AUSTIN, Texas — Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, a Democrat, has defeated her Republican challenger Raul Vargas in the 2020 election. Hernandez earned 70% of the vote while Vargas received 30%.
Previously, Hernandez won the Democratic nomination during the March primaries with 77% of the vote, defeating fellow Democrats Liz Donegan and John Loughran.
With 35 years of police work experience, former Department of Public Safety official Raul Vargas said he entered the race after learning that Sheriff Hernandez announced her decision not to enforce ICE detainers in 2017.
“Not only was Sheriff Hernandez ignoring federal laws and releasing undocumented and illegal persons back onto our streets, she also failed to provide the proper mindset, vision and culture of common sense throughout the entire department,” his website states. “A failure that struck Raul's family directly.”
In October, LBJ School of Public Affairs lecturer Michele Deitch said COVID-19 would be an important topic for voters this year before heading to the polls.
"COVID doesn't discriminate which side of the bar you're on," said Deitch. "People in jails – there’s a very high level of what we call 'churn.' People are going in and out of jails on a daily basis, so what happens inside is spreading to the communities and we need to make sure that we're not allowing the virus to spread rapidly inside, because otherwise the outbreak is going to remain in our community as well."
She also said that whoever won would impact how well the virus is contained within the county jail.
"The DA is determining whether people are staying locked up while they're awaiting trial," Deitch said. "And then the sheriff's practices and policies on how they are preventing the spread of the virus."
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