Dawn Buckingham and Jay Kleberg will face off to be Texas’ next land commissioner in November

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Republican Dawn Buckingham and Democrat Jay Kleberg clinched their parties’ nominations for Texas land commissioner Tuesday and will face off in November’s general election.

The land commissioner leads the Texas General Land Office, which manages 13 million acres of state land, oversees disaster relief and some public school funding and has administrative control of the Alamo.

The winner in November will replace Republican George P. Bush, who lost his bid Tuesday to oust Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Buckingham beat Tim Westley for the GOP nomination.

Buckingham, a state senator from Lakeway, was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. She led in the March GOP primary with 41.9% of final votes.

Westley, the historian for the Republican Party of Texas, secured his seat in the runoff election with 14.8% of the votes in the March primary. Westley previously said in an interview with The Texas Tribune that as land commissioner he would give victims of natural disasters better and quicker access to natural disaster aid by enacting a liaison system throughout the state to distribute funding.

Kleberg beat Sandragrace Martinez for the Democratic nomination.

Kleberg is the former associate director of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Foundation. He focused his campaign on leasing state land to produce more renewable energy.

Martinez is a licensed professional mental health counselor from San Antonio. She campaigned to prevent long-lasting damage from natural disasters and wants to allocate more funding to the coastline and the Rio Grande Valley.

Disclosure: Texas General Land Office has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.

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