Posts Tagged ‘Ken Cope’

Quick Impressions: Texas Sixth Congressional District

Thursday, February 1st, 2018

After Joe Barton’s naked selfies leaked, he announced his retirement, leading to yet another hotly contest U.S. congressional race. The Sixth district runs from Arlington down through Ellis and Navarro Counties. It used to be Phil Gramm’s seat, but in a very different geographic configuration, and is solidly Republican.

Unlike several of the other U.S. congressional races I’ve covered this year, this one has a clear favorite.

Republicans

  • Ken Cope: Plus: Ex-military background. Minus: Finished fifth against John Cornyn in the 2014 U.S. Senate primary, which suggests he’s not a serious candidate.
  • Shawn Dandridge: A black Republican with a military background who hates Obama, Dandridge is Cisco-certified and getting an MBA; an interesting background. “Shawn also has been a small business owner and real estate investor since 2008. He has rental properties in three states that have a value of close to $1 million.” That suggests he may have State Rep race money, but not U.S. congressional race money (he’s raised $5,126.)
  • Thomas Dillingham: Not in the district yet. Though he has an interesting Facebook story…
  • Shannon Dubberly: Another guy with ex-military background (counterterrorism, even), who has raised $51,465. Potential dark horse.
  • Jake Ellzey: Another ex-military guy, one who stands out a bit due to one notable endorsement: Rick Perry. That’s a good endorsement, and he’s raised $71,943. Potential dark horse, and right now probably the favorite to make the runoff with Ron Wright.
  • Deborah Gagliardi: Owns her own engineering and architecture firm in a year it’s good to be a woman running for office. “When the City of Arlington spent taxpayer dollars courting a contractor with a history of over-budget, poorly constructed projects, Deborah fought to expose them. If elected, her first priorities will be not only to fix the existing infrastructure in District 6, but to overhaul how infrastructure is built and maintained. High-cost, low-quality vanity projects will be a thing of the past.” Running for U.S. Congress to fix local infrastructure indicates a fairly imperfect grasp of federalism. Plus her campaign news page is blank, suggesting a certain lack of attention to the race.
  • Kevin Harrison: “Founder & President of West Coast Bible College & Seminary.” Maybe he has some ability to self-fund and an in with religious conservatives (though not reflected in the FEC reports, which shows no money raised). Potential dark horse.
  • Mel Hassell: A cipher with no website.
  • Mark Mitchell: A perennial candidate that’s lost a number of state rep races, there’s no reason to believe he’ll be competitive in a heavier weight class.
  • Troy Ratterree: Using a Facebook page as your campaign website is not generally conducive to victory.
  • Ron Wright: Current Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector who has earned the endorsements of State Senator Konni Burton and several others, and right now is the favorite for the seat, despite the bow ties and not having raised any money as of the last FEC reporting period, presumably because of how late Barton dropped out.
  • Democrats

  • John W. Duncan: Gay guy who works for “he largest local non-profit HIV/AIDS service organization in North Texas” and is married to a gay Christian minister. Raised $21,143.05.
  • Jana Lynne Sanchez: A former journalist, so naturally she’s a Democrat. She’s endorsed by the Dallas AFL-CIO, so she’s the establishment candidate in the race, to which she’s raised $137,832.08, the most of any candidate thus far.
  • Levii Shocklee: Navy veteran. No bio on his website.
  • Justin Snider: Locksmith and Bernie Bro.
  • Ruby Faye Woolridge: Lost the race to Barton in 2016. She has a lot of party experience and has raised $92,121.60. Woolridge is black, and the district is just under 21% black, and just over 22% Hispanic, which sets up a black/Hispanic interparty brawl between Woolridge and Sanchez.
  • Expect Wright to be the favorite, but if he doesn’t get his fundraising in gear, Ellzey or another dark horse could lap him. I expect whoever comes out on top in the GOP primary to easily handle Sanchez or Woolridge in the general.

    2014 Texas Senate Race Field Set

    Tuesday, December 10th, 2013

    Finally, John Cornyn has a real challenger. Steve Stockman has Tea Party support, impeccable conservative credentials, experience in high profile races (he knocked off Democratic fossil Jack Brooks for a U.S. congressional seat in the Gingrich wave of 1994), and a Southeast Texas base that might (might) let him tap into Houston’s rich Republican fundraising base. But he has gotten into the race very, very late, against a well-funded opponent whose deviations into RINO-Land have been far less severe those of Arlen Specter, DIck Luger or David Dewhurst (and that role-call of names is probably slightly unfair to Dewhurst). Ted Cruz had about fifteen months to knock off Dewhurst, while Stockman has three to take down Cornyn. Further, while Cruz’s race against Dewhurst was one of the top Tea Party vs. RINO races nationwide, I get the impression the Stockman/Cornyn fight will take a distinct backseat to Matt Bevin’s attempt to take down Mitch McConnell, and possibly several other races.

    It’s certainly possible that Stockman can take out Cornyn, but it’s going to be very difficult, especially while still carrying out his congressional duties.

    For the sake of completeness, here’s a look at the other candidates.

    Republicans

  • Curt Cleaver: A retread longshot from the 2012 Senate Race.
  • Ken Cope: The Midlothian Enigma, about which The Google has precious little to say. This year’s Grady Yarbrough?
  • Chris Mapp: Boat dealership owner. Seems like a solid Tea Party Republican but the man desperately needs to learn how to use indenting and/or paragraph breaks.
  • Dwayne Stover: A bridge-builder. I don’t mean that metaphorically, I mean that his company actually builds bridges.
  • Read Reasor: Good: Former F-15 pilot. Bad: His platform (if you can call it such, being a Facebook post, since his website doesn’t currently work) is a strange mashup of WPA works program, workfare and local autarky. I would like to see his “let welfare recipients build their own home” idea run as a small pilot project somewhere, but his plan has more than a whiff of late-night college bull sessions to it.
  • Linda Vega: A Houston-area lawyer. She has a good resume…for someone running for a county judge position. U.S. Senate? Not so much.
  • Democrats:

  • David Alameel: Former dental chain owner, and worth a reported $50 million dollars. With that big money, he should be a shoe-in for the Democratic nomination, right? Not so fast. “This will be Alameel’s second run for office in as many cycles. Last cycle, he ran for Congress in the newly-drawn 33rd District and finished fourth out of 11 candidates in the Democratic primary. Alameel received 2,064 votes (10 percent)…[he] actually spent $4,485,086 million in the 2012 race, which comes out to $2,173 per vote.” That almost makes John Connally’s 1980 run for President look like a model of model of prudent campaign financing…
  • Michael Fjetland: Ran as a Republican in the primary against Tom Delay in 2006. Proclaims “I am the ‘Anti-Cruz'” in an all-capital letters font. (Pro-tip: When you use ALL CAPS more often than Time Cube Guy, you’re doing it wrong…)
  • HyeTae “Harry” Kim: Odessa physician. Sorry, that’s all I’ve got for you.
  • Lakesha Rogers: The LaRouche Candidate.
  • Maxey Scheer: El Paso attorney who’s also running as the anti-Cruz candidate, complete with towing a crashed-car prop behind her to protest Cornyn’s “Cruz Control.” (Get it? Get? Cruz control? It’s a concrete metaphor and a pun! Get it? Get it? Wink wink, nudge nudge, say no more!) Given the Statesman‘s polite attention, I’m going to guess she’s the designated “Democratic faithful” candidate if Alameel’s wealth can’t get him across the finish line, though her gas costs may prove prohibitive. Also seems intensely race-conscious.