Posts Tagged ‘Virgil Bierschwale’

Handicapping the 2020 Texas Senate Race

Wednesday, December 11th, 2019

I know I’ve lavished a lot of time and attention to the clown car updates, but there are several other 2020 races worth looking at, some of them right here in Texas.

A bunch of Democrats are lining up to challenge Republican incumbent John Cornyn for the U.S. Senate. Now that the filing deadline has passed, let’s take a look:

Democrats

  • Former U.S. Congressman Chris Bell. Bell’s last big race was a failed run for Governor in a four-way scrum against incumbent Republican Rick Perry and nominal independents Kinky Friedman and Carole Keeton Strayhorn. Background:

    Bell, a former Houston City Council member, represented a district in Congress from 2003-05 that included part of the city. In the 2006 gubernatorial race, he got 30% of the vote against then-Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, and two well-known independent candidates. He has since attempted a number of political comebacks.

    In his filing with the FEC, Bell named former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski as his campaign treasurer. Bell said the Jaworski name “stands for integrity and the highest ethical standards in the eyes of many Texans – things that are sorely missing in today’s Washington and that I plan to talk about a lot on the campaign trail.”

    Wait, did he just use “Galveston Mayor” and “integrity and the highest ethical standards” in the same sentence? Outside the Rio Grande Valley, Galveston has a reputation as the most corrupt locale in Texas, dating back to when the Maceo brothers ran Galveston for the mob and the Balinese Room had gambling tables that folded back into the wall whenever Johnny Law came walking down the long pier. My late uncle used to run a Galveston restaurant, and he said the entire political establishment was on the take.

    Having run a high profile state race previously, and with a strong fundraising base in Houston, I see Bell as one of the favorites to make the runoff.

  • Michael Cooper: Not the basketball player. There’s squat in the way of useful information on his website as of this writing, but Ballotpedia says “Michael Cooper earned a bachelor’s degree in business and social studies from Lamar University Beaumont. Cooper’s career experience includes working as a pastor at his local church, president of the South East Texas Toyota Dealers and in executive management with Kinsel Motors.” He came in second in a two man race for the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor in 2018, but only lost by 5 points to oil executive Mike Collier (who lost to incumbent Dan Patrick in the general). Got to say that, objectively, Cooper looks damn good in that cowboy hat and bolo tie:

  • Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards. Seems like a relatively mainstream liberal, at least compared to way too many presidential candidates. City Council to U.S. Senator is a big jump. She’s fighting with Bell for backers and West, Cooper, Lee, Foster and Love for the black base. Going to be hard to make the runoff, but if West or Bell stumble, she seems best positioned to take one of their slots.
  • Jack Daniel Foster, Jr. Appears to be a political neophyte in a race that already has several black candidates. Plus his big issue (which seems to boil down to “more money for community colleges”) strikes me as a county- or state-level issue, not the purview of a U.S. Senator. But I think he gets to 1% based solely on “Jack Daniel” in his name.
  • Annie “Mama” Garcia. Neophyte that seems to be running on Trump Derangement Syndrome, socialized medicine and gun control. 3% of the primary vote will be a challenge.
  • Victor Hugo Harris: A cipher, with no website I could find. I suspect that reminding Texas votes of a 19th century French novelist is an inferior election gambit to reminding them of whisky.
  • M.J. Hegar: A retread candidate who lost to incumbent John Crater in the Texas 31st congressional district race in 2018, albeit by less than 3%. Usually stepping up in weight class after a losing run isn’t a recipe for electoral success. Air Force vet. Seems better funded than other Democrats in the race. Policy positions are all polished liberal platitudes, which may not play to the Democratic base in an election year. An outside chance to make the runoff if white suburban women turn out for her in March rather than Chris Bell and all the black candidates split the black urban vote, but I still doubt it. Probably destined to fall somewhere between third and fifth place.
  • Sema Hernandez: Hard left/Social Justice Warrior/Democratic Socialist of America candidate. DSA had some successes at U.S. House races in 2018, but not in a senate race, and not in a state like Texas. Absent a huge out-of-state funding push for her, I don’t even think she even sniffs the runoff.
  • D. R. Hunter: Another cipher without a webpage. Unless he has a Samoan attorney and writes for Rolling Stone, I wouldn’t expect him to make much of an impression.
  • Midland City Councilman John B. Love III. Midland City Council is a stepping stone for a state House race, not the U.S. Senate. Not seeing signs of a serious campaign, and I don’t see him making any headway with Edwards and West in the race.
  • Financial advisor Adrian Ocegueda: Twitter. Came in sixth of nine Democratic candidate for Governor in 2018. His one issue is campaign finance reform, but I can’t make hide nor hair of what he actually wants to implement. Oh, and he wants West to drop out of the race. I’m sure that will happen any day now…
  • Leftwing activist Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez: Seems to be running as the hard-left Hispanic identity candidate. Don’t see her sniffing the runoff, and “Tzintzún” sounds like a lost South American city populated by the degenerate remnants of an eldritch people who worshiped some blasphemous Cthulhu Mythos god deep in the primordial past…
  • Dallas State Senator Royce West. The state senate is a pretty good stepping stone to higher office, and I don’t see any other big names from the Metroplex in the race. His issue stands are largely midleft boilerplate. He’s been in office since 2009, and in 2018 he ran completely unopposed, with no primary or general election opponant (not even a Libertarian or a Green), which suggests both political strength and the possibility that he’ll be rusty in a competitive race. A favorite to make the runoff.

