Posts Tagged ‘Ted Poe’

Quick Impressions: Texas U.S. Second Congressional District Race

Wednesday, December 13th, 2017

I was going to do one big roundup of competitive Texas U.S. Congressional races, but the more I started digging in, the more I thought each race deserved its own entry. So let’s start with the Second Congressional District.

Republican

This is the retiring Ted Poe’s seat in northern Harris County. It looks like an interesting race, because there appear to be several potentially credible candidates:

  • Houston businessman David Balat looks like he has the money to compete (he’s already raised $155,965) and has been lining up endorsements.
  • Ex-Navy SEAL Daniel Crenshaw is drawing some attention in his first race with a compelling personal story. Losing his right eye to an IED in Afghanistan, Crenshaw also has that Moshe Dyan visage thing going for him:

  • Another U.S. veteran is Jonny Havens, who’s also a lawyer, formerly with Baker Botts, one of the largest and most prestigious law firms in Texas. He might have enough money and pull to run a competitive race,
  • State representative Kevin Roberts has experience and name recognition. (Empower Texans is not impressed with his legislative record.)
  • Kingwood businessman Rick Walker. I actually received an email from his social media team touting his candidacy, so he has more campaign infrastructure than many candidates at this point.
  • Kathaleen Wall doesn’t seem to have a website up yet, but she’s well-heeled and well-connected, always a good combination, and was active into trying to take down Joe Straus lieutenant Charlies Geren. Plus I suspect 2018 will be a pretty good year for women running for office.
  • Just missing the cut: Justin Lurie. Venture capital background, so he could potentially raise the money necessary, but he’s a bit young and has more issues than endorsements or events at this stage.

    Not a leading candidates: the guy who thinks he’s already running for President

    Democrats

    The clear Democratic favorite here is Todd Litton, because as a lawyer whose worked in investments he can scrape up the money for a competitive race, to which end he’s already raised over $200,000.

    The candidate that ran against Poe in 2016 was Pat Bryan. He raised a whopping $4,465 in 2016. (Way to support your candidate, Democrats!)

    It’s a heavily Republican district and none of the Democrats running look capable of flipping it. Keep in mind that the early fundraising totals may be misleading, since Poe only announced his retirement November 7. We won’t get a real bead on race finances until Q4 results are released in January 2018.

    Texas News Roundup for November 9, 2017

    Thursday, November 9th, 2017

    Bunch of Texas news, none of which I feel like doing a separate post on. Ready? Go!

  • The state of Texas, with the assistance of the Texas Public Policy Foundation, has successfully thwarted the Obama Administration’s Bureau of Land Management land grab along the Red River. Good job for TPPF, Attorney General Ken Paxton, and Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush successfully getting BLM to give up.
  • All Texas constitutional amendments pass.
  • U.S. Rep. Ted Poe announces retirement.
  • I also missed that Lamar Smith announced his retirement a few days ago as well. With Jeb Hensarling, that’s three incumbent Texas Republican Reps who have announced their retirement.
  • Ranger College: Want to pay higher taxes to support our corrupt community college? Brown, Erath and Comanche County: Get stuffed! Not often you see a proposition defeated 97% to 3%…
  • You Can’t Beat Something With Nothing

    Wednesday, March 14th, 2012

    Now that all the post-redistricting filings have been finalized, I thought I would take a look at Texas U.S. congressional races to see where either the Republican or the Democratic party has failed to field a candidate. While districts are usually drawn to protect incumbents and minimize the chances of the out-of-power party, it’s usually best to contest all possible races, for a variety of reasons:

  • You can’t beat something with nothing.
  • It helps tie down time, money and effort that could otherwise be shifted to other races.
  • It helps down-ballot races by drawing voters to the polls.
  • It offers a chance for Republicans to get their message of limited government, lower taxes and greater freedom out to people who might not otherwise hear it, and possibly make some converts in the process (the parable of the sower).
  • Stuff happens. Sudden, unexpected twists of fate can play out at any moment. Incumbents get caught stuffing bribe money into their freezer or consorting with prostitutes. Planes crash. And there’s always the possibility of someone being caught in bed with a dead woman or a live goat.
  • Unexpected opportunities arise, but you can’t take advantage of them if you don’t have a candidate in place.

    With that in mind, let’s see how well Republicans and Democrats have done in finding candidates for all 36 Texas congressional races:

    U.S. Congressional Races Where Democrats Failed to Field a Candidate

  • U.S. Representative District 2: Republican Incumbent Ted Poe
  • U.S. Representative District 3: Republican Incumbent Sam Johnson
  • U.S. Representative District 4: Republican Incumbent Ralph Hall
  • U.S. Representative District 13: Republican Incumbent Mac Thornberry
  • U.S. Representative District 17: Republican Incumbent Bill Flores (in a seat that was held by Democrat Chet Edwards until 2010!)
  • U.S. Representative District 19: Republican Incumbent Randy Neugebauer
  • U.S. Representative District 25: Open seat, formerly Lloyd Dogget’s until he moved to the newly created 35th District following redistricting. No less than 12 Republicans have filed for this seat (including former Senate candidates Michael Williams, Roger Williams, and Charles Holcomb). 56% of the newly reformulated 25th District’s residents voted for McCain in 2008; that’s solidly, but not overwhelmingly, Republican. But not one Democrat bothered to run…
  • So that’s seven U.S. Congressional races where Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee National Chair for Recruiting and Candidate Services Allyson Schwartz, and, well, whoever the hell it is at The Texas Democratic Party in charge of recruiting candidates, were unable to find a single person out of approximately 688,488 citizens in each of those districts to run for the United States House of Representatives. Say what you want about Alvin Greene running for Senator in South Carolina, but at least he showed up, which Texas Democrats couldn’t even manage to do in almost one-fifth of U.S. Congressional races this year.

    By contrast, Republicans only fell down on the job in one congressional district:

    U.S. Congressional Race Where Republicans Failed to Field a Candidate

    U.S. Representative District 29: Democratic incumbent Gene Green gets a pass. In a district that went 62% for Obama, any Republican was going to have an uphill race. But given that there are five districts even more heavily Democratic (the 9th, 16th, 18th, 33rd, and 35th) where Republicans fielded a candidate, this seems like a lost opportunity, especially for a Republican Hispanic candidate in a Hispanic district headed by an old white guy. (Granted, this didn’t work for Roy Morales in 2010, but I would have preferred that Morales file again and run a token campaign over no one running at all.)

    All in all this is good news for Republicans. If I were a Democrat, I’d be mad at how thoroughly the state and national party fell down on the job of recruiting candidates.

    A suggestion: All six Republican incumbents who haven’t drawn an opponent should each hold a fundraiser for Republican Incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco, who figures to have the toughest race of any incumbent this time around.

    References

  • The Texas Congressional Delegation
  • List of 2012 Texas Republican Congressional Candidates
  • List of 2012 Texas Democratic Congressional Candidates
  • Daily Kos redistricting breakdown that includes numbers on how each District voted in the 2008 Presidential race.