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CNN projects Texas GOP Rep. Pete Sessions tops tea party challenger; Republican Greg Abbott, Dem Wendy Davis win gubernatorial nods.
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CNN projects Texas GOP Rep. Pete Sessions tops tea party challenger; Republican Greg Abbott, Dem Wendy Davis win gubernatorial nods.
Land Commissioner
Land Commissioner - GOP Primary March 04, 2014 - 09:50PM ET Texas - 677 of 8829 Precincts Reporting - 8%
Name Party Votes Vote % http://hosted.ap.org/static/elections/images/check.gif Bush, George P. GOP 429,635 75% Watts, David GOP 142,618 25%
Land Commissioner - Dem Primary March 04, 2014 - 09:49PM ET Texas - Uncontested race, no results will be reported.
Name Party Votes Vote % http://hosted.ap.org/static/elections/images/check.gif Cook, John Dem 0 0
March 4th, 2014
09:55 PM ET
16 minutes ago
Texas 2014 primary highlights
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Posted by
CNN Political Unit(CNN) – The Lone Star state held its primary contests Tuesday, kicking off the 2014 election season with two top Republicans guarding their congressional seats against conservative challengers and gubernatorial candidates Wendy Davis and Greg Abbott ready to square off in November.
Texas voters also boosted another Bush’s quest for statewide office.
Here are some of the highlights from the Texas primary races, based on CNN projections:
Cornyn, Sessions beat conservative challengers
The No. 2 ranking Republican in the Senate, John Cornyn, easily won his primary, grabbing well over the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff, which is required by Texas law if no candidate receives a majority.
Cornyn faced several challengers, namely tea party favorite Rep. Steve Stockman, who launched a last-minute bid for Cornyn's seat in December. Cornyn is one of 12 Republican senators running for re-election this year, half whom will face conservative primary challenges.
Pete Sessions, a nine-term congressman who represents Texas' solidly Republican 32nd district around northern Dallas, also sailed through Tuesday's primary, beating tea party challenger Katrina Pierson.
Pierson lagged far behind in fund-raising despite gaining support from powerful national tea party-aligned groups and backing from conservative firebrands former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and Rafael Cruz, the father of Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas.
Sessions, the chairman of the powerful House Rules Committee, was one of eight GOP House leaders or committee chiefs nationwide who face primary challenges this year.
Abbott, Davis to face off in gubernatorial race
As expected, likely nominees Republican Greg Abbott, who is state attorney general, and Democrat Wendy Davis, a state senator, won their primaries.
They will advance to November's general election to replace GOP Gov. Rick Perry, who is not running for re-election.
Democrats haven’t won the governor’s office in Texas in more than two decades, but the party is hoping Davis' star power, gained largely from her filibuster of an abortion bill last year, is enough to pull the historically red state into the blue.
The race is already one of the most expensive -if not the most expensive - gubernatorial contests in the country. Abbott's campaign reported having nearly $30 million cash on hand last week, while Davis' team reported having $11.3 million. Davis, however, raised slightly more than Abbott in the reporting period from January 24 to February 22.
Bush advances in race for land commissioner
George P. Bush beat conservative David Watts in the primary for Texas land commissioner, marking Bush's first big contest as he launches what many political observers expect to be a must-watch career in politics.
Bush, who was considered the favorite going in to the primary and is favored to win in November, is the son of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, nephew of former President George W. Bush and grandson of former President George H.W. Bush.
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com...hts/?hpt=hp_t2
Texas G.O.P. Beats Back Challengers From Right
By MANNY FERNANDEZ MARCH 4, 2014
McALLEN, Tex. — Establishment Republican leaders on Tuesday defeated challenges from the right in a statewide primary election as conservatives inspired by Senator Ted Cruz largely failed to topple mainstream incumbents.
Two Republican leaders in Congress — Senator John Cornyn and Representative Pete Sessions — and a number of other Republicans in the House overcame opponents backed by Tea Party activists.
There were no surprises in the race for governor as the Republican and Democratic front-runners — Greg Abbott, the state attorney general, and State Senator Wendy Davis — won their respective primaries and will face each other in the general election in November.