    • Republicans

    Cornyn has a few challengers on his side of the aisle as well:

  • Computer programmer Virgil Bierschwale. If his name rings a vague bell, it’s because he also tried running in the 2012 U.S. Senate race as a Democrat. He dropped out of that race because he was unable to raise the filing fee, which would tend to auger poorly for his chances this time around. Big issue is immigration and foreign guest workers.
  • Incumbent Senator John Cornyn. Cornyn won reelection in 2014 with the largest vote total and percentage of any statewide candidate, winning with 61.6% of the vote, which was two points better than Greg Abbott walloped Wendy Davis by. He’s been in office a long time, and sometimes longtime incumbents get complacent and lose. I don’t see that happening here. He’s going to win the primary and the general.
  • Bridge construction company owner Dwyane Stovall. He took a run at Cornyn in 2014, where he won lots of Tea Party straw votes, but came in third in actual primary voting with 10.7%. Made an abortive run at TX36 in 2016. A higher level of gadfly than Bierschwale, but just as doomed.
  • Former Dallas Wings owner Mark Yancey. More money than any of Cornyn’s other competitors, but WNBA owner money is not U.S. senate race money. He might come in second and still only garner 15% of the vote.

    • Additional race Information

  • Texas Secretary of State candidate search
  • Open Secrets race fundraising
  • Ballotpedia page on the race.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    Texas Senate Race Update for January 25, 2012

    Wednesday, January 25th, 2012

    Time for another update. And since none of the Republicans liked the Keystone Pipeline decision, or Obama’s State of the Union address, I’m not going to list each individual reaction here.

  • Ted Cruz endorsed by the national Tea Party Express.
  • A roundup piece from the Ft. Worth Star Telegram, in which we learn that the academics that MSM reporters usually go to for consensus wisdom say that Tea Party influence is on the wane. Imagine my shock.
  • Mark Davis of WBAP talks to Michael Quinn Sullivan of Empower Texas about both the Texas redistricting decision and the senate race:

  • Robert T. Garrett of The Dallas Morning News reports that David Dewhurst pledged to serve only two terms in the Senate if elected. As Garrett notes, Ted Cruz and Tom Leppert have also pledged to support term limits. Also, since I have been fairly critical of Garrett’s reporting on the race, I should point out that there seems to be neither errors nor sneers in this piece.
  • Somehow I overlooked this Garrett piece from 12 days ago where Craig James admits to taking “insignificant” amounts from boosters in his SMU days.
  • Also in the DSM, John David Terrance Stutz notes that David Dewhurst is preparing a state senate agenda that just happens to dovetail nicely with his U.S. senate race themes. Including “the potential negative repercussions of Obamacare and Sharia law.”
  • Another poll done for the David Dewhurst campaign comes to the startling conclusion that the David Dewhurst campaign is awesome. As I previously discussed, the partial results of secret polls leaked to the media without full disclosure of the complete results, including the questions asked, the sample size, the screening criteria, etc., is essentially meaningless spin. In fact, I just sent a query off pollster Michael Baselice asking for that information. I’ll let you know if I get a reply…
  • Glenn Addison calls Cruz, Dewhurst, and Leppert flaming moderates.
  • Addison also gets a nice profile over at KXAN.
  • Addison also announced he would be attending the Texas Republican Assembly Biennial Endorsing Convention at the Southwest Baptist Theological Seminary in Ft. Worth on Saturday, January 28.
  • Addison also announced he would be at the East Texas Conservative candidate forum in Tyler Friday, January 27. Say what you will about Addison, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a longshot candidate keep up such a hectic schedule.
  • Democrat Jason Gibson has updated his website. Slightly.
  • Lela Pittenger raised $13,159 in Q4.
  • Ben Gambini doesn’t seem to have a website yet, but he does have a Facebook page. Judging from the graphic he put up there, he seems to be running mostly as a social conservative.
  • Democrat Addie Dainell Allen also has a Facebook page, where she seems to be going by Addie D. Allen.
  • Still can’t find campaign web presences for Dr. Joe Agris or Charles Holcomb.
  • Via email, longshot, non-filed Democratic candidate Virgil Bierschwale indicated he could not afford the filing fee, and thus is out of the race.
  • Via email, longshot, non-filed Democratic candidate Stanley Garza indicated he was giving up his campaign for 2012. Which brings up the question: Will he return that $1 of unspent campaign contributions?

    • All the above updates have also been made on my page linking all the candidate’s websites.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Jihad, Republicans, Texas | No Comments »

    NEWS FLASH: Ricardo Sanchez Drops Out of Senate Race

    Friday, December 16th, 2011

    “Leading Democratic U.S. senatorial candidate Ricardo Sanchez announced Friday that he’s ending his campaign to replace retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.”

    I didn’t exactly predict it, but I did suggest it was a strong possibility:

    Even before his house burned down, there was precious little evidence Sanchez was really interested in running for the Senate. His fundraising is abysmal, his media appearances are rare, his campaign stops even rarer (Ted Cruz and Glenn Addison do more campaigning in a day than Sanchez manages in a month), his social media footprint miniscule, and his buzz factor is non-existent.

    Sanchez peaked when he announced for the race. Ever since then it’s been a long, painful slog, with his only reward the prospect of being slaughtered by Ted Cruz or David Dewhurst in the general election. Is there a serious non-partisan observer anywhere who looks at Sanchez’s dismal campaign and thinks he can win?

    Evidently not.

    So, Texas Democrats: Right now the only two candidates on your side who have filed are Sean Hubbard and Daniel Boone. Or a guy that doesn’t look old enough to drink, and a guy who’s been dead for 191 years. Hubbard’s been running longer, but Boone has a great name to campaign on.

    Of course there’s still time for additional candidates to file by Monday. (And maybe declared-but-not-filed longshot candidates Stanley Garza and Virgil Bierschwale will jump in.) I would imagine that DSCC chair Patty Murray will be working the phones like mad this weekend to at least give some semblance of a real Texas Senate race. Unless Tommy Lee Jones changes his mind, I don’t see her having much luck.

    Maybe Hubbard will actually start campaigning full-time. I got the impression that he was working his campaign hours around some sort of day job.

    Actually, Democrats shouldn’t be too depressed over this turn of events. All political issues aside, Sanchez was simply a bad candidate who ran a lousy campaign. At least Hubbard acts like he actually wants to run.

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    Posted in Democrats, Elections, Texas | 9 Comments »