BEAUMONT, Texas — Voters in Orange County have most likely picked their next top lawman following a four-way race in the county's Republican primary race for sheriff.
With no Democrats running in the primary for Orange County sheriff, the county's next sheriff will likely be Bobby Smith after he won the primary election on Tuesday.
Smith won with 8,340 votes or 56% of the vote.
His three challengers were incumbent, Jimmy Lane Mooney, who received 4,302 votes or 28.9% of the vote, Mike Sanchez, who received 10.3% of the votes and Ronald Dischler, who received 4.7% of the votes.
All of the candidates have experience in law enforcement.
Though entering the political realm for the first time Smith touted 29 years of law enforcement experience when he spoke to 12News before the election.
"I would like to provide more of a unity with the law enforcement in Orange County. I'd like to make Orange County premier law enforcement agency by getting people to want to stay here to get people to have a vested interest in Orange County that they want to retire from here," Smith said.
Mooney, the incumbent, recently told 12News that because he had been born and raised in Orange County that he had a vested interest in the county.
"The thing about me, I'm the only candidate that is bred, born and raised right here in Orange County, Texas,” Mooney said, adding that he has a “vested interest” in the county.
“My family goes to church here. I mean we've been to school here. We've been here for many many years," he said.
Sanchez, who is the police chief for the Vidor school district, recently told 12News of his plans for bringing mental health advocacy and safety to the table.
“One of the things I want to focus on is mental health. There's lots of roadblocks, and there's lots of bridges that we need to cross,” he said prior to the election.
"The other thing is I want to look at is school safety, church safety, be involved with our businesses in our community, I want our community to be involved with the sheriff's office,” Sanchez said.
Dischler, a Beaumont Police Lieutenant, told 12News his focus would have been combating criminal organizations.
"I would like to set up some narcotic interdiction units to start interdicting a lot of these drugs and a lot of this money that's going to these drug dealers, because that's the best way we can affect them by hitting them in their pocketbook," he said, before the election.
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.