Harlingen City Commission incumbents prevail in runoff election

Three Harlingen City Commission incumbents were reelected Saturday by slim margins in the runoff election.

District 3 Commissioner Mike Mezmar won his election against Frank Lozano, an attorney, with 333 votes for 52.03% of ballots cast for him to his challenger’s 307 votes for 47.97% of the vote.

Mezmar, a financial analyst first elected in 2013, won his fifth term in office.

In the District 4 runoff, incumbent Frank Morales, a semi-retired former salesman, won his second term with 154 votes, or 56% of ballots cast, to Beto Pena’s 121 votes for 44% of the vote.

Former City Commissioner Basilio “Chino” Sanchez initially earned a spot in the runoff, but a week after the Nov. 5 election, Sanchez, a retired newspaper production technician, died.

Based on state statute, Pena, the Nov. 5 election’s third-biggest vote-getter, was placed on the ballot. He is an investigator with the Cameron County District Attorney’s Office.

In the race for District 5, incumbent commissioner Rene Perez, a schoolteacher, secured his second term in office with 468 votes for 52.35% of the vote to Nikki Alvarez Daniell’s 426 votes for 47.65% of the vote.

Daniell is a reserve Cameron County Precinct 5 deputy constable.

In all, there were 1,809 ballots cast in the runoff, according to the Cameron County Elections Department.

Of those votes, 1,106 were cast during early voting, 203 ballots were cast by mail and 500 people voted on Saturday for a total of 7.13% of the 25,367 eligible voters.

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