In the past two Democratic primaries, a male judge seeking reelection in a Travis County criminal district court race drew a female opponent. Yet, despite the advantage that comes with being an incumbent, both men were trounced.
Jim Coronado surrendered his bench to Tamara Needles in 2016 with 40% of the vote. David Crain fell by a wider margin in 2018, garnering 30% of the share, even as news surfaced that Austin police had investigated his opponent, Chantal Eldridge, for sexual assault 12 years earlier.
The latest judicial race to test this gender trend features District Court Judge David Wahlberg — who, like Coronado and Crain, is campaigning from a vulnerable spot in a county that increasingly sides with female candidates.
Until as recently as 20 years ago, Travis County never had a female criminal district court judge. But in 1999, the county added a felony court to be presided over by Julie Kocurek, appointed by then-Gov. George W. Bush. Today, five of the nine benches are occupied by a woman, and that total could reach six or seven after the November general election.
Campaigning to unseat Wahlberg from the 167th District Court bench is veteran felony prosecutor Dayna Blazey, whose 31 years of service makes her the longest-serving lawyer in the Travis County district attorney’s office. She currently oversees diversion programs that route low-level offenders into treatment to avoid a conviction.
This is Blazey’s first time running for public office. She first considered pursuing the bench two years ago after Wahlberg began openly discussing the possibility of retiring at the end of his term. By the time Wahlberg decided to seek reelection, Blazey said she had already committed to running.
While acknowledging gender voting trends are not in his favor, Wahlberg said he thinks he can overcome them because of his familiarity to voters, who first elected him in 2012 over prosecutor Efrain De La Fuente.
Wahlberg also said he’s banking on support from the local LGBTQ community, with whom he struck a connection in 2015 when he cleared the way for the first same-sex marriage in Texas by ordering the county clerk to issue an emergency marriage license to a lesbian couple.
The couple, Sarah Goodfriend and Suzanne Bryant, are highlighted in a TV commercial that Wahlberg’s campaign team has strategically placed during programs with large female audiences.
“That’s gonna do a lot to offset the gender issue,” Wahlberg said of his relationship with voters.
An estimated 200,000 Travis County residents are expected to vote in the primary election. Of the 774,013 registered voters whose gender is known to election officials, 52% are female.
But the gender gap widens when taking into account who actually shows up to vote, according to political consultant Mark Littlefield. He predicted anywhere from 55% to 58% of the turnout will be women.
“I think in down-ballot races there might be even more of a gender advantage,” Littlefield said, adding that women are more likely to choose a woman who is competing against a man. But he said he knows of no study that can confirm his hunch.
Blazey said she thinks it’s a trend that’s occurring at many different levels of government.
“Women want to have their voices heard,” she said. “I don’t think it’s an isolated phenomenon as it relates to criminal district court judges in Travis County.”
Eight of the 11 civil district court benches have a female judge and it’s possible that by the end of the year women could claim the three spots currently held by men.
In the county’s misdemeanor courts, five of the seven benches are occupied by a woman — a statistic that will not change in this election cycle.
Those unfamiliar with Wahlberg or Blazey might instead recognize the defendants they locked up in 2018. Blazey, in assisting federal prosecutors, helped secure a conviction and life sentence against Chimene Onyeri, the fraudster from Houston who shot Judge Kocurek outside of her West Austin home in 2015. Of the many big cases that have passed through Wahlberg’s courtroom, none got more attention than the capital murder trial of Meechaiel Criner, who is serving a life sentence after he was convicted in the strangulation and sexual assault of University of Texas student Haruka Weiser in 2016.
Wahlberg also presided over the child death case of toddler Colton Turner and is scheduled to oversee a trial in May for one of four men charged with a hate crime for injuring a gay couple in a fight in downtown Austin.
Blazey shook up the race on Jan. 10 when she took out a $50,000 personal loan for a digital advertising campaign and to hire more staff. That prompted Wahlberg on Feb. 13 to take out a loan of his own, for $25,000, that he said went toward TV advertisements. Their campaign treasurers are both courthouse hotshots: former judge Charlie Baird for Blazey and prominent defense lawyer Betty Blackwell for Wahlberg.
The race has managed to stay cordial despite speculation early on that Blazey would attack Wahlberg over decisions favoring defendants that irritated prosecutors.
Among them was tossing out DNA evidence in Criner’s case because testing protocols were not followed. Wahlberg also tossed out a murder charge after a medical examiner changed his cause of death finding the day before he was set to testify in the trial of a man accused of fatally beating his boyfriend.
Wahlberg said he stands by his decisions.
Blazey said she has not brought up those rulings on the campaign trail and instead has focused her energy on her experience in building diversion programs and her desire to expand on them.
“I think it’s more important to talk about changes that can be made that will benefit all of the participants in the criminal justice system,” she said.
Theirs is among three contested criminal district court races in the Democratic primary:
· Blazey’s colleague, prosecutor Amy Meredith, faces defense attorney Selena Alvarenga in the new 460th district court. The winner will proceed to the November general election against Republican and recent Gov. Greg Abbott appointee Geoffrey Puryear.
· In the 390th district court, lawyer Al Amado has raised little money in a formidable challenge against Kocurek.
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