Ms. Davis is trying to become the first Democratic governor of Texas in two decades.
Around the state, frigid temperatures and icy conditions may have dampened turnout, an anticlimactic end to what had been one of the most crowded, expensive and fiercely fought statewide Republican primaries in recent history.
The 12 Republicans running for lieutenant governor, attorney general and agriculture commissioner spent a total of roughly $35 million from January 2013 to late last month.
The crowded races were prompted by the announcement last year by Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, that he was not running for re-election.
His decision set off a round of political musical chairs at the top levels of state government as dozens of Republican leaders and mavericks jostled for higher office, inspired in part by Mr. Cruz, a Tea Party-backed lawyer who had never held public office before defeating Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in 2012.
On Tuesday, Mr. Dewhurst faced three prominent conservatives in his re-election bid and the possibility of a runoff on May 27.
The success of several Republican incumbents Tuesday suggested to some that the influence of the Tea Party here had waned. But to others, it merely showed that the incumbents had managed to appease Tea Party conservatives by steering further to the right.
Mr. Dewhurst had been criticized for pandering to the far right, by calling for President Obama’s impeachment and suggesting his support of the repeal of the 17th Amendment — a favorite cause of the Tea Party — which established the election of United States senators by popular vote rather than by state legislatures.
Another Texas Republican in the fight of his political life was a longtime congressman, Ralph M. Hall. Mr. Hall failed to win enough votes to avoid a runoff with John Ratcliffe, a former chief federal prosecutor for the Eastern District of Texas. Mr. Hall has been in Congress since 1981 and, at 90, is the oldest person to serve in the House of Representatives.
Tuesday’s primary served as a kind of referendum on some of the leading figures in state politics, including Mr. Cornyn and former President George W. Bush.
Mr. Cornyn faced seven challengers, a sign of the frustration among some Tea Party activists and conservative groups with him for failing to back Mr. Cruz in his efforts to shut down the government over Mr. Obama’s health care law and to block a vote to raise the federal debt ceiling.
Mr. Cruz refused to endorse Mr. Cornyn in the primary, but Mr. Cornyn’s main challenger, Representative Steve Stockman, made few public appearances on the campaign trail and failed to build widespread momentum. Mr. Cornyn beat him easily.
George P. Bush — the nephew of the former president, who served as governor here from 1995 to 2000 — campaigned for land commissioner, a relatively low-profile position that some Republicans, including Mr. Dewhurst, have used as a steppingstone for higher office.
Mr. Bush’s easy victory on Tuesday illustrated the lasting influence of the family political brand and provided Hispanic conservatives with their most high-profile spokesman in the state.
Mr. Bush, whose mother is Mexican-American, is the co-founder of Hispanic Republicans of Texas, a political action committee. Political analysts say he could play a major role in helping Republicans woo Hispanics in Texas, a population that has traditionally voted Democratic and that has become crucial as Republicans try to maintain their dominance in Texas and Democrats try to break Republican control.
“He comes from the most prominent political family in the history of our country, and he’s Hispanic,” Aaron Pena, a Republican and a former state lawmaker from the Rio Grande Valley, said of the younger Mr. Bush. “George can be a rallying figure that can bring us all together.”
For Democrats, the primary was not nearly as competitive, although several races were noteworthy. The musician and humorist Kinky Friedman, who ran for governor in 2006, sought the Democratic nomination for agriculture commissioner. Appearing on the ballot as Richard “Kinky” Friedman, he advocated the legalization of marijuana.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/05/us...exas.html?_r=0
Posted: 10:34 p.m. Tuesday, March 4, 2014
No Tea Party upsets for Congress in Texas
By Jamie Dupree
In the first test of the 2014 mid-term elections, voters in Texas stuck with their incumbent members of Congress, turning back almost every challenger in both parties, as Republicans shrugged off calls from within for major election upheaval in the U.S. House and Senate.
The results in the Lone Star State were a setback for Tea Party groups that had hopes of recapturing their GOP primary energy of 2012 in Texas, when they unexpectedly launched Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) to a U.S. Senate victory, as the GOP Establishment showed its strength with an easy Republican primary win by Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX).
