Update on House District 47 Republicans

Early Wednesday morning we learned that Republican House District 47 candidate Jennifer Fleck would advance to a runoff with more than 32 percent of the vote. The winner of that runoff will face Democratic state Rep. Vikki Goodwin in November. What remained a mystery was whether former Council Member Don Zimmerman or former Austin Police Officer Justin Berry would face Fleck in that May election. Zimmerman had 4,099 votes and Berry had 4,098 votes, with provisional ballots still to be counted. Berry told the Austin Monitor Thursday he had learned Travis County officials now have nine additional mail ballots and 34 provisional ballots that might affect the final outcome of the race. Berry said via text that the county’s ballot board would meet Thursday, Friday and Monday, but “probably will not release final results until Tuesday of next week.” On election night, Berry expressed confidence that after the provisional ballots were counted, he would be in the runoff. That seems reasonably likely because Berry had a few more votes on election day than Zimmerman did, while the early vote favored Zimmerman. Zimmerman has declined to comment.