May29

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Texas Holds Its Runoffs

Texas is one of the (mostly Southern) states that require a candidate to get at least 50% of the vote (plus one) to win a nomination or an election, and so yesterday the Lone Star Staters held the runoffs needed to finalize several House races. Here are the results of interest:

• TX-12: Texas has only three competitive House districts, and the R+12 TX-12 is not one of them. However, Rep. Kay Granger (R-TX) is retiring, and so the winner of the Republican runoff is de facto going to be her replacement. And now we know that person will be state Rep. Craig Goldman, who trounced far-right business owner John O'Shea, 62.9% to 37.1%. O'Shea had the endorsements of Texas AG Ken Paxton, former NSA Michael Flynn and dirty trickster Roger Stone, so you know what kind of guy he is.
  
  
• TX-23: This R+5 district is one of the state's three competitive districts. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) faced a challenge from the right in the person of 28-year-old YouTube personality Brandon Herrera, whose content mostly involves fetishizing guns, and who thought that was a swell match for the district that includes the town of Uvalde. It was close, but Gonzales held on with 50.7% of the vote, as compared to 49.3% for Herrera. The Representative will go on to face small business owner Santos Limon in the general.
  
  
• TX-28: At D+3, this is also a competitive district (the third competitive district, the R+1 TX-15, did not have a runoff). There was a runoff for the Republican nomination, and the easy winner was Jay Furman, whose campaign basically boils down to three things: culture wars, the border, and "I was in the Navy." In fact, his favorite talking point is to claim that "Texas has become America's Alamo!", whatever that means. In any case, Furman is not a great fit for this purplish, 75.3% Latino district, but he has the good fortune to be facing off against Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-TX), who has been indicted, of course. So, this could go either way.
  
  
• TX-SD-21: We don't often write up individual races for state legislatures, but this one took on a national flavor. SD-21 is represented in the state House by Dade Phelan (R), who is a traditional-style Republican, and who led the move to impeach Ken Paxton. Since Paxton is a Trumper, the Trumpy wing of the GOP, including Trump himself, backed Phelan's challenger, David Covey. The final tally was close, but it looks like Phelan pulled it out, 50.7% to 49.3%.

On the whole, then, the Trumpy/far-right elements of the Republican Party didn't have a great day yesterday. We'll see if that trend continues in the next set of elections, with five states and DC casting ballots next Tuesday. (Z)