“For us, it’s going away one election too late,” lamented Vlad Davidiuk, the spokesman for the county’s Republican Party. Even the day after the election, he blasted Hidalgo as “absolutely and indisputably unqualified for this position … There was no appeal to Lina Hidalgo’s qualities or qualifications. She has none. It’s completely a fluke.”

Many people inside and outside Texas scratch their head at the title of “county judge”; it’s the county government’s executive officer. Only in sparsely populated counties do county judges still maintain any sort of a judicial role. The Harris County judge oversees a $3.7 billion budget and nearly 17,000 county employees with responsibilities ranging from law enforcement to hospitals to road construction to flood control.

“This is the most powerful office [in Texas] outside of a statewide office,” said Castro, who served as President Barack Obama’s housing-and-urban-development secretary and as San Antonio’s mayor. Texas political scientists say that’s a fair assessment, perhaps tied with the mayor of Houston. But they say Hidalgo can’t take much credit for winning the post.

“It’s effectively straight-ticket voting, pure and simple,” said Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist and a leading expert on Texas politics. “It wasn’t about her. She was elected because of straight-ticket Democratic votes, which were fueled largely by a strong Democratic-turnout machine, opposition to Donald Trump, and Beto O’Rourke’s appeal. And she didn’t do anything to disqualify herself … At the margins, being a Latina tends to be slightly positive. But by and large, the Democratic Party won that election, not Lina Hidalgo.”