ALICE, Texas — Longtime lawman Joseph "Guy" Baker ousted the sitting Sheriff Danny Bueno in Jim Wells County. Baker won the 2024 election with 51.2 percent of the vote with about 13,000 people voting.
Baker has been a special agent with Homeland Security Investigations since 2010. He has spent 28 years in law enforcement.
Bueno's run as sheriff will come to an end after eight years in charge. He was first elected sheriff in 2016 when he beat then-Sheriff Oscar Lopez in the Democratic primary and then won the general election. Lopez had been sheriff for 36 years.
That means Jim Wells County voters have elected a Republican sheriff for the first time in more than four decades.
Prior to being elected sheriff, Bueno served as the police chief for the Alice Police Department for 17 years.
