With over 99% of the Texas primary vote in, there were no alarms and no surprises. All the statewide Republican incumbents won their primaries, though George P. Bush and Sid Miller garnered less than 60% of the vote against underfunded challengers.
Greg Abbott pulled in 90% of the vote, handily beating Barbara Krueger and Larry SECEDE Kilgore, the later of whose 1.3% of the vote gives lie to the theory that Texas is currently a hotbed of secessionist fervor.
Ted Cruz garnered 85% of the vote against four underfunded opponents.
On the far left side of the the aisle, conventional wisdom also triumphed. Lupe Valdez (43%) and Andrew White (27%) are headed to a runoff, leaving Cederic Davis Sr., Grady Yarborough and Seth Payne (and my own runoff prediction) in the dust.
As expected, Beto O’Rourke won over two underfunded challengers, but at a mere 61.8% of the vote, he was hardly the juggernaut Democrats were making him out to be. Liberals have been talking up the chances for their fair-haired boy to take Ted Cruz, but I wouldn’t bet the mortgage on it; O’Rourke garnered less than half the votes Cruz did.
Other Democratic race results: For Lieutenant Governor, Mike Collier edged Michael Cooper 52% to 48%, and for Comptroller, Joi Chevalier eeked out a 52% to 48% win over Tim Mahoney.
Other races:
Texas Second Congressional District: Republicans Kevin Roberts and Dan Crenshaw head to the runoff separated by less than a thousand votes in a 9 candidate field. (Previously.) On the Democratic side, lawyer Todd Litton won outright.
Texas Third Congressional District: As predicted, Republican state senator Van Taylor stomped his primary opposition with 85% of the vote, and lesbian-rights lawyer Lorie Burch and “the other” Sam Johnson are headed to a runoff for Democrats.
Texas Fifth Congressional District: Republican state Rep Lance Gooden and former Jed Hensarling fundraiser Bunni Pounds head to the runoff, leaving former Rep. Kenneth Sheets and Ted Cruz regional director Jason Wright behind. Democratic candidate Dan Wood was unopposed in his primary.
Texas Sixth Congressional District: as predicted, Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector Ron Wright went into the Republican runoff leading Jake Ellzey 45% to 21%. The top two Democratic contenders, Ruby Faye Woolridge and Jana Lynne Sanchez ended in a dead heat, each with 36.9% of the vote, setting up a bruising black vs. Hispanic runoff.
Texas Sixth Congressional District: As expected, Republican John Culberson won handily, but the real interest there is in the Democratic Party match, where the DCCC-targeted Laura Moser (yes, the DCCC went out of their way to attack a progressive political candidate in their own primary) made the runoff five points behind Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, but way ahead of the establishment-recruited Alex Triantaphyllis. Expect a nasty, no-holds-barred runoff.
Texas Twenty-First Congressional District: As expected, Chip Roy heads into the Republican runoff with a significant lead. However, his runoff opponent is not the expected William Negley, but Matt McCall. (I wonder if name confusion between Matt McCaul and adjacent district Republican incumbent Mike McCaul benefited McCall here.) However, on the Democratic side, Mary Street Wilson came out of nowhere to edge the well-heeled Joseph Kopser by two points going into the runoff, leaving AFL-CIO endorsed former Nancy Pelosi staffer Derrick Crowe on the outside looking in.
In State Senate District 9 Republican primary, which got a lot of attention, Ken Paxton’s wife Angela Paxton beat Don Huffines’ brother Phillip Huffines.
Texas 114th State Congressional District: Lisa Luby Ryan defeats Jason Villalba!
Sadly, both Charlie Geren and Giovanni Capriglione survive to bedevil conservatives.
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,
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.
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.
