Carol Pelzel paced the elections office floor patiently waiting for the early voting results.

Minutes after the polls closed, the paralegal got the first glimpse of how her boss Doug Robison’s bid for the 393rd District Court judgeship was going against his opponent, lawyer Steve Burgess.

“Have you seen the results yet?” she said into the phone to Robison as a smile grew on her face. “OK. Here they are: 943 for you and 530 for Steve.”

“940,” Robison screamed into the phone. “Are you sure?”

By the end of Tuesday’s runoff, Rob­i­son, a civil at­torney, had erased a 26-percentage-point deficit from the March primary to win the seat by a margin of 26 percentage points.

With the victory and no November opposition, Robison will succeed Judge Vicki Isaacks, who announced her retirement in Au­gust, on the bench in January.

“I am still trying to digest all of this,” Robison said. “This has been a learning experience for me. Grass-roots efforts had a lot to do with it.”

Robison, 53, of Argyle, had squeaked into the April runoff by edging Lee Ann Breading and Randy Stout in March.

Since then, Stout, attorney for the Denton school district, levied his support behind Robison, which Robison believed might have played a factor.

However, Dianne Edmondson, the county Republican Party chairwoman, said Robison’s campaign mailers, his dedication to campaigning and his message helped solidify his candidacy.

“He had a very strong message,” she said. “That hard-hitting [campaign] piece was also a factor.”

In the weeks leading to the runoff, Robison mailed campaign fodder that questioned Burgess’ experience, campaign contributions and humanitarian work. It was part of a slight alteration in his campaign that highlighted his experience and community service.

Burgess, 43, of Denton called both campaign pieces unfair attacks.

“It was very offensive what he insinuated in his piece,” said Burgess. “It was an insult to the profession, but it appears to have done the trick for him. I don’t have any interest in talking with Mr. Robison right now.”

Burgess pointed to the low turnout, which saw as few as five votes in some polling sites, as one of the reasons for his defeat.

Just over 3,000 ballots were cast in the runoff on the Re­pub­lican ticket.

“It didn’t take many votes to win this election,” Burgess said. “Judging by the numbers, I talked to every person that voted for me. It’s sad.”

Much like Robison, Burgess said he spoke to close to 2,000 people in the weeks before the runoff, but he said that for some unseen reason, he could not energize his base for the runoff.

However, in March, it was a much different story.

Burgess ran away from the four-candidate field and flirted with the chance of winning the seat without a runoff. However, by failing to reach the 50 percent plateau, Burgess breathed new life into Robison’s campaign.

It appears Robison made the most of that second life.

Edmondson noted before the polls closed that Robison’s route from underdog to convincing winner wasn’t out of the question. 

“The front-runner should make it, but it tends to not be like that,” she said.

DAN X. McGRAW can be reached at 940-566-6875. His e-mail address is dmcgraw@dentonrc.com .