Today, progressive Maggie Ellis unofficially became the only Democrat on the Comal County ballot to win an election.
After all early and day-of votes were uploaded to the Texas Secretary of State’s website, the new Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals District, Place 2, had a 26,000-vote narrow lead. Some 1.3 million people voted in the race.
“I just learned that there were 32 contested appellate races across Texas, and except for this seat, they all went to the Republican opponent,” she said in a statement on Facebook. “This is a testament to all of the hours of work that everyone put in block walking, texting, phone banking, etc. I cannot begin to describe how truly grateful I am to all of you, to my wonderful family, and to the love of my life, Vic. I could not have done this without any of you.”
Ellis captured 698,366 votes (50.94%) to Republican John Messinger’s 672,566 (49.06%) votes.
However, she did not fare so well against Messinger in Comal County, earning only 25,309 (25.27%) votes compared with Messinger’s 74,864 (74.73%) votes.
The 3rd Court of Appeals serves the Austin area and consists of six justices hearing cases from 25 counties, including Comal, Hays, and Blanco.
The court has intermediate appellate jurisdiction of both civil and criminal cases appealed from lower courts.
Ellis survived a childhood of poverty, transience, homelessness and educational deprivation to become just one of eight siblings to graduate from college.
She worked as a teacher, foster mother and community volunteer to work her way through law school, driving back and forth from Austin to Waco while raising four teenagers.
According to maggieforjustice.com, she has worked as an administrative law judge, prosecutor, and attorney representing clients and families all over Central Texas.
Election night results are unofficial. It takes around a week for counties to tally late-arriving mail-in ballots, ballots from U.S. military or overseas voters, and provisional ballots.
All must be counted or rejected by Nov. 19.