"Congrats to my good friend John Cornyn on his big victory tonight," said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT). "He’s a great leader who fights hard for the conservative values we share."
Cornyn had 62% of the vote in an eight candidate field, as he brushed aside a challenge by Rep. Steve Stockman (R-TX) and six others.
"We wish Senator Cornyn best of luck in November and urge everyone to vote for, volunteer for and support the whole Texas GOP ticket," Stockman said last night.
Stockman had spent weeks slamming Cornyn - mainly on Twitter, instead of on the campaign trail - but Stockman's somewhat unconventional campaign earned him the stink-eye from some Tea Party groups, as he failed to generate any big challenge to Cornyn.
"It was like watching the political version of suicide by cop," tweeted Congressional elections expert Jennifer Duffy, who labeled Stockman's campaign "truly bizarre."
As for Cruz - who pointedly refused to endorse Cornyn in the primary - the GOP primary results did not provide him political momentum in his bid to change the direction of the GOP in the Congress.
"Guess we will see down the road if refusing to support your state's senior Senator & publicly undercutting him is smart long-term politics," mused GOP strategist Brian Walsh.
In races for the U.S. House, only one Texas member was forced into a runoff, and the Tea Party had nothing to do with that, as Rep. Ralph Hill (R-TX) now must face former U.S. Attorney John Ratcliffe, who received 30% of the primary votes.
The 90 year old Hall is the oldest member of the House; his 46% of the primary vote was not enough to avoid a second meeting with Ratcliffe, who now hopes to rally the votes of four others who were in the primary against Hall.
Often a runoff can be dangerous ground for an incumbent; Hall says this would be his last run for Congress, as he is the only World War II veteran still serving in the U.S. House.
In other Republican primaries for the House in Texas, the Tea Party was also shut out; top hopeful Katrina Pierson - even with an endorsement from Sarah Palin - struggled to get over 30% against Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX).
Other Republicans and Democrats with primary opposition also cruised to victory; none of them received less than 63% of the vote.
Defeating sitting members of Congress in a primary is not a common occurrence - we'll see how Tea Party groups do in coming months in other states.
The next primary night is March 18 in Illinois, then May 6 in Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio.
We will know which party controls the House and Senate eight months from today.
http://www.ajc.com/weblogs/jamie-dup...ongress-texas/
WENDY DAVIS LOSES HALF OF BORDER COUNTIES TO PRO-LIFE DEMOCRAT
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by LOGAN CHURCHWELL 5 Mar 2014
LAREDO, TEXAS--Texas Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Wendy Davis woke to some unsettling numbers along the Texas/Mexico border today. Of the 14 counties along the Rio Grande, Davis lost seven—including heavily Hispanic Webb and Hidalgo Counties. Davis Challenger Reynaldo “Ray”
Madrigal’s prediction may have come true to an extent—Wendy has a pro-life Catholic problem and may not hold the support of motivated Latino voters by default.
Based on unofficial vote tallies by county, Davis lost to Madrigal by substantial gaps in Webb, Zapata, Starr and Hidalgo Counties while managing to fall flat in three lesser populated jurisdictions along the western portion of the border.
Madrigal argued in February, “The majority of Texans are tired of Republicans being in office for 16 years and they don’t see Wendy Davis as a leader, especially Catholics,” to a Lubbock newspaper. “But it’s just not Catholics, it is Baptists and people of other religions. They don’t support abortion, and Wendy Davis is an abortion candidate.”
According to campaign finance filings with the Texas Ethics Commission, Madrigal claimed $0 in contributions or expenditures in January 2014. In January and February, Davis spent over $26,000.
Texas’ new voter ID law did not appear to be a problem in southern border counties as well. Webb County Elections Administrator Oscar Villarreal touted his 95% Hispanic electorate’s increased voter turnout compared to 2010. Webb, a county with a 30.6 poverty rate, demonstrates a potential hole in the Holder Justice Department’s case that Texas’ voter ID law harms economically vulnerable voters.
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-T...-Life-Democrat
From 2006. Don't have a short memory. Cornyn was instrumental in outsourcing jobs to India.
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