All the favorites won in yesterday’s statewide Republican primary runoff races:
Ken Paxton clobbered George P. Bush with more than two-thirds of the vote. Paxton won 67.90% to Bush’s 32.10%. Bush went from getting more votes than Greg Abbott in 2014 to garnering less than one-third of the vote in a runoff, and the only sizeable county he won was Travis. Back in 2014, a whole lot of political pundits talked about Bush as though he were some political golden boy destined for higher office. Those notices proved premature. Now everyone is talking about “the end of the Bush dynasty.” Maybe, but that talk may also be premature; that bush has a lot of branches…
Wayne Christian didn’t quite get 2/3rds of the vote against challenger Sarah Stogner, but didn’t fall short by much, winning 65.04% of the vote to Strogner’s 34.96%. So that $2 million that transexual West Texas ranching heir Ashley (formerly Andrew) Watt poured into the race may have bought Stogner an extra 2% of the vote.
In other races, Pete Flores beat Raul Reyes in Senate District 24 (as expected), and Ellen Troxclair beat Justin Berry with 56.48% of the vote in State House District 19.
Texas Scorecard notes that in open races, a lot of school choice advocates beat the candidates that Governor Greg Abbott endorsed…
Wayne Christian defeated Gary Gates in the Republican Railroad Commissioner’s runoff, despite Gates dropping considerable money into a dishonest, scorched earth direct mailer campaign against Christian. That makes Gates 0-7 running for office.
Wayne Christian will face Democrat Grady Yarbrough (as well as Libertarian Mark Miller and Green Party candidate Martina Salinas) in November.
Mary Lou Keel defeated Ray Wheless and Scott Walker (not that Scott Walker) defeated Brent Webster in Republican Court of Criminal Appeals runoffs. Keel will face Republican-turned-Democrat incumbent Lawrence Meyers in November, while Walker will face Democrat Betsy Johnson.
Bryan Hughes stomped David Simpson in the Texas Senate District 1 race. Hughes was backed by both Ted Cruz and Lt. Governor Dan Patrick. Hughes has no Democratic Party opposition in November.
In Williamson County runoffs, Laura Barker defeated Warren Oliver Waterman for County Court at Law #2 and Landy Warren defeated Donna Parker for County Commissioner Precinct 1. Warren will face Democrat Terry Cook in November, while Baker faces no Democratic Party opponent.
Tomorrow is the Texas primary runoff, so now would be a good time to find your voting card and confirm your polling place.
A final roundup of runoff tidbits:
The Dallas Morning News says that Dan Patrick is poised to win due to his staunch opposition to illegal immigration. Oversimplified, but not entirely wrong. They also say Patrick has done a good job connecting with Ted Cruz supporters.
Dan Branch would have raised more money for the Attorney General race than Ken Paxton…were it not for the $1 million loan from Midland oilman Tim Dunn via Empower Texans PAC. Now you see why so many liberal reporters call Michael Quinn Sullivan the most powerful figure in Texas politics.
Talk show host Dana Loesch endorses Paxton. Less a move-the-needle endorsement than a reminder that conservatives are united on Paxton’s side.
On the Democrat side of the Ag Commissioner runoff, Kinky Friedman is running against an invisible opponent. “In the May 27 runoff the choice for the party’s faithful is either Friedman or Jim Hogan, a former dairy farmer who hasn’t campaigned for the office or even has a campaign website…Hogan could not be reached for comment because a phone number listed under his name was out of service and the Democratic Party of Texas did not respond to a request for other contact information.” Also, win or lose, Kinky said this is his last race.
Here’s a Texas Tribune piece on the runoff between rich guy David Alameel and Larouchite Kesha Rogers for the Democratic Senate nomination. Fun as it would be to see Rogers upset Alameel, I don’t see it in the cards.
Finally, just in case you were unclear, Texas Monthly‘s Paul Burka is very upset that Republican primary voters continue to prefer actual Republicans over Republicans who act like Democrats once in office.
Here is who I will be voting for tomorrow (all of whom I expect to win):
Travis McCormick notes that exactly one year ago, Ted Cruz beat David Dewhurst in the 2012 Republican Senate runoff. (He also demolished a number of myths in the process.) And pretty much every day Ted Cruz has been in Washington, he’s confirmed that Texas voters made the right decision.
Can anyone imagine Dewhurst leading the fight against illegal alien amnesty? Or schooling Dianne Feinstein on gun control? (I can imagine Dewhurst voting against gun control, but not leading the fight against it.) Or holding the feet of other Republicans to the fire on conservative principles? (As I said then, “We sent Cruz to Washington to shame Republicans into acting like Republicans.”)
No wonder Cruz is getting buzz as a 2016 Presidential candidate. I don’t see anyone else better on the horizon…
There’s a lot to digest and discuss about Ted Cruz’s victory over David Dewhurst, and I’m sure I’ll have more tomorrow. But here are a few myths that Cruz’s victory laid to rest tonight.
