Collin County GOP backs runoff winners, urges party unity for November

Collin County Republicans congratulated their primary runoff winners and pressed party members to rally behind the November ticket, signaling that the real test may not have been the ballot count but whether the party can hold together after a bruising spring.

The runoff on May 26 finished the Republican nomination process for the November 3 general election, following the March 3 primary and five days of early voting from May 18 through May 22. County GOP election pages say runoff winners move on to the November ballot, putting the party’s next challenge squarely in front of voters across Plano, McKinney, Allen and Frisco.

Even in a local race, the margins were close. Unofficial results reported by FOX 4 showed Stephen Kallas defeating Randy Farrar 52 percent to 48 percent in Justice of the Peace Precinct 4, a narrow result that underscored how little room there is for division in a county where Republican primaries often decide the real contest.

That tension reaches beyond Collin County. Houston Public Media described the Texas GOP Senate runoff between John Cornyn and Ken Paxton as a prolonged and bitter intraparty fight, with the central question being whether supporters of the losing candidate would swallow their displeasure and close ranks behind the winner. In Collin County, that question now hangs over local races as well, especially if activists, donors and grass-roots groups who backed different candidates decide how hard to work in November.

The Collin County Republican Party, led by Chairman Byron Henry and Executive Director Terry Wade, says its aim is to keep Republican control locally and across Texas. Its election information also highlights the county’s voting-center system, which lets registered Collin County voters cast a ballot at any polling location in the county on Election Day, a setup that can make turnout easier in a fast-growing county where voters often move between suburbs and commute across municipal lines.

For Republicans in Collin County, the runoff was more than a routine finish to the nomination calendar. It showed how much of the party’s strength still depends on whether its factions, after settling their own contests, can unite quickly enough to protect the November slate.