1. Dan Patrick knows what makes GOP primary voters tick.
Dan Patrick, candidate for Texas lieutenant governor, without any doubt deserves sharp criticism for some of his campaign rhetoric, especially statements and messages that most would consider to be anti-Hispanic. However, the results of yesterday’s primary clearly suggest that Patrick knows how to win over the hearts and minds of a notable share of the 1.3 million Texans who participated in the Republican primary. Patrick did especially well in the Dallas/Fort Worth and Houston suburbs. Incumbent Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and his allies in the Texas business community and GOP establishment have their work cut out for them between now and the May 27 runoff if they are going to keep Patrick from becoming Dewhurst’s successor come January 2015.
2. Wendy Davis has a Valley Hispanic problem.
Wendy Davis’ sole opponent in the Democratic primary, Reynaldo “Ray” Madrigal, did little over the past three months other than pay his filing fee. Yet in the five overwhelmingly Hispanic and dark blue counties along the U.S.-Mexico border stretching from Cameron County (Brownsville) to Webb County (Laredo), Davis actually lost to Madrigal, winning only 47 percent of the vote. This performance was notably worse than Bill White’s in 2010. White won 58 percent of the vote in these counties (which combined have more than 1.5 million residents), while facing five more opponents than Davis, including two Hispanics and hair product entrepreneur Farouk Shami, who spent $11 million on his primary campaign. If Davis is going to be competitive in November, she will need voters in these and neighboring counties to turn out in record numbers to vote for her, not Greg Abbott.
3. The GOP has a statewide female candidate problem.
For the first time since 1986, the Republican Party will not have a single woman running for any of the statewide plural executive positions. Even worse than that, in the 15 statewide judicial and nonjudicial races on the ballot in November, every single Republican candidate will be a man. To top that off, 24 of the 25 Republican congressional candidates in districts where the Republican is either a lock or has a realistic potential chance of victory are men. Stated another way, Kay Granger will once again be the only Texas Republican woman in Congress next year.
4. Texas Democrats failed to thwart either Kesha or Kinky in the first round.
While Democrats will have to suffer through the distraction of a 12-week runoff in the U.S. Senate campaign featuring Lyndon LaRouche follower Kesha Rogers, they can take comfort that even a very minimal campaign by her opponent, millionaire David Alameel, will assure that Rogers is not the party’s nominee in November. That said, the Democratic Party is certainly suffering the consequences of its failure to recruit a high-quality candidate for this top-of-the-ticket race. The same assurance does not exist in the agriculture commissioner contest, where the candidate preferred by the party leadership, Hugh Asa Fitzsimmons III, finished third behind Kinky Friedman and Jim Hogan, who won 38 percent and 39 percent of the vote, respectively. Other than paying his filing fee, Hogan, a rancher from Cleburne, had spent less than $500 on his campaign as of Feb. 24. Texas Democrats are now faced with the choice between the excessively colorful and comedic Kinky and an unknown — as well as unvetted — Hogan.
5. Abbott enjoys the near-universal support of the GOP faithful; Cornyn does not.
Despite facing three opponents in the Republican gubernatorial primary (one of whom, Lisa Fritsch, ran a spirited but underfunded campaign), Greg Abbott won 92 percent of the vote. In contrast, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn won 59 percent. While Cornyn did face a more credible — though not by much — set of opponents than Abbott, receiving the support of less than three-fifths of GOP primary voters is hardly a ringing endorsement for the two-term senator.
6. The CD-36 runoff will feature a face-off between the district’s two faces.
U.S. Congressional District 36 was open this year as a result of incumbent Rep. Steve Stockman’s decision to make a long shot bid for the U.S. Senate. This very heterogeneous district stretches from eastern Harris County to the Louisiana border, encompassing the entire southeast corner of the state (excluding Jefferson County). In the GOP runoff, the urban Houston portion of the district will have a candidate in Houston businessman Ben Streusand, while the rural southeast Texas portion of the district will have a candidate in Woodville dentist Brian Babin. Given that both Babin and Streusand have similarly strong conservative credentials, we can expect the candidates’ different origins from the district’s two distinct regions (the Houston metro area and rural southeast Texas) to figure prominently in the runoff campaign.
7. Sarah Davis owns HD-134 in the general and in the primary.
In House District 134 (River Oaks, Upper Kirby, West University Place, Bellaire, Meyerland) incumbent state Rep. Sarah Davis handily dispatched (71 percent to 29 percent) Bonnie Parker, who was backed by tea party and socially conservative activists. Davis was attacked by many activists for being the sole Republican to vote against the anti-abortion legislation that passed in the Texas Legislature last summer. HD-134 is one of approximately a dozen purple “swing” Texas House districts where the victory of one party is not a virtual certainty. In 2012 Davis showed her crossover appeal in the district by defeating an excellent Democratic candidate, Ann Johnson, by a margin of almost 10 points. In yesterday’s primary, Davis demonstrated that not only is she able to easily defeat a rival from the left in the general election, but she also has no trouble vanquishing a rival from the right in the primary.
Mark P. Jones is the Baker Institute’s fellow in political science as well as the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and the chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.