Posted: Wed, 14 Apr 2010 09:56 AM - 10,464 Readers

By: Patrick Brendel

According to preliminary election results, construction company owner Paul Workman will defeat attorney Holly Turner in the Republican primary runoff for Texas House District 47 in southwest Travis County. Workman now advances to the November general election, where he will face incumbent state Rep. Valinda Bolton, a Democrat. Preliminary results have Workman winning by nearly 7 percentage points.

At Jack Allen's Kitchen off Hwy. 71, Workman supporters eagerly awaited election returns after early votes showed Workman with an early lead over Turner of about 4 percentage points. That anticipation turned to mild impatience, as substantial vote totals were not reported until after 9:30 p.m., two-and-a-half hours after Travis County polls closed. The latest results showing him with about 53.4 percent of the vote in the head-to-head contest.

"We’re very happy about the results. We're looking forward to the fall. We're going to be talking about how I’m going to be the candidate that represents the taxpayers," Workman said.

Turner could not be reached for immediate comment.

HD 47, with a population of about 135,000 people, includes part of Austin, as well as the cities of Briarcliff, Lakeway, The Hills, Bee Cave, Sunset Valley and San Leanna.

In his victorious campaign, Workman successfully painted Turner as an Austin outsider, emphasizing that she moved from Fort Worth to Austin in 2009, and was not registered to vote in Travis County until the end of 2009, after she had signed up to run for office.

Turner, meanwhile, attempted to cast Workman in a negative light, accusing him of donating thousands of dollars to politicians in exchange for millions of dollars in government contracts. (The Austin American-Statesman’s PolitiFact project determined those accusations to be “false.”)

In November, Workman will attempt to reclaim the HD 47 seat for the Republican Party, which held it from 1992 until Bolton won in 2006 and defended it in 2008. The most recent Republican representatives were Terry Keel and current Texas Comptroller Susan Combs.

Bolton defeated former Rep. Keel’s sister-in-law Donna Keel in 2008, winning in a head-to-head match up by a margin of 2.39 percent. The Libertarian Party is also fielding a candidate, Austin resident Kris Bailey. (Libertarian candidates are traditionally thought to siphon potential votes away from Republicans.)

In the three-way GOP primary in March, Workman grabbed 38.4 percent of the vote to Turner’s 36 percent. Attorney David Sewell took the remaining 25 percent of the electorate.