With May 29 now in the rearview mirror, here I offer a few selected observations on the results of Tuesday’s Democratic and Republican primaries.
The GOP U.S. Senate Runoff
The marquee race of the day ended as expected, with Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst finishing first, but failing to capture an absolute majority of the vote. He will thus face off in a July 31 runoff against Ted Cruz. The result of the runoff will hinge in large part on voter turnout. Since Cruz’s more enthusiastic supporters can be expected to participate in large numbers, the multimillion-dollar question is to what extent can Dewhurst mobilize his supporters as well as those of third-place finisher Tom Leppert.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to accurately predict what voter turnout will be in the GOP Senate runoff. The last statewide primary to even remotely, with remotely being the operative word, approach this contest in terms of visibility took place more than 14 years ago, when John Cornyn defeated Barry Williamson to win the Republican nomination for the office of attorney general. But at the same time, in contrast to the April runoff elections of recent years, this one will take place in the dead of summer and will be held two months after the first round, double the previous norm of one month. The latter gap is the result of the federal MOVE Act, which requires ballots be sent to US military personnel and their families stationed overseas 45 days prior to any federal election. That said, based on Tuesday’s GOP U.S. Senate turnout of 1.4 million, I suspect turnout in the runoff will range somewhere between three quarters of a million and a million. But that is just a rough guess, and the end result will depend as much on the efforts of the candidates (particularly Dewhurst) as on the behavior of the state’s Republican voters.
Hispanic Representatives in the U.S. Congress
Advocates of greater Hispanic representation in the U.S. Congress suffered three setbacks on Tuesday in districts (all safe Democratic seats), which were ostensibly drawn in order to enhance the prospects of Latino candidates being elected to office. First, in El Paso’s CD-16, Robert “Beto” O’Rourke defeated Congressman Silvestre Reyes in the Democratic primary. Second, in CD-35, which runs from Austin to San Antonio, Congressman Lloyd Doggett defeated Sylvia Romo. Third, in the DFW Metroplex’s CD-33, Marc Veasey garnered substantially more votes than the second place finisher, Domingo Garcia, and, for a variety of reasons too lengthy to discuss here, is a very strong favorite to win the July 31 runoff. In all, these are three districts designed to elect Hispanic members of Congress, which in January will send two Anglos and (most likely) one African American to Washington D.C.
Hispanics account for 38 percent of the Texas population. Yet, in January 2013, only 5 (14 percent) of the state’s 36 U.S. House members will be Hispanics. This anemic number of Hispanic representatives is, among other things, the consequence of Republican redistricting efforts aimed at limiting the number of Democratic congressional seats combined with an insufficient level of support for Hispanic congressional candidates among Democratic Party primary voters.
Two Surprises, One Republican and One Democratic
CD-36 runs from eastern Harris County to Orange County on the Louisiana border, encompassing all of the southeast corner of Texas except for Jefferson County. As late as 7 p.m. on election day, one certainty of the district’s 12-candidate Republican primary was that State Senator Mike Jackson would participate in a runoff, with the principal unknown being the name of his runoff opponent. As it turned out, Jackson’s inability to raise sufficient campaign funds, particularly to run a sufficient number of television ads, proved fatal, as he was bested by self-funded Baytown financial advisor Stephen Takach and iconoclastic former one-term (1995-97) congressman Steve Stockman. While Jackson’s third place finish should make one cautious in attempting to predict the outcome of the July 31 runoff, assuming Takach runs a competent runoff campaign and does not have any skeletons in his closet, it probably would not be presumptuous for him to begin exploring housing options in Washington D.C.
It was assumed that former state representative Paul Sadler would be forced into a runoff in his quest for the Democratic U.S. Senate nomination. What was not expected was that his runoff opponent would be political unknown Grady Yarbrough, no relation to liberal icon Ralph Yarborough who represented Texas in the U.S. Senate from 1957 to 1971. Yarbrough has not filed campaign finance documentation with the Federal Election Commission, created a website, or provided any indication that he has engaged in any observable campaign activity whatsoever other than paying his $5,000 filing fee. The fact that Yarbrough garnered 26 percent of the vote, only 9 percent behind Sadler, underscores the extremely limited information many Democratic voters had about the party’s U.S. Senate candidates. This informational deficit is in large part the product of the decision made by many of the state’s Democratic donors to not support many of the state’s Democratic candidates.
Mark P. Jones is the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy’s fellow in political science as well as the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.