Posts Tagged ‘Eric Opiela’

A Quick Overview of Primary Results

Wednesday, March 5th, 2014

A very brief look at last night’s primary results:

  • John Cornyn won, but couldn’t break 60% against a field of underfunded challengers.
  • The Democratic Senate runoff is going to be between the big-spender David Alameel and the LaRouche candidate Kesha Rogers.
  • As expected, both Greg Abbott and Wendy Davis won their gubernatorial primaries. But Abbott garnered 91% and over 1.2 million votes, the most of any candidate for any office. By contrast, Davis got 432,000 votes and won 79% of the vote against underfunded challenger Ray Madrigal, indicating a distinct enthusiasm gap despite Davis’ nationwide MSM cheer-leading corps.
  • Dan Patrick’s early lead over incumbent David Dewhurst in the Lt. Governor’s race held up. Patrick pulled in 550,742 votes for 41.5% of the vote, while Dewhurst got 376,164 votes for 28.3%. Maybe Dewhurst can carpet-bomb the runoff with money, but that’s an awful big gap to make up. We knew that Dewhurst losing to Cruz in 2012 hurt him; now we know how much.
  • Ken Paxton takes the lead into the runoff with 566,080 votes over Dan Branch’s 426,561.
  • Glenn Hegar is hovering right at the threshold of beating Harvey Hildebran outright in the Comptroller race.
  • George P. Bush garnered 934,501 to win the Land Commissioner primary…or over twice as many votes as Wendy Davis.
  • Sid Miller (410,273) and Tommy Merritt (248,568) are heading for a runoff for Agricultural Commissioner, leaving Joe Straus ally Eric Opiela out in the cold.
  • All the Ted Cruz-endorsed Supreme Court incumbents won their races.
  • Super-tight runoff in U.S. House District 23 between Francisco “Quico” Canseco and Will Hurd to face Democratic incumbent Pete Gallego. Canseco held the seat before Gallego, and whoever wins the runoff has a good chance of taking the swing seat back.
  • Katrina Pierson was unable to unseat Pete Sessions in U.S. House District 32, garnering 36.4% of the vote. As I feared, Sarah Palin’s endorsement came to late to truly capitalize on it in fundraising.
  • Matt McCall did even better, where he and another challenger kept Lamar Smith at 60.4% in U.S. House District 21. Though they won their primaries, Sessions and Smith might be vulnerable to further challenges in 2016.
  • As far as I can tell, every U.S. or statewide incumbent Republican either won or is leading their race. Except David Dewhurst.
  • A Random Assortment of Texas Statewide Race News

    Monday, March 3rd, 2014

    With primary voting upon us tomorrow, it looks like I’ve run out of campaign to cover. Here then is a quick, scatter-shot batch of snippets on various races:

  • Wendy Davis is super popular…just not in Texas. “27 percent of the money Davis raised in the last filing quarter came from donors outside Texas, compared to just 2 percent of Abbott’s total.”
  • In the Comptroller race, Glenn Hegar seems to have have racked up the lion’s share of conservative endorsements, and is also winning the money race over Harvey Hilderbran (who has mostly racked up the endorsements of business groups, newspapers, and “shill” groups like Steve Holtz’s “Conservative Republicans of Texas“). 2010 Gubernatorial hopeful Debra Medina is also polling strongly despite having raised relatively little money, I didn’t think she was ready for primetime in 2010, but Comptroller is probably a great spot for a Libertarian. I’d vote Hegar over Medina, but I’d vote both over Hilderbran.
  • The Agricultural Commissioner’s race is easier to narrow down with who not to vote for, namely J. Allen Carnes, who voted Democratic until 2012, and “donated to Texas Democrats Pete Gallego, Henry Cuellar, and Ciro Rodriguez.” Also who to vote against: Eric Opiela, AKA Joe Straus’ lawyer. By contrast, Sid Miller seems to have racked up an impressive list of endorsements.
  • In the Land Commissioner race, George P. Bush does have a primary opponent in David Watts, who has actually racked up a fair number of endorsements. Plus Paul Burka isn’t impressed with George P. Bush’s campaign (and Burka may even be right for a change).
  • Lt. Governor race roundup. if the Chronicle paywall won’t let you in, search for the first sentence on Google news. Here’s some damning-with-faint-praise for Todd Staples: “‘Staples becomes a plausible alternative if you don’t have Dewhurst in the race,’ Henson said. ‘My impression is that he is well-liked in the Capitol special-interest community.'” Ouch!
  • Here’s your biannual reminder that Texas mainstream media outlets almost always endorse the most liberal candidate.
  • Brandon Creighton: Out of Agricultural Commissioner Race, in Senate District 4 Race

    Thursday, October 17th, 2013

    Following the unexpected retirement of State Senator Tommy Williams, Brandon Creighton announced he’s dropping out of the Ag Commissioner race to run for state Senate District 4.

