke County is the largest of the 22 counties in the district, with a population of 38,000 according to the Texas Legislative Council.
Montague County is the next largest with 20,000 residents, and is the home of Carter, who placed fifth in the SD 30 special election with five percent of the vote.
Eighteen of the counties in the district have a population of less than 10,000.
Berry is a financial planner and served on the Jack County Commissioner’s Court to fill an unexpired term from 2017-2018.
Spiller, an attorney, is also from Jack County and a long-time board member for the Jacksboro Independent School District.
Gregory, the only Democrat in the race, is a retired postal worker in Childress.
Like the SD 30 election, HD 68 is strongly Republican — with the average Republican candidate winning with 85 percent of the vote in recent elections — and a GOP candidate is expected to win.
However, the presence of a Democrat in the race along with several Republicans could lead to a runoff election should no candidate receive over 50 percent.
Early voting in the district begins next week on January 11.
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Daniel Friend
Daniel Friend is a reporter for The Texan. He participated in a Great Books program at Azusa Pacific University and graduated in 2019 with a degree in Political Science. He has studied C.S. Lewis’s science fiction trilogy and in his spare time you might find him writing his own novel partly inspired by the series.
