The 2016 Texas primary election came early this year. And for once we had an impact on the presidential race.
About that presidential race, Ted Cruz held serve in his home state. Don’t believe the reports that it was a bad night for him because he didn’t get 50{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} +1 and take all of the delegates. He did very well and out-performed the polls and picked up Oklahoma. The Trump wave continues but perhaps Cruz’s win slows it a bit. Rubio was a disappointing third in Texas, failing to reach the magic 20{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} mark statewide but had a better than expected night overall. There is still time to stop Trump.
The most satisfying race of the night for me was for Texas House District 121. In that race, Speaker Joe Straus destroyed his two opponents who had raised a combined $710,000 to defeat him. Here is his victory statement:
“I want to thank the people of District 121 for their tremendous support and confidence. I’m proud of the campaign we ran and the positive message we delivered. A couple of people who live far away from here once again tried to take this seat from our community, and they have once again failed. Voters showed that angry rhetoric and dishonest ads are no match for a well-organized campaign that looks to a brighter future. It is an honor to represent the people of District 121 and I will continue to work tirelessly and gladly on their behalf.”
What it boils down to is this: represent the people of your district well and you don’t have to worry about outside agitators and outright liars. Congratulations Speaker Straus.
And did you see what Briscoe Cain did? He came very close to winning outright in HD128 against longtime incumbent Wayne Smith. Instead he will be in a runoff with Smith in May. And he did it despite being outspent 5-1. As a reminder of who Briscoe is:
Like I said above, if you represent your district, you have no need to worry about opposition. Clearly, Wayne Smith has not represented his district, opting instead to do the work of Austin lobbyists. That can be clearly seen on his campaign finance reports. The reason Briscoe Cain almost won this race is because he worked hard, shook thousands of hands, went through several pairs of shoes, looked people in the eye and they believed him when he told them he would represent them and their values.
In Harris County, there were some disappointing results for several judicial candidates that I respect. Unfortunately the votes went the other way. It happens. But there were also races where the votes went to the candidates I respect. The contested judicial races always produce unexpected results.
In the Harris County Attorney’s race, Jim Leitner bested my choice Chris Carmona. But like I said earlier, this was a hard choice and the voters simply chose experience over potential. Leitner will be a positive change for that office and I can’t wait to vote for him in November against uber partisan hack incumbent Vince Ryan.
In the Harris County Sheriff’s race, I was confident that Ron Hickman would win but he exceeded my expectations. Maybe the lesson here is that negative campaigning doesn’t work against an extremely qualified candidate. And btw, can we put to rest the notion that we need a “constitutional” sheriff to protect us from the dastardly federales?
In the Harris County Tax Assessor Collector’s race, Mike Sullivan proved that if you are good at what you do and focus on the needs of your constituents, you don’t need to worry about self-appointed watchdogs. And now he has a sheepskin on the wall to prove that he really can walk and chew gum at the same time.
And then the one that everyone seems surprised by but shouldn’t be. In the Harris County Republican Party Chair race, incumbent Paul Simpson came in second. That’s right. Second. The establishment’s choice came in second.
And he came in second after spending $183,645.24 in this election cycle to keep an unpaid position. His two opponents combined spent $25,000. Think about that.
Now the question is whether Simpson will think about what happened or will he, as is already being said by his supporters, blame his loss on the “pay to play” endorsement slates? If he blames his loss on the “pay to play” endorsement slates, I think he’ll lose the runoff. If he steps back and thinks more clearly about the situation, perhaps he’ll come up with a plan to reach out to the 60+{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the people that voted against him and adjust his attitude towards them. We’ll have to wait and see. I assure you we’ll be writing about it here.
And the last thing about yesterday’s election is to send a huge thank you to Richard, Nancy, Ron, and Kathy. These were the folks that helped me run the election in precinct 377. We had the largest turnout ever for a primary election in our precinct, almost doubling the previous high. And although the lines were long at times, no one complained and we had no problems. Thank you!
Greg Aydt says
I think the slates were part of it in the Simpson race — but when you are the third guy on the list to a lay on the ballot race, you are handicapped — especially when the first guy is named “Tex.”
Don Hooper says
Greg, Paul Simpson chose as a strategy to create more slates rather than oppose three. I disagreed at the time and suggested you had better build a better mouse trap. The three slates have over 20 years worth of voter histories. This coupled with displined messaging in a high turnout election was a recipe for disaster. Watch what happens in the runoff. There is a very likely chance Simpson will lose. This has been an orchestrated strategy since filing began.
Mark Ramsey says
David, you left out that Speaker Straus spent over $5,000,000 to keep a representative seat–over SEVEN TIMES his TWO opponents COMBINED. That’s over $300 PER VOTE. To be so “anti-establishment”, you forget that JS IS the establishment in the Texas House.
david jennings says
LOL Mark, now it is $5 million? Yesterday it was 3, today it was 4, this afternoon it is 5. Can’t wait until the end of the week!
BTW, you forgot to mention that one of his opponents claimed that the Speaker was guilty of murder. Bizarro.
Joe Straus is the best thing that happened in Texas politics in decades. Thank goodness he is there and isn’t afraid of billionaires attacking him.
DJ
Mainstream says
To be fair, there was a lot of money spent by Hotze’s “Conservative Republicans” group against Simpson. I got at least three robocalls for Ramos. So the Christopher and Ramos expenditures should be augmented with some share of those outside expenditures for a fair comparison.
david jennings says
So Mainstream, you’re going with “it’s the slates fault”? Mistake.
If you want to add Hotze’s (and Polland/Lowry) expenditures to Ramos, you have to add the HRBC mailers, the Texas Conservative View mailers, the United Republicans mailers, the C Club mailers, Police Inc mailers, Kingwood Tea Party mailers, Michael Berry’s on air promotions, etc. to Simpson’s.
Simpson and the downtown establishment spent a ton of money to try and keep control of the party. Instead of going with the meme that “it’s the slates fault”, Simpson needs to figure out why 60{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} of the voters said no after his resounding victory in 2014.
But I’m repeating myself.
Foolme says
No one is mentioning the billionaires who, out of town, bought races. In one house district 90{997ab4c1e65fa660c64e6dfea23d436a73c89d6254ad3ae72f887cf583448986} came from outside donors.
david jennings says
What do you think should be mentioned about them?
Marvin Clede says
The real establishment in terms of wanting power to control/run the County party is found in the 3 main slates and their philosophical gurus. Still jealous over being thrown out two years ago, and wanting to put in someone not really qualified to head up a hard working county party while preferring an ideologue/purist’s club they are not the way forward. They just took advantage of voters who don’t know all the good going on at the grassroots level and don’t know what a County party really does.