    Republicans still in the Agricultural Commissioner’s race include:

  • J. Allen Carnes (Note: Auto-running popover videos are not calculated to win over voters.)
  • Tommy Merritt (Just a splash screen; less annoying, but also less informative.)
  • Eric Opiela (Just an ordinary campaign website, though it fails to mention Opiela’s close ties to Joe Straus.)
  • And Kinky Friedman just announced he’s running again as a Democrat.

    Statewide Race Roundup for August 9, 2013

    Friday, August 9th, 2013

    Time for another quick roundup of statewide race news:

  • Even left-wing PolitiFact admits that Democrats are lying about Greg Abbott improperly moving funds.
  • They’re a lot tougher on Lt. Governor candidate Sen. Dan Patrick’s claims that funding for border security was cut in the latest budget.
  • The Texas Tribune looks at Abbott’s consultant spending.
  • Abbott, running for a statewide office, refuses to opine on national legislative tactics to defund ObamaCare. Stop the freaking presses!
  • The Washington Post offers up five facts about Abbott. For a change, they’re even accurate.
  • Abbot takes south Texas votes seriously.
  • Lt. Governor David Dewhurst shakes up his re-election team with new hires, including Ryan Hecker of FreedomWorks and Eliza Vielma (AKA Twitter’s @misslizaface) will be handling social media. Given how poorly Dewhurst performed in social media in the Senate race, that’s probably a good move.
  • Lt. Governor candidate and Agricultural Commissioner Todd Staples takes a swing at Dewhurst’s leadership in a fundraising letter.
  • But Staples, like all three of Dewhurst’s challengers in the Lt. Governor’s race, endorsed Dewhurst over Ted Cruz in last year’s Senate runoff.
  • Patrick has a new ad out. He looks sleepy. He may need to consider ptosis surgery.

  • Attorney General candidate Dan Branch defends defense of marriage. Unlike Tom Leppert, Branch doesn’t seem to have played footsie with Dallas’ gay rights community, and indeed was an (unsuccessful) target for them to defeat in 2008.
  • Speaking of Branch, Facebook briefly yanked, then restored, one of his campaign videos. This one I think:

    Which strikes me as well-produced, but pretty generic. Can’t see why any reasonable person would find it even remotely objectionable.

  • Sources tell me that Rep. Brandon Creighton gets into the Agricultural Commissioner’s race today.
  • And speaking of the Agricultural Commissioner’s race, Eric Opiela is evidently not only Joe Straus’ lawyer, but also managed (through some ill-advised emails) to hurt Republican redistricting efforts by making them easier to challenge in 2012.
  • On the Democratic side, Abortion Barbie inches closer to declaring her intention to lose to Abbott.
  • Texas Statewide Races Update for July 30, 2013

    Tuesday, July 30th, 2013

    Still getting up to speed, so expect these updates to be a bit random for, oh, the next five weeks or so.

  • Abbott: The Obama Administration’s Voting Rights Act lawsuit is purely political.

    The administration’s approach reveals the Democrats‘ fear that Republican candidates were making inroads with Hispanic voters. Democrats could never “turn Texas blue” if that trend continued, so they got the courts to draw district lines that guarantee Democratic victory in predominantly Hispanic areas.

    Instead of allowing the Voting Rights Act to work in a way the Constitution allows, the Obama administration is sowing racial divide to score cheap political points. The president is using the legal system as a sword to wage partisan battles rather than a shield to protect voting rights. This overreaching action undermines the Voting Rights Act and the rule of law. Texas will not tolerate it. So far, neither will the Supreme Court.

  • Abbot also appeared on Lou Dobbs to discuss voter ID:

  • He also appeared on the Mike Huckabee show:

  • And the Mike Gallagher Show:

  • And Trey Ware’s show on KTSA:

  • Huckabee, who last endorsed David Dewhurst in the Senate race, endorses Dan Patrick in the Lt. Governor’s race. I’m sure the endorsement had nothing to do with Huckabee’s son doing work for a consulting firm hired by Patrick…
  • Former state Rep. Ray Keller is running for the Railroad Commission.
  • Interview with Barry Smitherman
  • The Houston Chronicle tackles the Lt. Governor’s race by…comparing Twitter statistics for Jerry Patterson and Dan Patrick. I feel dumber merely by having linked to that.
  • Texas Sparkle endorses Todd Staples for Lt. Governor.
  • Eric Opiela is running for Agricultural Commissioner. I sort of like his ad featuring a Prius-driving EPA official:

  • Malachi Boyuls is running for the railroad commission. You don’t see many Malachis in public office these days…

  • Democrat Mike Mjetland is considering running for Governor.