Hispanics can’t win statewide Republican primaries in Texas. This one was born in Victor Carrillo’s defeat in the 2010 Railroad Commissioner’s race. It was sour grapes by Carrillo (and wishful thinking by the liberal media) then, and was debunked tonight.
The Tea Party has peaked and is in decline. Cruz is just the latest Tea Party candidate to knock off an establishment Republican. And Sarah Palin looks more and more like the most powerful kingmaker in the Republican Party.
Big money will always trump grassroots enthusiasm. Dewhurst was a quarter-billionaire who outraised Cruz (at least initially) and dumped a ton of money on TV advertising. It didn’t help.
Social media isn’t nearly as important as TV and newspaper ad buys. The Cruz campaign was far more adept and nimble using Facebook, Twitter, etc., and it was a big factor in locking up grassroots support early. And many observers have noted that Dewhurst’s ad buys probably hurt him.
Negative campaigning is the key to victory. Dewhurst went negative early and often, and it not only raised Cruz’s profile, but backfired when people found out the issues they were hyping were trivia (the Chinese tire case) or outright lies (the amnesty and kids-for-cash smears). Honest negative campaigning is still a useful tool, but the Internet makes it so easy to debunk lies that obvious falsehoods no longer have time to take root before they’re debunked.
Media endorsements are vital to winning voter support. Dewhurst got the lion’s share of MSM endorsements. It obviously didn’t help him.
Both AP and Politico are calling the race for Ted Cruz over Dewhurst!
David Dewhurst came into the race with high name recognition, incumbency, several successful statewide races under his belt, and a $250 million fortune…and lost to a guy who had 2% name recognition a year ago.
Hey, MSM, you might want to hold off on those Tea Party obituaries for the time being. And has any Sarah Palin endorsed candidate lost this year?
Now that polls have closed, runoff voting results are trickling in, and Ted Cruz is currently beating David Dewhurst by a little more than 52% to 48% in early voting results. Remember, Dewhurst dominated early voting results in the primary; if the same pattern holds, Cruz should win decisively.
Democratic results are here. If early results hold, the Grady Yarbrough dream dies tonight…
One way or another, the Ted Cruz—David Dewhurst battle ends today. Texas voters: find your voter registration card and vote before 7 PM (if you haven’t already).
Tomorrow’s election day! Get out there and vote! And if you’re still making up your mind, you might want to read my endorsement of Ted Cruz.
Now the final roundup of pre-runoff Senate race news:
Evan at Perry vs. World debunks Cruz’s role in Dewhurst’s last-minute “cash for kids” ad. “Ted Cruz was trying to help the Kids for Cash victims get the money they deserved from an insurance company.”
The more detailed explanation that Evan links to is here. “In either case, Cruz had nothing to do with the creation of the fund or how much it pays victims. He was not one of the attorneys listed on the agreement. If anything, Cruz’s only involvement in the case would have resulted in more—not less—money for victims.”
Even Paul Burka can see the writing on the wall: “Nothing Dewhurst has tried has changed the dynamics of the race at all. If anything, the millions Dewhurst has spent on TV have hurt his own campaign. The China ad and the Kids for Cash scandal ad have not achieved anything. Dewhurst’s array of consultants has never been able to lay a glove on Cruz.”
Politico joins the list of those expecting a Cruz victory. “We’re on the 2-yard line. We have marched the entire length of the field. We started out up in the hot dog stands.”
Final day of campaigning: “At Dewhurst’s stopover at an Austin Chick-fil-A franchise early Monday, about a dozen supporters waved Dewhurst placards—and close to half of them were lobbyists.”
Q: So Dewhurst, are any of your staffers working for the SuperPACs slamming Ted Cruz? A: No. Q: Former staffers? A: Uh….
Fox Houston: “Early voting numbers show Cruz ahead by 10 percent.” I assume they mean the PPP poll, as they usually don’t release actual vote totals until the polls have closed on election night.
Dewhurst is still campaigning. Here’s his last-minute-push video with Rick Perry:
At least it’s refreshingly free of dishonest slime attacks against Cruz…
And yes, the Democrats are having their own runoff tomorrow. The Texas Democratic Party all but says “Screw neutrality, you better vote for Paul Sadler if you know what’s good for you.” They also commit a factual error. As readers of this blog know, Grady Yarbrough has been endorsed by a newspaper, The Austin Villager. Since the The Austin Villager is a black community newspaper, if a Republican omitted them, you know they would be accused of racism…
Yarbrough comes out for illegal alien amnesty, which might be a we tad inconsistent with his previous stance on putting the Berlin Wall on the border.
If Yarbrough does win the Democratic runoff, $20 says Sadler and the TDP try to get him thrown off the ballot for not filing his FEC forms…