Not quite as down as I was last night. There’s lots of the commentary this morning on how Donald Trump under-performed vs. expectations.
Here are some random primary results and links:
“So far, Trump wins open primaries and Cruz wins closed…and the calendar is starting to change toward more closed primaries.” Also: “So here’s where it potentially gets interesting. Although the media are looking forward to March 15, this Saturday (March 5) there are four Republican primaries/caucuses: Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana and Maine. All are closed.” If Cruz can take three of those four, it’s a whole new race. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
Ted Cruz wins Alaska, despite Sarah Palin’s Trump endorsement.
It was generally a bad night on the anti-Joe Straus front. Straus won his primary, as did Jason Villalba, and Straus-backed Lance Gooden took out conservative Stuart Sptizer in the Texas 4th Congressional District, while Hugh B. Shine took out conservative (and bit of a loose cannon) Molly White. For a while it looked like Straus crony Byron Cook might lose, but he eked out a win over Thomas McNutt with 50.4%.
Michael Quinn Sullivan is a bit more optimistic:
The chairman of the Licensing Committee, Wayne Smith, and the chairman of Special Purpose Districts, Doug Miller, are now facing tough run-offs against conservative challengers Briscoe Cain and Kyle Biedermann.
State Rep. Debbie Riddle, a Straus loyalist on the powerful Calendars Committee, was defeated outright by Valoree Swanson in a four-way race.
Meanwhile, decorated veteran Terry Wilson defeated liberal State Rep. Marsha Farney, who was rumored to have been tapped by Straus to helm the Public Education Committee in 2017.
On the other hand, conservative fighters Jonathan Stickland, Tony Tinderholt, and Matt Rinaldi won big re-election fights. Stickland, Tinderholt, and Rinaldi were top targets of the establishment, with the opponents slinging copious amounts of mud to no avail.
(Hat tip: Push Junction.)
Speaking of loose cannons, check out new Travis County GOP chair Robert Morrow.
Another Will Hurd (R) vs. Pete Gallego (D) matchup in the 23rd Congressional District. This is the only true swing U.S. House seat left in Texas, and it will probably come down to turnout. Gallego took the seat from Francisco “Quico” Canseco in 2012 and Hurd took the seat back for Republicans in 2014.
Shawn Dick beats Jana Duty for Williamson County DA.
Other Williamson County races: Robert Chody wins the Sheriff race over four challengers, Donna Parker and Landy Warren are going to a runoff for County Commissioner Precinct 1, and Laura Baker and Warren Oliver Waterman are going to a runoff for Williamson Court-at-Law No. 2 Judge.
Probably more later…
Tags: 2016 Election, 2016 Presidential Race, Donald Trump, Jana Duty, Joe Straus, Lance Gooden, Landy Warren, Laura Baker, Marsha Farney, Michael Quinn Sullivan, Molly White, Pete Gallego, Republicans, Robert Chody, Robert Morrow, Sarah Palin, Shawn Dick, Stuart Sptizer, Ted Cruz, Texas, Texas 23rd Congressional District, Texas 4th Congressional District, Thoms McNutt, Travis County, Warren Oliver Waterman, Will Hurd, Williamson County
This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016 at 11:50 AM and is filed under Austin, Elections, Republicans, Texas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.
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Small thing but the Wilco electronic ballot probably gave hermit Presidential candidate Elizabeth Gray a couple thousand votes. She was listed alone on second page of ballot so I’m sure some people touched her name after touching one on the first page and accidentally voted for her instead of who they meant to vote for.
She apparently lives in Taylor which could have provided some boost but the numbers are just to spread out across the county to explain it. For example, she got 41 votes in my precinct 277 in Cedar Park but only 27 votes in all of Travis County? That seems unlikely.
Another indicator is the paper ballot count where she got exactly 1 vote of the 2,404 recorded for her. Meanwhile Chris Christie got 26 (of 110 total) and Carly Fiorina got 10 (of 135). Points to problem with electronic ballot.
She did get a small bump in the Taylor area with somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 votes above the average per precinct in the 5 Taylor-area precincts.
Anyway, small thing for this election but a potential major thing in elections down the line.
I’d be interested to hear if someone else has an explanation of this other than a poorly designed ballot.
Williamson results: http://www.wilco.org/CountyDepartments/Elections/tabid/450/Default.aspx
Chris Davis, Wilco Elections Administrator, tells me through Twitter that if he had to do it over again, he would have designed it with two columns per screen. So hopefully this won’t be a problem in the future.