This is a weekly feature produced by my friend Ginger. Let us know what you think.
This week, in news from Dallas-Fort Worth we have a lot of election news plus the World Cup and some zoo babies.
Since I haven’t been up to writing reports since before my surgery in January, I’m starting with the easier news, and hope to catch up on other things along with weekly news for the next few weeks or maybe with an extra catch-up post. My surgery was successful and after pathology and follow-up it looks like my cancer was caught early enough that removing the affected organ did the trick. I’m grateful for the good work of my surgeon and oncology care team at UTSW, who have quite literally saved my life.
This week’s post was brought to you by the music of the Decemberists, who are touring and will be in Dallas in May. I got presale tickets!
And on that note, let’s look at election-related news.
- You’ve probably heard about those AI robocalls in the New Hampshire primary that had an AI “Biden” telling people to stay home. Turns out the likely culprit is here in North Texas. The Guardian has more.
- State HD 2, the seat formerly occupied by Bryan Slaton, had its special election. Jill Dutton won the election for the remainder of the term. You may recall that her opponent Brent Money had the Abbott and Paxton endorsements and that this election was considered a first look at the Abbott and Paxton revenge tours of 2024, even though Dutton and Money were both voucher supporters. Dutton and Money will face off again in the March primary for the 2025 term. The Texas Tribune has more, including the Money campaign’s allegation that Dutton received Democratic votes, as if those votes somehow shouldn’t count or that the special election was actually a Republican primary. In a related story, Texas Monthly elaborates on cross-party voting in primaries and notes it probably isn’t happening in the numbers that Money and his backers want to claim.
- Speaking of vouchers, the DMN had a piece in January on the role of vouchers and a big donation by a pro-voucher billionare from Pennsylvania in the upcoming primary, where those donations are financing challengers to Republicans who voted against vouchers. And here’s Star-Telegram piece pointing out how Greg Abbott’s endorsements are all about vouchers and only about vouchers.
- Also in the DMN: a big analysis of the key races and trends in the March primary, including my own SD 16.
- And the Texas Standard has their overview of the local races including (sigh) Allen West’s bid for Dallas County GOP chair. (I’ve seen those signs driving across town for medical business. They’re Very Loud and Very Full of Patriotic Signifiers.)
- The big race on the ballot statewide in the primaries is the Democratic primary for Senator. We’ve got a DMN analysis, a Texas Monthly piece, and the Texas Tribune on fundraising. The DMN is all in for Allred for obvious reasons, so I read everything from them with that filter on.
- We’ve had several publications look at the race for CD 12, which is Kay Granger’s old seat: the DMN; the Texas Tribune; and a couple of items from the Fort Worth Report about state House Rep Craig Goldman raising $1M and a report on this week’s primary debate.
- You probably blinked and missed the wildest bit of social media kerfuffle about the Republican primary for CD 26, Michael Burgess’ seat: George Santos accused Southlake Mayor John Huffman of supporting Black Lives Matter and then apologized in a peace brokered by my House Rep, Beth Van Duyne.
- Meanwhile in Dallas’ CD 32, Colin Allred’s district, we had a debate with the Democratic primary candidates and the DMN covered it.
- Texas Monthly had an interview with Averie Bishop, the former Miss Texas who will be the Democratic candidate in HD 112, running against Angie Chen Button, the incumbent. (Bishop has no opponent in the Democratic primary.) Bishop also recently won a GIFFORDS Champion award for work against gun violence. The award comes from the organization founded by former Arizona Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011. Another winner this year is Dr. Brian Williams, who’s one of the Democratic primary candidates in CD 32.
- There was a Republican primary debate for HD 97, the seat that Craig Goldman is leaving to run for CD 12, and the Fort Worth Report has that story.
- Collin County’s GOP had debates back in early January. KERA explains how Ken Paxton, who wasn’t present, was the ghost at this debate. Personally, reading this account, I’m glad I don’t live in HD 61, because the incumbent (Frederick Frazier, the ex-cop who was caught sign-stealing) sounds terrible even if he did vote to impeach Paxton, and the challengers don’t sound any better. The Collin County Democrats got their coverage in this piece a couple of weeks ago and this follow-up.
- Local blogger Mark Steger has the news about Richardson area primary filings, including RISD seats. When I clicked through while writing this piece, I found that Megan Timme had filed since Steger’s post.
- In lighter news: Dallas’ bid for the World Cup finals in 2026 fell short, but we’re getting 9 semifinals instead. I agree with the Star-Telegram on why Dallas lost their bid: nobody can compete with New York as tourist destination; East Rutherford, NJ is the NYC-area stadium that’s getting the final. In related news, AT&T Stadium, which is actually in Arlington, will be renamed Dallas Stadium during the World Cup. Also, in a rare case where Betteridge’s Law of headlines is wrong, the DMN asks Thousands will visit D-FW for the World Cup. Is a transportation disaster ahead?. Arlington has no public mass transit; despite planned improvements to area transit ahead of and for the World Cup, I’m expecting all kinds of trouble. The sort of people who ride their helicopter to the stadium will be fine, but rideshare drivers are going to make some serious bank off everybody else.
- And those zoo babies I promised you, all from the Fort Worth Zoo: