Kim Olson

Hinojosa retains TDP chair

Gilberto Hinojosa

Gilberto Hinojosa won reelection as chairman of the Texas Democratic Party on Saturday, defeating two challengers who sought to tap into members’ simmering frustrations over a lack of progress in the state, especially after their disappointing 2020 election.

Hinojosa, who first took over leadership of the state party in 2012, was up against Kim Olson, a former statewide and congressional candidate, as well as Carroll Robinson, chairman of the Texas Coalition of Black Democrats.

Hinojosa’s victory took two rounds of voting at the party’s convention Saturday in Dallas. After the first round, Robinson bowed out and backed Hinojosa, who then got 58% on the second ballot to 40% for Olson.

In his victory speech, Hinojosa recognized both his challengers, saying he listened and learned from their campaigns.

Hinojosa had argued he had grown the party immensely over the past decade, putting Democrats in a position to capture statewide office as soon as November. But his challengers said he has had enough time to deliver on turning Texas blue.

“Ten years ago, you elected me to be your chair, and I promised you that we would rebuild this party,” Hinojosa said in his final pitch to delegates. “Well, I’ve made good on our promise. We are now the biggest battleground state in the United States.”

See here and here for some background. I didn’t have a strong preference in this one, I just wanted us to come out of the election without hating each other. The story says the contest was basically amicable, so well done there. Hinojosa has said this will be his last term, and that’s fine as well. Let’s move on to November.

I really don’t want to have to pay attention to the race for TDP Chair

Apr 9th, 2022

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

But I suppose I have to make note of this.

The race for Texas Democratic Party chair is being roiled by allegations that a challenger, Kim Olson, pushed the party’s top staffer during a bus tour in 2018.

Olson denies the allegations, which her opponent, incumbent Gilberto Hinojosa, has publicly amplified and used to argue she is unfit to lead the party. Thousands of delegates to the state party convention in July will elect the next chair, who is responsible for raising money for the party and leading its messaging.

The controversy came to a head late last month at a meeting of the State Democratic Executive Committee, the governing body of the state party, at which Olson supporters unsuccessfully urged the party to remove from its website a resolution that condemned Olson over the alleged incident. The resolution, which was submitted at a county convention, also called on her to drop out of the race.

Olson responded by calling the allegations false and asking a separate Democratic group, Texas Democratic Women, to condemn the author of the resolution.

The allegations date back to the fall of 2018, when Olson, who was at the time running for agriculture commissioner, joined a bus tour with other statewide Democratic candidates. During an event in Killeen focused on veterans, Olson got upset because she was not seated more prominently as a veteran herself, according to four Democratic campaign and party staffers who said they witnessed the incident. Olson is a former Air Force colonel, but the organizers had been trying to seat all candidates in ballot order to maintain consistency throughout the tour.

After the Killeen event, Olson angrily confronted party staff on the bus, according to the four people. The executive director at the time, Crystal Perkins, intervened and sought to address the dispute, but Olson remained angry and pushed Perkins, causing her to fall backward, the witnesses said.

The four people declined to comment on the record because they are still involved in politics and concerned about retaliation by Olson. Perkins declined to comment for this story, but after Hinojosa had publicly raised the allegation in December, she confirmed to The Texas Tribune at the time that Olson had pushed her.

There’s more, but I don’t want to get into it. If this happened as described – the facts are in dispute, and I have no personal knowledge of any of it – I would call it bad and would expect Olson to apologize, but I wouldn’t call it disqualifying. I’d certainly understand anyone who refused to support Olson as a result of this. Beyond that, all I want is for us to not be fighting among ourselves once the convention is over. I hope that’s not too much to ask.

Kim Olson running for TDP Chair

Dec 8th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Of interest.

Kim Olson

A retired Air Force colonel and former nominee for agriculture commissioner is running for chair of the Texas Democratic Party.

Kim Olson is the first major candidate to announce a challenge to the party’s current leader, Gilberto Hinojosa, who was elected nearly a decade ago. Party delegates will decide whether to retain Hinojosa at the Texas Democratic Convention next summer.

Olson said the party’s recent struggles, including a disappointing 2020 cycle, stem partly from what she called an overconcentration of resources in Austin and other urban centers.

The Mineral Wells resident who ran for Texas’ 24th Congressional District in the Dallas-Fort Worth area last year said her time on the campaign trail revealed the need for more investment in Democratic parties in smaller counties, along with the down-ballot candidates running in those areas.

“I have an understanding of what it’s like to be the customer, if you will, of the Texas Democratic Party as a candidate, and where we have gaps in some of our support for candidates and the infrastructure that’s out there for us,” Olson said.

I don’t have a strong opinion about this. I think Chair Hinojosa has done a pretty good job, but it’s not unreasonable to think that we could use a change and a new perspective. I agree with the need for more investment in smaller counties – mostly, as long as we’re generally talking about counties that are part of a metro area in some fashion, as I’ve talked about in my counties of interest series and other places – and in downballot races. But I also think we can’t let up on the gas in the big cities and suburbs, especially since we could have done better in a lot of deep blue State Rep districts in 2020 and 2018. I’m happy to have that discussion at the State Chair level, and I hope in the end whoever wins learns from the other. The Trib has more.

Trib overview of CD24

Sep 27th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The focus of this story is mostly on Democrat Candace Valenzuela, as it should be.

Candace Valenzuela

She experienced homelessness at a young age. She worked several odd jobs throughout high school and college to make ends meet. A high school car accident left her with a chronic health condition.

Now she’s running for Congress hoping to flip a red seat blue, and Candace Valenzuela thinks her story as a political outsider who overcame hardships will win over voters.

“My story does resonate,” Valenzuela said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “As soon as my constituents hear my story, it’s incredibly easy for them to relate.”

Seemingly overnight, Valenzuela has become a new face of Democrats’ optimism for 2020. Six months ago, she was an underdog in the Democratic primary for Congressional District 24, a mostly suburban North Texas district that straddles parts of Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties. Now, she’s being touted as a potential future star — someone who could win a seat long held by U.S. Rep. Kenny Marchant, a retiring Tea Party Republican, and become the first Black Latina elected to Congress.

That Valenzuela is considered a viable candidate is another sign of the changes in Texas politics that have spurred a wave of Democratic optimism. Until recently, suburban areas like Congressional District 24 had been viewed as weak spots for the Texas Democratic Party. Now those sites are key to Democrats’ big plans for Texas in 2020. All 10 of the congressional districts Democrats hope to flip in the state are at least partially suburban — and the voters in suburban neighborhoods could decide whether the party can truly compete for the state’s Electoral College votes and win control of the Texas House.

“We need to make our Texas delegation look more like the Texans they’re designed to serve,” Valenzuela said. “We’re seeing record participation and engagement, and folks looking at what they want to see out of their representatives. If we see a win here, it’ll be the people stepping up and saying we want someone from our community who’s going to work for the community.”

There’s more, so go read the rest. I’ll be honest, I would have voted for Kim Olson in the CD24 primary based on her strong candidacy for Ag Commissioner in 2018 and her excellent fundraising. Valenzuela started out more slowly in that department but had caught up by the time of the July finance reports, and she prevailed by a convincing margin in the runoff. CD24 was a Beto-majority district, and the early polling is good. It seems very likely to me that Biden will carry CD24 by several points, and Valenzuela’s opponent is a major Trump shill, which should help. I have felt for a long time that not flipping CD24 would be a huge disappointment. I’m excited about the possibility of getting a Rep. Candace Valenzuela.

I should note, by the way, that Valenzuela has some company in the category of “would be the first person of this type elected to Congress from Texas”. (In her case, from the entire country as well.) Sima Ladjevardian and Lulu Seikaly would be the first people of Middle Eastern/North African descent to be elected to Congress from Texas. Sri Kulkarni and Gina Ortiz Jones would be the first Asian-Americans elected to Congress from Texas. We really do have a diverse state. This year we have a unique opportunity to better reflect that diversity in our elected leaders.

Once again with female Congressional candidates

Aug 9th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

This is another post that was drafted in the Before Times, specifically right after the March primary. I went through the runoffs and assessed all of the races that could or would contain a female candidate or incumbent against a male opponent or open seat with a retiring male incumbent, mixed in the likelihood of said female candidate winning, and presented a range of possibilities for the number of female members of Congress in Texas in 2021, a number that now stands at six. That’s six female members of Congress out of 36 total – five Democrats (out of 13 total) and one Republican (out of 23). With the lineups for November settled, let’s do a quick review, then you can click on to see what I had written originally.

First of all, the next member of Congress in CD24 will be a woman, either Democrat Candace Valenzuela or Republican Beth Van Duyne. It would be nice to say that this means the number of women in Congress from Texas will go up, but Rep. Lizzie Fletcher could lose her race to Wesley Hunt, which would leave us at six as before. I think as things stand right now Fletcher is a clear favorite to win, but we have to allow for the possibility.

Other than Van Duyne, the only Republican running in a competitive district is Genevieve Collins in CD32 against Rep. Colin Allred, who like his fellow freshman Fletcher is the favorite to win but could lose if things go poorly from here. CD24 is one of the more Dem-leaning seats that are currently held by Republicans, but since it’s Republican-held I’d say it has slightly better odds of staying red than CD07 or CD32 have of flipping to red. Republicans can add up to two women to their caucus, and they can subtract one from the Democratic caucus, but I think the single most likely outcome is that Rep. Kay Granger remains the only Republican woman in Congress, and Rep. Lizzie Fletcher gets another term.

If that’s the case, then Dems will add at least one woman to their caucus, but given the bigger picture it’s nearly impossible to imagine that it would be one and only one. I can’t envision a scenario in which Candace Valenzuela wins but Gina Ortiz Jones does not. Wendy Davis is a notch behind those two, and then a little further behind we have Sima Ladjevardian, Lulu Seikaly, Julie Oliver, and Donna Imam. A gain of two Democratic women feels like the single most likely possibility, followed very closely by a gain of three. Four or more is more remote, but not at all out of the question.

That’s the nickel summary. More recently, The 19th wrote about this from a national perspective, with a focus on Republican efforts to recruit more and better female candidates for Congress. They all pretty neatly avoid the Donald Trump-shaped elephant in the room, but that’s their problem. Read on for my original post, which included all of the candidates who are now out of the race or who are running for seats that are not competitive.

(more…)

July 2020 campaign finance reports: Congress

Jul 24th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Congratulations, everyone. Not only have we made it to the other side of another quarterly reporting period, we have also successfully navigated the primary runoffs. My next quarterly finance report post for Congress will thus be shorter, as this is the last time the folks who did not win their runoffs will be listed. So let’s get on with it already. The January 2019 roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle, the April 2019 report is here, the July 2019 report is here, the October 2019 report is here, the January 2020 report is here, and the April 2020 report is here. For comparison, the January 2018 report is here, the April 2018 report is here, and the July 2018 report is here. The FEC summary page for Congress is here and for the Senate is here.

MJ Hegar – Senate
Royce West – Senate

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Hank Gilbert – CD01
Sima Ladjevardian – CD02
Lulu Seikaly – CD03
Sean McCaffity – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Elizabeth Hernandez – CD08
Mike Siegel – CD10
Pritesh Gandhi – CD10
Adrienne Bell – CD14
Rick Kennedy – CD17
David Jaramillo – CD17
Wendy Davis – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
Kim Olson – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Donna Imam – CD31
Christine Eady Mann – CD31


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Hegar         6,605,966  5,751,355        0    902,092
Sen   West          1,867,804  1,689,538  258,103    178,265

07    Fletcher      4,384,162    978,573        0  3,453,656
32    Allred        3,801,649    924,378        0  2,980,715  

01    Gilbert         245,146     96,526   50,000    148,619
02    Ladjevardian  1,674,680  1,129,634   50,000    545,046
03    Seikaly         409,531    370,312    3,000     39,219
03    McCaffity       507,661    441,938        0     65,723
06    Daniel          328,097    243,191        0     84,906
08    Hernandez
10    Siegel          917,771    756,306        0    164,956
10    Gandhi        1,276,854  1,200,742        0     76,112
14    Bell            103,734     81,576        0     11,247
17    Kennedy          97,859     87,125   11,953     12,161
17    Jaramillo        21,246     17,942        0      3,303
21    Davis         4,467,270  1,536,995        0  2,930,275
22    Kulkarni      2,530,971  1,352,948        0  1,205,791
23    Jones         4,133,598  1,215,227        0  3,009,888
24    Valenzuela    1,119,403  1,008,739        0    110,664
24    Olson         1,667,400  1,417,247   20,000    250,153
25    Oliver          681,850    591,851    2,644     89,999
26    Ianuzzi          84,645     66,691   46,050     17,954
31    Mann            372,445    353,802   44,500     20,080
31    Imam            449,274    407,175        0     42,099

First things first, any worries about fundraising capacity in these brutally awful times have been assuaged. The totals speak for themselves, but let’s go into some detail anyway. Basically, the candidate in nearly every race of interest is ahead of their 2018 pace, often by a lot. Let me put this in another table to quantify:


Dist  Year     Candidate     Raised       Cash
==============================================
02    2018        Litton    843,045    407,674
02    2020  Ladjevardian  1,674,680    545,046

03    2018         Burch    153,559     19,109
03    2020       Seikaly    409,531     39,219

06    2018       Sanchez    358,960     67,772
06    2020        Daniel    328,097     84,906

10    2018        Siegel    171,955     46,852
10    2020        Siegel    917,771    164,956

21    2018        Kopser  1,594,724    364,365
21    2020         Davis  4,467,270  2,930,275

22    2018      Kulkarni    405,169     89,434
22    2020      Kulkarni  2,530,971  1,205,791

23    2018   Ortiz Jones  2,256,366  1,150,851
23    2020   Ortiz Jones  4,133,598  3,009,888

24    2018      McDowell     61,324     28,091
24    2020    Valenzuela  1,119,403    110,664

25    2018        Oliver    199,047     78,145
25    2020        Oliver    681,850     89,999

31    2020         Hegar  1,618,359    867,266
31    2020          Imam    449,274     42,099

With the exception of CD31, where no one has come close to MJ Hegar (who as the US Senate nominee may help boost turnout in this district anyway), and CD06, where Stephen Daniel is a pinch behind Jana Sanchez in fundraising (but also a pinch ahead in cash on hand), each nominee is substantially better off this time around. Todd Litton, Joe Kopser, and the original version of Gina Ortiz Jones were all strong fundraisers, and they’ve all been blown out of the water this year. Mike Siegel, Sri Kulkarni, and Julie Oliver have all greatly outpaced themselves. I will maintain that we might have won CD24 in 2018 if we’d had a candidate who could raise money; that’s very much not a problem this year. Lulu Seikaly is well ahead of Lori Burch, who was herself quite a pleasant surprise in CD03.

There are still things to address. Seikaly, Siegel, and Valenzuela all needed to spend a bunch of money in the extended runoffs, and thus need to build up cash with less time to do it. Given their records so far, I’m not too worried about it. Both Jana Sanchez and 2018 Julie Oliver had May runoffs to win, so their modest cash on hand totals were understandable, but Stephen Daniel and 2020 Julie Oliver were both March winners, so I don’t understand why they’ve been spending as much as they have at this point. I hope that isn’t a problem. Donna Imam is not going to approach Hegar’s fundraising prowess, but she alone among the crowd in CD31 seemed to have some capacity for the task, so maybe she’ll at least make up some ground.

The big difference is that there isn’t a juggernaut Senate campaign, which was a boost to downballot candidates in 2018, this time around. On the other hand, we do have a Presidential campaign, which is already airing ads, and we have the DNC airing ads, and we have the DCCC, which has added CD02 to its already-long target list (though they may have dropped CD31 by now). Point being, there will be plenty of other money invested that will help with these races, directly or indirectly.

So overall, a pretty rosy picture, and the financial resources to support the notion that a whole lot of seats are actually in play. Remember how I spent much of the 2018 cycle talking about how there never used to be any Congressional money raised in Texas, outside of CD23? The world is in flames, but that one small part of the Before Times, I don’t miss.

Last but not least, a brief shoutout to Hank Gilbert, playing the part of Dayna Steele in this cycle – a great candidate and a swell human being in an absolute no-hope district against a terrible incumbent who is raising a surprising amount of money. If doing good and being good were all it took, Hank would be in the top tier of next year’s freshman class. Maybe someday we’ll live in that world. Godspeed, Hank.

The progressives and the runoffs

Jul 14th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

May as well check in on this.

Sara Stapleton Barrera

Judging from March, the ideological left wing of the Democratic Party in Texas should be inconsolable.

After months of high hopes, the faction ran into a centrist buzz saw in the March 3 primary. Joe Biden practically locked up the Democratic presidential nomination, and progressive candidates experienced electoral drubbings.

Among the fallen: presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, congressional candidate Jessica Cisneros, U.S. Senate hopeful Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, and Audia Jones, a candidate for Harris County District attorney endorsed by Sanders.

But rather than licking their political wounds, leading progressive candidates still in the fight say they’re invigorated — and eager to use the coronavirus pandemic, fights over voting by mail and calls for police reform to score some late victories in the July runoffs.

“Every time we have a progressive run, we get a little bit closer,” said Sara Stapleton-Barrera, who is in a runoff against state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville. “I feel like we’re slowly winning the war, but we have to get through some of these battles first.”

Perhaps the most energy is coming from Austin, where two runoffs have the attention of progressives. José Garza is competing in the nationally watched Democratic primary runoff for Travis County district attorney. Mike Siegel is vying for his party’s nomination in the 10th Congressional District’s Democratic primary runoff.

Garza’s race is where the focus on police reform is arguably the clearest. Even before the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police prompted protests nationwide, Garza was challenging incumbent Margaret Moore from the left, arguing she was too harsh in her prosecution of nonviolent offenders. He earned the most votes in March and has promised to bring all police shootings and more police misconduct cases before a grand jury. He has also pledged not to accept campaign contributions from police unions.

Moore, meanwhile, has accused him of being inexperienced with the local criminal justice system and running a campaign focused on national issues instead of local ones.

In the 10th Congressional District, Siegel is running on a platform that includes supporting “Medicare for All” and the Green New Deal. Siegel will face Dr. Pritesh Gandhi, who has cited his medical experience while pitching Medicare Extra, a proposal that does not go as far as Medicare for All and leaves some private insurance in place.

“I think this is the exact moment in history when progressives are in a place to lead, and it’s because the times have caught up the policies we’re fighting for,” Siegel said. “This is the time to run as a progressive. I feel really good not just about my chances, but the movement overall.”

[…]

Another runoff that has drawn the attention of some national progressives is the one for the 24th Congressional District, where Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela are competing to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell. The seat is a national Democratic target.

Valenzuela has endorsements like the Congressional Progressive Caucus and Warren, but the runoff has not as sharply split along ideological lines as much as it has on issues of experience and racial identity. Valenzuela, a former Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board member, and her allies are hammering Olson over her time as human resources director for the Dallas Independent School District. Valenzuela and her supporters are also touting that she would be the first Afro-Latina to serve in Congress. Olson is white.

But the divide might be clearest in South Texas, where the winner of the state Senate runoff between Lucio and Barrera will be the overwhelming favorite to win the seat in November.

I’ve said repeatedly that beating Eddie Lucio in SD27 will do more for progressives than beating Henry Cuellar in CD28 ever could have done, because of the relative sizes of the two legislative bodies and the outsized influence Lucio has in the 12-member (for now) Dem Senate caucus. Lucio is terrible, and I’m delighted that that particular race has finally gotten the attention it needs. I think one reason why maybe it didn’t get as much attention earlier is because Sara Stapleton Barrera isn’t necessarily “the” progressive candidate in that race. If Ruben Cortez had finished second, people would be rallying behind him now. This race is much more about Eddie Lucio, and I’d say it’s only now that we’re down to one candidate against him that the race has been viewed through that lens.

As for CD10, I mostly shrug my shoulders. I think Medicare For All is a fine goal to work towards, but Medicare For Those Who Want To Buy Into It is much more easily achieved in the short term, with far less disruption to the existing system and far less resistance from people whose employer-based (possibly collectively-bargained) plan is just fine for them. If we’re lucky enough to have a Democratic Senate in 2021, I think what can get passed by that Senate is what we’re going to get. Will having more pro-Medicare For All members of Congress affect that outcome? Maybe. It’s hard to say. I like Mike Siegel and would vote to give him a second chance to topple Mike McCaul if I lived in CD10, but I think either Siegel or Pritesh Gandhi will be a fine addition to Congress and a major upgrade over the incumbent. Same in CD24, with Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela, each a good candidate with different strengths and appeals but no major differences on policy.

The race that definitely has the potential to have a big effect is the Travis County DA race, where the ideological lines are clear and the ability for the upstart to make a difference if they win is great, though not unbound. Please feel free to set a good example for the rest of us, Travis County.

As for whether this is another step in a long march towards more liberal candidates and officeholders, I’d say yes, and that we’ve already been on that march for a long time. Ideological sorting is a thing that has been happening for a few decades now. You can see the effect just in recent years – the Democratic waves of 2006 and 2008 included a lot of candidates whose politics included “fiscal responsibility”, support from the NRA, opposition to same-sex marriage, immigration restrictionism, and a host of other views that were very much not shared with the class of 2018. The Democratic Party is a big tent, which means there will always be room for vicious family fights over various issues. Having some number of Never Trumpers inside that tent will just make it all more exciting. It’s fine, and I’d rather be dynamic than stagnant. And every primary and primary runoff, the main emotion many of us will feel will be “thank prime that’s over, now let’s please get on to the general election”. Same as it ever was.

Three runoff stories

Jul 3rd, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Just a sample from three high-profile and highly-contested Democratic primary runoff races.

TX-SEN: MJ Hegar versus Royce West

MJ Hegar

No two issues have impacted the Texas primary runoffs like the coronavirus pandemic and the protests surrounding George Floyd’s death, but as early voting begins Monday, the latter is looming especially large at the top of the ticket.

In the Democratic runoff to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, state Sen. Royce West of Dallas is hoping to harness the energy of the moment to pull past MJ Hegar on her seemingly well-paved road to the nomination. The former Air Force helicopter pilot has the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, but West is increasingly seeking to train his party’s attention on the opportunity his candidacy represents, especially now.

“Democrats have got to decide whether they want to continue to be a victim of history or make history,” West said in an interview. With his election as Texas’ first Black senator, he added, Democrats can go the latter route.

Sen. Royce West

West said the “stars have aligned” for him in the runoff, playing to his profile as not only a Black man but also a seasoned legislator who has focused on criminal justice reform, authoring a 2015 state law that aimed to expand the use of body cameras by police in Texas, for example. And he has taken heart in recent primaries elsewhere, most notably in Kentucky, in which candidates of color have ridden the momentum of growing calls for racial justice.

To be sure, Hegar, who is white, has also increased her focus on issues of race and policing, and on Monday, she is holding a virtual news conference with the family of Javier Ambler, a Black man who died last year in the custody of Williamson County sheriff’s deputes. West and then Hegar called for the resignation of the sheriff, Robert Chody, after the circumstances of Ambler’s death came to light earlier this month.

Asked in an interview how she stacks up against West when it comes to meeting the moment, Hegar reiterated her tight focus on the general election.

“I think that you know me well enough to know that I’m running against John Cornyn,” she said, reciting her contrasts with Cornyn. She did argue her November-focused bid means she is already running a “coordinated campaign that is lifting up” down-ballot candidates, including candidates of color.

It should be noted that since this story was written, Amy McGrath has pulled ahead of Charles Booker in that Kentucky Senate primary. You can make whatever you want of the parallels, but the state of that race has changed since original publication. I’m mostly interested at this point in the candidates’ finance reports. Hegar has consistently been the better fundraiser – and I continue to be a little perplexed how a 26-year incumbent like Royce West has had such a hard time raising money (*) – though she’s not exactly performing at Beto levels. Still, with a Presidential race at the top of the ticket, just having enough to get her name out there is probably enough. Hegar is closer to achieving that level of resources than West is, and there’s more promise of national money for her at this time.

(*) – Yes, I’m aware of the claims made that the DSCC has pressured donors to avoid West. This story notes that the person who made those claims has not provided the names of any such donors, so color me a bit skeptical. Certainly not out of the question that this could have happened, but right now the evidence is thin.

CD24: Kim Olson versus Candace Valenzuela

Democratic voters in North Texas’ 24th Congressional District next month will select the candidate — retired Air Force Col. Kim Olson or former school board member Candace Valenzuela — they want to challenge Republican Beth Van Duyne in one of the fall’s most highly anticipated congressional contests.

The decision between Olson and Valenzuela is punishing for many Democrats who see both women as capable of beating Van Duyne, the former Irving mayor endorsed by President Donald Trump. The ultimate goal, Democrats sandwiched between Dallas and Fort Worth have said all year, is flipping the seat that has been occupied by Rep. Kenny Marchant for eight terms.

Marchant is one of several Texas Republicans retiring from Congress this year as the state becomes more competitive for Democrats. Marchant easily won his seat 16 years ago but beat his Democratic opponent in 2018 by just three percentage points. Local and national Democrats see the seat as theirs for the taking and a key component of keeping their majority in the U.S. House.

“We all feel like we’ve been in a holding pattern and we’re waiting for the choice to be made,” said Angie Hetisimer, a Tarrant County precinct chair and member of Indivisible Grapevine, which works to help elect progressive candidates. “I think for me and most of the people I talk to, we just want 24 to flip. Luckily we have two fantastic candidates.”

Given there is little light between Olson and Valenzuela on policy — both fluctuate between moderate and progressive on different questions but would be reliable votes for the Democratic agenda in Washington — the election is largely framed as a decision between Olson’s extensive résumé and Valenzuela’s biography. Olson was one of America’s first female fighter pilots. If elected, Valenzuela would be the first Afro-Latina member of Congress.

Olson was the first prominent candidate in this race and has been the bigger fundraiser, but Valenzuela has also done well in that department and has run a strong campaign. This is a top target for the DCCC, and in my view is the second-most flippable seat in Texas, following only CD23. If we can’t win this one, especially against a xenophobe like Van Duyne, it’s a big miss. I’m fine with either candidate, I just hope everyone involved is able to move on and keep their eye on the prize after July 14.

CD10: Mike Siegel versus Pritesh Gandhi

Democrats in one of Texas’ most expansive battleground congressional districts are choosing between a civil rights attorney embracing the party’s most liberal proposals and a doctor who argues those policies are too radical.

Mike Siegel, the 2018 nominee in Texas’ 10th Congressional District, finished first in this year’s March Democratic primary — about 11 percentage points ahead of Pritesh Gandhi, a primary care physician making his first run for office. Siegel came about 6 points short of winning the primary outright, pitting him against Gandhi in a runoff.

The winner will face U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, who has represented the district since 2005. His political territory stretches from Austin to the Houston suburbs, covering all of five counties and parts of four others.

Beyond the ideological skirmish, the primary is also serving as a case study in whether the coronavirus pandemic will boost political candidates who work in the medical field. The virus has supercharged the public’s interest in health care and led to national TV appearances for Gandhi, but also stripped him of valuable campaign time as he works a grueling schedule that includes swabbing patients for COVID-19 and caring for those who exhibit symptoms.

It also has reinforced Gandhi’s pitch for sending more people to Congress who work in the health care field.

“People, I think, understand the importance of having a diversity of professional experience in Washington. And if that wasn’t clear before, it’s increasingly clear now,” Gandhi said. “I think that people, when they get to the voting booth, are going to want a leader who has experience and a track record in science and in health.”

Siegel was the 2018 candidate and he ran a good campaign, though he fell a bit short in a district that Beto carried by a whisker. Gandhi has been the stronger fundraiser – indeed, both Gandhi and third-place finisher Candace Hutchison outraised Siegel through April – but as with CD24, I expect whoever the nominee is to do just fine in this department. I know more people who are supporting Siegel in this one, and I do tend to lean towards giving a competent candidate who did a good job the first time around another shot at it, but as with the other races here I’m fine with either choice. I’m ready to get to the November part of this campaign.

Runoff reminder: Congress

Jun 8th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Previously, we looked at the two statewide runoffs in the Democratic primary. Today we’re going to look at four Congressional primary runoffs. There are more than four total runoffs in Congressional primaries, but these are in the districts that are at least somewhat competitive, including a couple that are high on the national target list. As a reminder, here’s a look at the April campaign finance reports for Congress.

CD03

CD03 is held by freshman Rep. Van Taylor, who won by a 54-44 margin in 2018; Beto O’Rourke got 47.9% in the district. It’s not a first-tier opportunity, but the primary features two candidates who are way ahead of the 2018 fundraising pace, Sean McCaffity and Lulu Seikaly, who was a later entrant into the race. Seikaly has gotten more press that I could find of the two of them. Here’s a profile/interview with her on the Shondaland website. She recently picked up the endorsement of Rep. Marc Veasey after having been endorsed by the DMN for the primary. As for McCaffity, I found this profile of him from February. I don’t have a whole lot of insight to add to this race. Both candidates look good to me, either could break through and generate some national attention if they keep up the good fundraising or someone does a poll in the district. CD03 is entirely within Collin County, so if the suburbs do wind up abandoning Trump in a big way – in other words, even more than in 2018 – this race could be a sleeper.

CD10

CD10 of course has been on the radar all cycle, since Mike Siegel lost to longtime Rep. Mike McCaul by a bit more than four points, in a district that Beto carried by a hair. Siegel faces Dr. Pritesh Gandhi, who has been a strong fundraiser so far. As a working doctor who’s treating COVID-19 patients when he’s not on the campaign trail, Gandhi has also been featured in numerous new stories, getting both local and national coverage for his dual role. Siegel has made his way into some of that coverage, and was the subject of a nice recent profile. He also picked up a couple of endorsements, from Rep. Veronica Escobar and State Rep. Erin Zwiener.

CD24

This may be the spiciest runoff of the four, for a seat that Beto won with 51.5% of the vote in 2018. Precisely because this is such an clear-cut target – it’s been on the DCCC’s radar from day one – there’s been some fighting over who the DCCC should be backing in this race, Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela. Olson is the 2018 nominee for Ag Commissioner (she got 46.4%, losing by five points) and is one of six Dem challengers so far to have raised over a million bucks as of April. Olson has a military background that’s a big part of her biography, but the circumstances surrounding her exit from the Air Force have some people worried that could be a drag on her campaign. Meanwhile, Valenzuela has also been a strong fundraiser and has picked up some notable endorsements including EMILY’s List, which is a fascinating decision on their part given that there were multiple pro-choice female candidates in the primary, including, you know, Kim Olson. Some of Valenzuela’s allies will be running ads against Olson over the issues with Olson’s military record. There’s a nice profile of Valenzuela here if you want to know more about her. As with these other races, I don’t have a strong preference. I feel like this race is there for the Dems to win, we just have to not screw it up.

CD31

Finally, there’s CD31, which started out the cycle high on the target list but has been slipping down since. While there have been a ton of candidates cycling through this race, none have caught fire the way MJ Hegar did in 2018, and none have distinguished themselves in fundraising. The two who survived the first round, Christine Eady Mann and Donna Imam, were the top fundraisers, but neither is close to the top tier among Dem challengers, and only Imam has a decent amount of cash on hand. Eady Mann, who lost in the 2018 primary runoff to Hegar, is also a medical doctor and has also been featured in some stories for her candidacy and career in a time of COVID. I couldn’t find any recent stories about Imam. I don’t see this race as being all that competitive anymore, but the trend in Williamson County will keep it reasonably close regardless. A surprise is still possible, but I’m going to want to see the winner of this runoff start to rake in some bucks before I’ll buy into it.

I’ll be looking at SBOE and State Senate next. Let me know what you think.

Comparing the April finance reports

May 4th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

In my roundup of April finance reports for Congress, I said I’d do a comparison of the 2018 numbers to 2020. I’m a blogger of his word, so let’s have that look.


Dist  Year Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
=================================================================
02      18 Litton          546,503    304,139        0    242,363
02      20 Ladjevardian  1,133,296    930,810   50,000    202,485

03      18 Burch           104,700    116,639   25,649     14,085
03      18 Johnson          62,473     59,143    3,100      6,490
03      20 McCaffity       387,506    313,098        0     74,407
03      20 Seikaly         252,591    232,038    3,000     20,552

06      18 Sanchez         241,893    188,313        0     56,456
06      18 Woolridge        75,440     45,016   15,000     47,708
06      20 Daniel          196,861    187,942    7,500      8,918

10      18 Siegel           80,319     65,496    5,000     19,823
10      18 Cadien
10      20 Siegel          664,291    542,317   10,000    125,464
10      20 Gandhi        1,011,877    948,927        0     62,949

21      18 Kopser        1,100,451    846,895   25,000    278,556
21      18 Wilson           44,772     51,041   26,653     20,384
21      20 Davis         3,047,765  1,094,009        0  1,953,755

22      18 Kulkarni        178,925    158,369   35,510     56,067
22      18 Plummer         108,732     99,153        0      9,578
22      20 Kulkarni      1,564,263  1,226,088        0    365,942

23      18 Ortiz Jones   1,025,194    703,481        0    321,713
23      18 Trevino          16,892     20,416    3,285      3,915
23      20 Ortiz Jones   3,310,358  1,024,041    3,024  2,377,835

24      18 McDowell         33,452     16,100        0     17,470
24      20 Olson         1,231,183  1,028,804   20,000    202,378
24      20 Valenzuela      647,105    506,708        0    140,397

25      18 Oliver           78,841     37,812    3,125     40,860
25      18 Perri           139,016    133,443   24,890     30,603
25      20 Oliver          464,623    427,972    2,644     36,651

31      18 Hegar           458,085    316,854        0    141,240
31      18 Mann             56,814     58,856    2,276          0
31      20 Mann            277,815    278,885   44,500        367
31      20 Imam            363,194    223,126  100,000    140,068

I included losing candidates from primary runoffs in 2018 as well, as they were still in the race at that time. I did not include the high-dollar races in CDs 07 and 32 – Lizzie Fletcher and Laura Moser had each raised over $1M by this point, with Colin Allred and Lillian Salerno combining for close to $1.4M – because I wanted to focus only on challengers. Reps. Fletcher and Allred are doing quite well in this department now, they’re just in a different category. It’s clear there’s a lot more money now than there was in 2018, which I attribute mostly to the national Democratic focus on many of these races. Only CDs 03, 06, and 25 are not official targets, but any of them could get bumped up if the environment gets more favorable or the nominees step it up another level. Both CD03 candidates and the 2020 version of Julie Oliver are well ahead of the 2018 pace, while Stephen Daniel was a later entrant in CD06 and may catch up in the next report.

We eventually got used to the big numbers from 2018, which I repeatedly noted were completely unprecedented for Democratic Congressional challengers in Texas, and so there’s less of an “ooh, ahh” factor when we look at this year’s numbers, but let’s not totally lose our ability to be wowed. Joe Kopser raised a ton of money in 2018, and Wendy Davis has left him in the dust, taking in three times as much at this point. Sri Kulkarni has nearly matched his entire total from 2018, while Gina Ortiz Jones is doing to herself what Wendy Davis is doing to Joe Kopser. Throw in Sima Ladjevardian and both Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela, and wow. We do need to appreciate where we are now, because there was a long time when anything like this would have been unthinkable. Hell, you can count on one hand the number of statewide candidates from 2004 to 2016 who raised as much as these Congressional candidates have done so far.

There’s also a lot more spending, as four candidates have already dropped a million bucks, with Ladjevardian and Pritesh Gandhi not far behind. Those two plus Sri Kulkarni and Kim Olson were in competitive primaries, with Olson and Gandhi in the runoffs, while Wendy Davis and Gina Ortiz Jones had much less formidable opposition. I have to assume the latter two did most of their spending with an eye towards November.

I will admit that some of the cash on hand totals from this year’s report had me nervous, but doing this comparison mostly alleviates those concerns. I am of course still worried about the environment for raising money now, but there’s only so much one can worry about it, and as we saw in the previous post there was no noticeable slowdown for the month of March. We’ll see what the July numbers look like.

If there is a cause for concern, it’s in CD31, which has been a soft spot in the lineup from the beginning. Christine Eady Mann and Donna Imam seem to have finally hit a stride in fundraising after the entire field, including several who dropped out along the way, got off to a slow start, though Mann continues a pattern from 2018 of spending every dollar she takes in. Neither has matched MJ Hegar’s pace from 2018, and I seriously doubt they’ll do any better going forward. That’s a high hurdle to clear – Hegar eventually raised over $5 million – but I’m more hopeful now that whoever emerges in that race can at least be competitive.

The next finance reports of interest will be the 30-day reports for state candidates, and then the June reports for county candidates. You know I’ll be on them when they come out. As always, let me know what you think.

April 2020 campaign finance reports: Congress

Apr 27th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Hey, remember politics? You know, races and finance reports and stuff like that? Yeah, it’s still happening, weird as that may seem right now. As we are well into April, the Q1 Congressional finance reports for 2020 are in, and thankfully for me the number of candidates whose reports I need to review is much smaller. Let’s have a look. The January 2019 roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle, the April 2019 report is here, the July 2019 report is here, the October 2019 report is here, and the January 2020 report is here. For comparison, the January 2018 report is here and the April 2018 report is here. The FEC summary page for Congress is here and for the Senate is here.

MJ Hegar – Senate
Royce West – Senate

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Hank Gilbert – CD01
Sima Ladjevardian – CD02
Sean McCaffity – CD03
Lulu Seikaly – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Elizabeth Hernandez – CD08
Mike Siegel – CD10
Pritesh Gandhi – CD10
Adrienne Bell – CD14
Rick Kennedy – CD17
David Jaramillo – CD17
Wendy Davis – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Kim Olson – CD24
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Christine Eady Mann – CD31
Donna Imam – CD31


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Hegar         4,830,038  3,781,873        0  1,095,647
Sen   West          1,363,387  1,242,563  242,162    242,162

07    Fletcher      3,375,004    723,963        0  2,693,107
32    Allred        2,370,113    555,774        0  1,917,783  

01    Gilbert         190,941     44,804   50,000    146,136
02    Ladjevardian  1,133,296    930,810   50,000    202,485
03    McCaffity       387,506    313,098        0     74,407
03    Seikaly         252,591    232,038    3,000     20,552
06    Daniel          196,861    187,942    7,500      8,918
08    Hernandez
10    Siegel          664,291    542,317   10,000    125,464
10    Gandhi        1,011,877    948,927        0     62,949
14    Bell             84,724     71,740        0     16,061
17    Kennedy          65,908     59,041   11,953      8,294
17    Jaramillo        20,681     17,864        0      2,816
21    Davis         3,047,765  1,094,009        0  1,953,755
22    Kulkarni      1,564,263  1,226,088        0    365,942
23    Ortiz Jones   3,310,358  1,024,041    3,024  2,377,835
24    Olson         1,231,183  1,028,804   20,000    202,378
24    Valenzuela      647,105    506,708        0    140,397
25    Oliver          464,623    427,972    2,644     36,651
26    Ianuzzi          82,254     63,909   47,032     18,344
31    Mann            277,815    278,885   44,500        367
31    Imam            363,194    223,126  100,000    140,068

Some real separation in the Senate race, as MJ Hegar approaches five million total raised. She is in a much stronger position for the runoff than Royce West, though there’s still time for him to raise a few bucks. Hegar has a long way to go to be on par with John Cornyn, but she’s at least putting herself into “reasonably viable for a statewide candidate” range. For what it’s worth, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez and Amanda Edwards did eventually top a million dollars raised, and in the end they both spent nearly all of it. I still don’t know why Tzintzún Ramirez was unable to do better in this department, but that’s water under the bridge now.

As was the case in 2018, everyone in all of the interesting races is raising a ton of money. The two incumbents are doing what they should be doing. Six challenger candidates have now topped a million dollars raised, with Wendy Davis and Gina Ortiz Jones both over three million. Pritesh Gandhi and Kim Olson still have to make it through the July runoff, by which time their runoff opponents – Mike Siegel and Candace Valenzuela – may have also topped that mark. Of course, right now is kind of a lousy time to be raising money, so hold that thought for a minute. We’re at a point where it’s basically routine for everyone to pile up big money-raised numbers, so let me note that the thing that stands out here is the amount that some of these candidates have spent. It’s more than a little mind-boggling that four candidates so far have spent over a million bucks, and some people, even the big moneybags, have left themselves a bit bereft in the cash-on-hand department. I’m glad to see both CD31 candidates finally start to get on the board, but that’s quite the hole Christine Eady Mann left herself in cash-wise. I’m going to do a separate post with a direct comparison to April 2018 later, but let’s put a pin in that. We don’t know what the fundraising environment is going to be like over the next few months. Dems benefited from a lot of Congressional cash in 2018. We had every reason to believe the same thing would happen this year as of the last report, but that was in the Before Times. Now, who knows?

We can take a little peek at how the fundraising environment may be. Everyone had to report their totals as of February 22 as well, thanks to the March primary. So here’s a look at how the Raised totals varied from January to April:


Dist Candidate         Jan01      Feb22      Apr01
==================================================
Sen  Hegar         3,225,842  3,864,201  4,830,038
Sen  West            956,593  1,134,953  1,363,387

07   Fletcher      2,339,444  2,481,687  3,375,004
32   Allred        2,370,113  2,577,348  2,370,113

02   Ladjevardian    407,781    660,853  1,133,296
03   McCaffity       267,288    308,240    387,506
03   Seikaly         109,870    173,031    252,591
06   Daniel          148,655    179,330    196,861
10   Siegel          451,917    527,802    664,291
10   Gandhi          786,107    869,277  1,011,877
21   Davis         1,850,589  2,186,063  3,047,765
22   Kulkarni      1,149,783  1,246,943  1,564,263
23   Ortiz Jones   2,481,192  2,684,696  3,310,358
24   Olson           861,905    967,032  1,231,183
24   Valenzuela      333,007    442,351    647,105
25   Oliver          325,091    387,523    464,623
31   Mann            170,759    198,783    277,815

Donna Imam did not have a February 22 total when I went looking for these numbers, so I omitted her from this table. Honestly, it doesn’t look like there was much of a slowdown in March, which is what I had been afraid of. Hell, Wendy Davis raised nearly a million bucks just in the last five weeks of the period. With the primaries over, the federal contribution limits get reset, so I think Davis and at least a couple other candidates who emerged victorious reaped a benefit from becoming the official nominee. Certainly Sima Ladjevardian and Gina Ortiz Jones took in a decent haul in the latter half of the filing period. Julie Oliver and Stephen Daniel did not get such a boost, however. I don’t have much more to say about this, I was just curious about how this went. We’ll see what the next quarter brings. As always, let me know what you think.

Does getting to 40% make you likely to win the runoff?

Mar 15th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Anna Eastman

I was talking with some fellow political nerds last week, and one of the topics was the forthcoming runoffs. As is usually the case, this year we have some runoffs between candidates who finished fairly close together in round one, and some in which one candidate has a clear lead based on the initial election. The consensus we had was that candidates in the latter category, especially those who topped 40% on Super Tuesday, are basically locks to win in May. The only counter-example we could think of off the tops of our heads was Borris Miles beating Al Edwards, who had been at 48%, in the 2006 runoff for HD146.

So, later on I spent a few minutes on the Secretary of State election archive pages, looking through past Democratic primary results and tracking those where the leader had more than forty percent to see who went on to win in the runoff. Here’s what I found:

2018

Winners – CD03, CD10, CD23, CD31, Governor, SD17,
Losers – CD27, HD37, HD45, HD64, HD109*, HD133*

2016

Winners – CD15, HD27
Losers – SBOE6

2014

Winners – Senate, SBOE13
Losers – HD105

2012
Winners – CD34, HD95, HD137
Losers – CD23*, SBOE2

2010
Winners – CD10, HD76*

2008
Winners – CD32, RRC

2006
Winners – Senate, Lt Gov, HD42, HD47*
Losers – HD146

In each of the cited races, the leading candidate had at least 40% of the primary vote. Races that have asterisks indicate that the runnerup also had at least 40%. As you can see, up until 2018, having forty percent or more in the primary was indeed a pretty good indicator of success in overtime. The last cycle provided quite a few counterexamples, however, including one incumbent (Rene Oliveira, who had been busted for a DWI earlier) who went down. So maybe 40% isn’t such a magical number, or maybe it’s harder now than it was before 2012. Or maybe this is just a really small sample and we should be careful about drawing broad conclusions from it.

Fortunately, we have quite a few races this year to add to this sample:

CD03 – Lulu Seikaly 44.5%, Sean McCaffity 43.8%
CD10 – Mike Siegel 44.0%, Pritesh Gandhi 33.1%
CD13 – Gus Trujillo 42.2%, Greg Sagan 34.7%
CD17 – Rick Kennedy 47.9%, David Jaramillo 35.0%
CD24 – Kim Olson 40.9%, Candace Valenzuela 30.4%
SBOE6 – Michelle Palmer 46.8%, Kimberly McLeod 34.6%
SD19 – Xochil Pena Rodriguez 43.7%, Roland Gutierrez 37.3%
SD27 – Eddie Lucio 49.8%, Sara Stapleton-Barrera 35.6%
HD119 – Liz Campos 46.1%, Jennifer Ramos 43.7%
HD138 – Akilah Bacy 46.7, Jenifer Pool 29.3%
HD142 – Harold Dutton 45.2%, Jerry Davis 25.3%
HD148 – Anna Eastman 41.6%, Penny Shaw 22.1%
138th District Court – Gabby Garcia 48.0%, Helen Delgadillo 31.0%
164th District Court – Cheryl Elliott Thornton 41.3%, Alexandra Smoots-Thomas 33.1%

I’ll be sure to do an update in May, when we can see if the leading candidates mostly held serve or not. Place your bets.

Runoff roundup

Mar 7th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Here, as best as I can determine, are the runoffs of interest for May:

US Senate – MJ Hegar versus Royce West

CD02 – Sima Ladjevardian versus Elisa Cardnell
CD03 – Lulu Seikaly versus Sean McCaffity
CD10 – Mike Siegel versus Pritesh Gandhi
CD17 – Rick Kennedy versus David Jaramillo (D), Pete Sessions versus Renee Swann (R)
CD22 – Troy Nehls versus Kathaleen Wall (R)
CD23 – Tony Gonzales versus Raul Reyes (R)
CD24 – Kim Olson versus Candace Valenzuela
CD31 – Christine Eady Mann versus Donna Imam

Note that Wendy Davis (CD21), Sri Kulkarni (CD22), Gina Ortiz Jones (CD23), and on the Republican side Wesley Hunt (CD07) all won outright. I skipped a couple of Republican runoffs in safe D districts, because life is short.

Railroad Commissioner – Chrysta Castaneda versus Roberto Alonzo

SBOE5 – Robert Morrow versus Lani Popp (R, wackadoo versus what passes for normal)
SBOE6 – Michelle Palmer versus Kimberley McLeod

SD19 – Xochil Peña Rodriguez versus Roland Gutierrez
SD27 – Eddie Lucio versus Sara Stapleton-Barrera

Didn’t mention this yesterday, but Susan Criss prevailed in SD11.

HD02 – Dan Flynn versus Bryan Slaton (R)
HD25 – Ro’Vin Garrett versus Cody Vasut (R, this is Dennis Bonnen’s old seat)
HD26 – Suleman Lalani versus Sarah DeMerchant (D), Matt Morgan versus Jacey Jetton (R)
HD45 – Carrie Isaac versus Kent Wymore (R)
HD47 – Jennifer Fleck versus Don Zimmerman (R)
HD59 – Shelby Slawson versus JD Sheffield (R)
HD60 – Jon Francis versus Glenn Rogers (R)
HD67 – Tom Adair versus Lorenzo Sanchez
HD100 – Lorraine Birabil versus Jasmine Crockett
HD119 – Liz Campos versus Jennifer Ramos
HD138 – Akilah Bacy versus Jenifer Pool
HD142 – Harold Dutton versus Jerry Davis
HD148 – Anna Eastman versus Penny Shaw

Note that in that HD47 primary, one (1) vote separates second and third place, according to the Travis County Clerk. I assume there will be a recount, and even before then late-arriving mail ballots could change this. In the event of an actual tie, there will be a coin flip to determine who goes to the runoff. I’m rooting so hard for that outcome, you guys.

In the HD67 primary, 63 votes separate Lorenzo Sanchez and Rocio Gosewehr Hernandez, or 0.3 percentage points. I would expect a recount there as well, but with a far lesser chance of affecting the outcome.

Lorraine Birabil was the winner of the special election in HD100 to fill out the unexpired term of Eric Johnson, who is now Mayor of Dallas. Anna Eastman was the winner of the special election in HD148 to succeed Jessica Farrar.

14th Court of Appeals, Place 7 – Tamika Craft versus Cheri Thomas

164th District Court – Cheryl Elliott Thornton versus Alex Smoots-Thomas
339th Criminal Court – Te’iva Bell versus Candance White

County Commissioner, Precinct 3 – Diana Martinez Alexander versus Michael Moore

Moore was leading most of the night, but Alexander caught and passed him as final results came in. I don’t care to go through the various Constable and JP races, but the good Jerry Garcia was leading problematic incumbent Chris Diaz going into the Precinct 2 Constable runoff.

Whatever turnout there will be in the runoffs will be driven primarily by the Dem Senate race and the Congressional races on both sides. Won’t be much, but it ought to be a bit more than usual, and surely more on the D side if there were no Senate runoff.

2020 primary results: Senate and Congress

Mar 4th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

In the US Senate primary, MJ Heger is clearly headed to the runoff. It’s less clear who’s in second place, in part because the statewide results are so out of date on both the Trib and SOS pages. As of this draft, these pages show Royce West trailing Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez by three points, with 64,041 votes cast for him. However, as of the same time, the Dallas County election results show West with 58,873 votes, just in Dallas. Suffice it to say, the statewide results are not up to date. My guess is that West finishes second, but check back later.

For Congress:

– Sima Ladjevardian was close to 50% in CD02 after early voting, but slipped back a bit from there and will be in the runoff with Elisa Cardnell.

– Mike Siegel was leading in CD10 as far as I could tell, but it’s not clear who he’ll face in the runoff.

– Sri Kulkarni appears to be over 50% in CD22. I very much hope that race ended last night.

– Wendy Davis (CD21) and Gina Ortiz Jones (CD23) were winning easily, and Julie Oliver (CD25) was also headed to victory. Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela were basically tied in CD24 and will face off in May, as will Sean McCaffity and Lulu Seikaly in CD03. Christine Eady Mann and Donna Imam made the cut in CD31. Elizabeth Hernandez appeared to be leading Laura Jones in CD08.

– Henry Cuellar seems to have held on in CD28, and on the Republican side Kay Granger was doing the same in CD12. So Republicans will still have at least one female member of Congress from Texas.

– Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green won easily against their challengers.

– Pete Sessions will be in the runoff in CD17, and Troy Nehls gets to face Kathaleen Wall and her millions of dollars in CD22. I pity everyone who will have to suffer through the TV commercials.

One more of these to go.

UPDATE: The Chron says it’s Mike Siegel and Pritesh Gandhi in the CD10 runoff, with Shannon Hutcheson finishing third. That’s a rare failure for a female candidate in any Dem primary from this year.

January 2020 campaign finance reports: Congress

Feb 7th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

The big ones for this cycle the Q4 2019 Congressional finance reports. For the last time, we have new candidates joining the list, and a couple of folks dropping out. Let’s do the thing and see where we are going into 2020. The January 2019 roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle, the April 2019 report is here, the July 2019 report is here, and the October 2020 report is here. For comparison, the October 2017 report is here. The FEC summary page for Congress is here and for the Senate is here.

MJ Hegar – Senate
Chris Bell – Senate
Amanda Edwards – Senate
Royce West – Senate
Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez – Senate
Sema Hernandez – Senate
Adrian Ocegueda – Senate
Michael Cooper – Senate
Jack Foster – Senate
Anne Garcia – Senate
John Love – Senate (did not file for the primary)

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessia Cisneros – CD28

Hank Gilbert – CD01
Elisa Cardnell – CD02
Travis Olsen – CD02
Sima Ladjevardian – CD02
Sean McCaffity – CD03
Tanner Do – CD03
Lulu Seikaly – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Elizabeth Hernandez – CD08
Laura Jones – CD08
Mike Siegel – CD10
Pritesh Gandhi – CD10
Shannon Hutcheson – CD10

Adrienne Bell – CD14
Rick Kennedy – CD17
William Foster – CD17
David Jaramillo – CD17
Jennie Lou Leeder – CD21
Wendy Davis – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Nyanza Moore – CD22
Derrick Reed – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Rosey Ramos Abuabara – CD23
Jaime Escuder – CD23
Ricardo Madrid – CD23
Efrain Valdez – CD23

Jan McDowell – CD24
Kim Olson – CD24
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
John Biggan – CD24
Richard Fleming – CD24
Sam Vega – CD24
Crystal Lee Fletcher – CD24 (suspended campaign)
Julie Oliver – CD25
Heidi Sloan – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Mat Pruneda – CD26
Christine Eady Mann – CD31
Dan Jangigian – CD31
Eric Hanke – CD31
Donna Imam – CD31
Michael Grimes – CD31
Tammy Young – CD31


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Hegar         3,225,842  2,269,671        0  1,003,653       
Sen   Bell            318,983    310,983        0      8,000
Sen   Edwards         807,478    476,485   30,000    330,993
Sen   West            956,593    430,887  202,162    525,706
Sen   T-Ramirez       807,023    577,782        0    229,240
Sen   Hernandez         7,551      7,295        0      3,891
Sen   Ocegueda          5,773      5,273    5,600        500
Sen   Cooper            4,716      2,598       41       -660
Sen   Foster            6,957      5,604        0      1,353
Sen   Garcia           10,000      6,058   22,844      3,941
Sen   Love             31,533     27,610        0      3,922

07    Fletcher      2,339,444    544,518        0  1,836,992
32    Allred        2,370,113    555,774        0  1,917,783  

28    Cuellar       1,530,976  1,140,095        0  2,935,884
28    Cisneros        982,031    366,588        0    615,442

01    Gilbert         107,625     21,733   50,000     85,891
02    Cardnell        284,514    193,910        0     90,603
02    Olsen            29,141     24,271   11,037      4,870 
02    Ladjevardian    407,781     30,035        0    377,746
03    McCaffity       267,288     54,939        0    212,348
03    Do               17,815     17,523        0        291
03    Seikaly         109,870     43,518    3,000     66,351
06    Daniel          148,655    128,989        0     19,665
08    Hernandez
08    Jones             4,250      2,698    1,910      1,552
10    Siegel          451,917    303,847   10,000    151,560
10    Gandhi          786,107    335,354        0    450,752
10    Hutcheson       750,981    295,404        0    455,577
14    Bell             84,724     71,740        0     16,061
17    Kennedy          48,623     38,593   11,953     11,457
17    Foster
17    Jaramillo        14,280        163        0     14,116
21    Leeder           29,112     25,444    9,475      3,662
21    Davis         1,850,589    635,794   18,493  1,214,794
22    Kulkarni      1,149,783    515,958        0    661,592
22    Moore           142,528    141,373   38,526      1,154
22    Reed            142,458    104,196        0     38,261
23    Ortiz Jones   2,481,192    544,523    3,024  2,028,187
23    Abuabara
23    Escuder           8,454      2,985        0        926
23    Madrid
23    Valdez
24    McDowell         67,351     73,140        0      7,531
24    Olson           861,905    357,238   20,000    504,667
24    Valenzuela      333,007    191,231   33,956    141,776
24    Biggan           62,887     58,333   27,084      4,554
24    Fleming          16,813     16,414      300        398
24    Vega
24    Fletcher        122,427     35,099      823     87,327
25    Oliver          325,091    195,265    2,644    129,826
25    Sloan           136,461     54,257        0     82,204
26    Ianuzzi          72,607     56,912   42,195     15,695
26    Pruneda          30,117     15,546   16,000     16,935
31    Mann            170,759    126,616        0     45,580
31    Jangigian        36,127     27,383   14,681      8,743
31    Hanke            46,390     35,111        0     11,278
31    Imam            207,531     20,461  100,000    187,070
31    Grimes           15,300          0        0     15,300
31    Young            50,939     14,430        0     36,508

In the Senate primary, there’s MJ Hegar and there’s everyone else. Her totals above understate her lead in the money race, because VoteVets will be spending on her candidacy as well. I would have thought Royce West would have raised more, and I thought Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez might have done better as well, but here we are. I do think the eventual nominee will be able to raise plenty of money, and will likely get some national help as well. For sure, we know Hegar is on the DSCC’s list; whether that transfers to someone else if she falls short remains to be seen.

I’ve expressed some skepticism about Jessica Cisneros in her primary against incumbent Henry Cuellar, but she’s proven she can raise money – in fact, she outraised him for this quarter, though obviously Cuellar still has a big cash on hand advantage. I can’t say I’ve ever been enthusiastic about her candidacy – she seemed awfully green at the beginning, and as someone who had moved back to Laredo to run this race she didn’t strike me as the kind of candidate that could give him a serious challenge. But man, Cuellar is a jackass, and I’m sure that’s helped her in the fundraising department. He’s also now got some national money coming in, which suggests at least a little case of the nerves. This is the marquee race that’s not in Harris County for me, though I will reiterate what I said before about taking out Cuellar versus taking out Eddie Lucio.

Sima Ladjevardian made a big splash in CD02, and around the same time as her announcement of her Q4 haul the DCCC put CD02 on its target list, adding it to the six other seats (CDs 10, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 31) that were already there. I assume the two are related, though Elisa Cardnell keeps chugging along.

Even though there was a long history of Democratic challengers to Republican Congressmen not raising any money, we all got used to the idea of our candidates breaking records and putting up very impressive totals in 2018. Look at the January 2019 summary that I linked to above, which adds it up for the cycle. Even candidates in completely non-competitive districts were topping $100K, even $200K or more. So maybe some of the totals you see here have you a bit jaded, like “oh, sure, we can raise money now, we’re good at that now”. If that’s what you’re thinking – and I don’t blame you, I feel that way too – I invite you to look back at the January 2018 summary, which is the point in time from that cycle that we’re in now. Look in particular at CDs 03, 10, 22, and 24, where candidates this time around have in some cases done better by an order of magnitude than their counterparts – who in some cases were themselves – did two years ago. Look at Julie Oliver in CD25 – she hadn’t even cracked $20K at this point in 2018. We are in such a different world now.

I could go down the list and look at all the race, but you can see the totals. There are no surprises here, in the sense that the candidates you’d expect to do well are indeed doing very well. Only CD31 is underperforming, at least relative to the other districts, but Christine Mann has stepped it up a bit and Donna Imam is willing to throw some of her own money in the pot. With the DCCC jumping into CD02, we’ve already expanded the field, and with the numbers so far it will be easy to expand it further. If this all still feels a little weird to you, I get it. Things were the way they were for a long time. They’re not that way any more, and I for one am glad to adjust to that.

After-deadline filing review: Congress

Dec 12th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

7 comments

Let’s continue our walk through the filings. I’m going to take a look at some of the interesting Congressional races, skipping over the ones we just looked at.

CD01: It’s still not remotely competitive, but I once again want to salute Hank Gilbert for fighting the good fight against the preposterous Louie Gohmert. Seriously, if you saw a character based on Gohmert in a TV show or movie, you’d be complaining about what an insulting and outdated stereotype of a Texan he was. If only. Anyway, Hank’s candidacy is a reminder that good people do exist everywhere, and that Louie Gohmert is also complicit in Trump’s Ukraine-related crimes.

CD03: In the end, Tanner Do did file, joining Sean McCaffity and Lulu Seikaly. Not a top tier race, but on the radar.

CD17: Rick Kennedy is running again. He’s joined in the primary by David Jaramillo and William Foster. If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go pour one out for Chet Edwards.

CD21: It’s Wendy Davis and Jennie Lou Leeder, and that’s it. I’m actually a little surprised no one else jumped in, though the way Davis has been crushing it at fundraising, as well as her name brand, it’s not that surprising.

CD23: Basically, it’s Gina Ortiz Jones and a bunch of people who have not established much of a presence in the race. I do not understand why Rosey Abuabara has not filed a finance report. Liz Wahl, the first person connected with CD23 this cycle, did not file.

CD24: We’re familiar with the main players in this group – Kim Olson, Candace Valenzuela, Crystal Fletcher, Jan McDowell, John Biggan. I still feel like we could have won this seat last year with a stronger nominee. As long as we avoid that mistake this time, we should have a great shot at it now.

CD25: Julie Oliver and Heidi Sloan, and that’s it. Another not-top-tier race, but still one to watch.

CD31: All five of the people mentioned here, plus one more, filed. I would really like to see at least one of them post a strong Q4 finance report.

Incumbents: We know about the challenges to Reps. Al Green and Sheila Jackson Lee, and of course the Henry Cuellar/Jessica Cisneros matchup is the marquee attraction. Other incumbents who face primary opponents: Joaquin Castro (CD20, two opponents), Eddie Bernice Johnson (CD30, three opponents), Marc Veasey (CD33, one opponent), Filemon Vela (CD34, two opponents), and Lloyd Doggett (CD35, one opponent). I do not expect any of them to have any trouble. All other Dem incumbents are unopposed in March.

Other races: None of these outside-the-Houston-area districts are competitive, but they all have contested primaries anyway: CDs 12, 13, 14, 26, 27. They contain a mix of new and repeat candidates. Godspeed to them all.

Next up, state offices (may break that into two posts), and judicial races. Let me know what you think.

October 2019 campaign finance reports: Congress

Nov 5th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Moving on to the Q3 FEC reports, we again have new candidates making their appearance. The January roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle, the April report is here, and the July report is here. For comparison, the October 2017 report is here. The FEC summary page for Congress is here and for the Senate is here.

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessia Cisneros – CD28

Hank Gilbert – CD01
Elisa Cardnell – CD02
Sean McCaffity – CD03
Tanner Do – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Mike Siegel – CD10
Pritesh Gandhi – CD10
Shannon Hutcheson – CD10
Rick Kennedy – CD17
Jennie Lou Leeder – CD21
Wendy Davis – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Nyanza Moore – CD22
Derrick Reed – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Liz Wahl – CD23
Rosey Ramos Abuabara – CD23
Jan McDowell – CD24
Kim Olson – CD24
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
Crystal Lee Fletcher – CD24
John Biggan – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Heidi Sloan – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Christine Eady Mann – CD31
Murray Holcomb – CD31
Dan Jangigian – CD31
Eric Hanke – CD31
Donna Imam – CD31


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Hegar         2,058,080  1,211,904        0    893,657       
Sen   Bell            206,629     94,894   10,000    111,734
Sen   Edwards         557,430    219,645        0    337,785
Sen   West            347,546    172,926  202,162    376,782
Sen   T-Ramirez       459,442    233,953        0    225,489
Sen   Hernandez         7,551      7,295        0      3,891
Sen   Ocegueda          1,048        262      900        786
Sen   Cooper

07    Fletcher      1,789,359    391,448        0  1,439,978
32    Allred        1,705,723    355,711        0  1,453,457  

28    Cuellar       1,099,758    400,328        0  3,244,434
28    Cisneros        465,026    173,329        0    291,697

02    Cardnell        177,733    115,886        0     61,847
03    McCaffity       155,404      7,080        0    148,324
03    Do               16,947     15,725        0      1,221
06    Daniel          111,009     70,409        0     40,600
10    Siegel          355,691    207,532   20,000    161,650
10    Gandhi          527,967    209,989        0    317,978
10    Hutcheson       534,515    161,665    4,000    372,850
17    Kennedy          31,298     15,079   11,953     17,646
21    Leeder           15,697     14,509        0      1,188
21    Davis           940,581    336,645    8,863    603,936
22    Kulkarni        817,139    299,219        0    545,687
22    Moore           112,311    102,863   12,915      9,447
22    Reed            114,137     60,268        0     53,868
23    Ortiz Jones   1,652,739    303,861        0  1,440,396
23    Wahl              9,000      6,521    1,000      2,478
23    Abuabara
24    McDowell         57,515     52,519        0     18,316
24    Olson           567,394    241,708   20,000    325,685
24    Valenzuela      201,377     92,814        0    108,563
24    Fletcher        122,427     35,099      823     87,327
24    Biggan           45,893     35,999   13,834      9,894
25    Oliver          223,417     75,836    2,644    147,580
25    Sloan            56,043     23,125        0     32,918
26    Ianuzzi          67,828     35,539   47,604     32,288
31    Mann             95,449     58,685        0     38,200
31    Holcomb          66,610     57,770        0      8,840
31    Jangigian        23,265      2,248    1,500     21,016
31    Hanke            18,302      9,098        0      9,203
31    Imam             60,441      7,088        0     53,353

There’s a lot here – so much that it’s taken me this long to post, and so much that I thought about splitting this into two separate posts – but let’s start with the Senate candidates. MJ Hegar has been in the race the longest, and she has raised the most, matching her performance from the previous quarter. All the other candidates (save for the low-profile no-hope types, and hey isn’t it nice to finally see Sema Hernandez file a finance report?) entered during Q3 and their finance reports can be graded on a curve as a result. That said, time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking, and John Cornyn keeps on raising piles of money, so everyone needs to kick it up a notch or two. It was nice that every candidate at the Texas Signal candidate forum was asked about their path to victory, but raising money is a key part of that, even if it is a tacky subject to bring up. We’re going to need to see a lot more in the January reports.

Incumbents Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred are doing what they need to do. Their potential Republican opponents are raising a bunch of money, but they’re staying ahead of them, which they need to keep doing. Jessica Cisneros has done well in her challenge to Henry Cuellar, who is made of money, and she is getting some national press for her efforts. I still don’t know how much either money or national attention will mean in this race, but I do know that if she does win, it will be a very big deal and will make a lot of Dem incumbents look over their shoulders.

There are a number of new names on this report. Hank Gilbert is not going to win in CD01 because it’s a 70%+ Trump district, but Hank is a mensch and Louie Gohmert is a death eater from a hell dimension, so the least I can do is note that Hank is taking on the thankless task of challenging Gohmert. We noted last time that Lorie Burch has ended her campaign in CD03, and now several others have stepped in. Sean McCaffity, who is off to a strong fundraising start, and Tanner Do have reports for this quarter, and they will have company next time. Chris Suprun, whom you may remember as one of the wannabe faithless electors from 2016, has entered the race. He had also run in the CD27 special election last year, and had a brush with the voter ID law before that. Plano attorney Lulu Seikaly is also in the race, and I apologize to her for making her follow that.

Elsewhere in new candidates, Heidi Sloan has entered the race in CD25. Julie Oliver, the nominee from 2018, is well ahead of her fundraising pace from that year, so we’ll see how that goes. There are now a bunch of candidates in CD31, though I can tell you now that that article from August is out of date. I’ll have more on that in a separate post. Among the newcomers here are Dan Jangigian, Eric Hanke, and Donna Imam. Jangigian may have the most interesting resume of any Congressional candidate in recent memory – he’s a onetime Olympic bobsledder, and acted in the legendary bad movie The Room. He was subsequently portrayed in the movie The Disaster Artist, the movie about the guy who made The Room, by Zac Efron. And now he’s running for Congress. What have you done with your life?

A more familiar candidate making her first appearance here is Wendy Davis, who took in nearly a million bucks for CD21. That’s one of several top target races where there’s a clear frontrunner, at least as far as fundraising goes, which is a change from 2018 when most of the hotter primaries had the money more widely dispersed. Gina Ortiz Jones did even better, topping $1.6 million already. Rosey Abubara, who I thought might give her a challenge, has not filed a report. Candace Valenzuela and Crystal Fletcher have raised a few bucks in CD24, but Kim Olson is well ahead of them both, while Sri Kulkarni is lapping the field in CD22. The exception is in CD10, where all three candidates are doing well, but 2018 nominee Mike Siegel is a step behind Pritesh Gandhi and Shannon Hutcheson.

Rounding up the rest, Elisa Cardnell stepped it up in CD02, but faces a steep challenge as Dan Crenshaw is one of the biggest fundraisers in Congress now. Stephen Daniel is doing all right in CD06. I know their totals don’t look like that much compared to some of these other folks, but remember how much time we spent in 2018 talking about how rare it was for any Democratic challenger to raise as much as $100K for an entire cycle? We’ve come a long way. And I’m still hoping for either Rick Kennedy to start doing more in CD17 or for someone else to jump in, even if that race is a big longshot. The Quorum Report made my heart flutter with a teaser about a poll testing former CD17 Rep. Chet Edwards against carpetbagger Pete Sessions. I don’t know if this is a real thing or just someone’s idea of a cool thought experiment, but I’d be all in on another run by Edwards. We’ll see if there’s anything to it.

Try, try again

Sep 8th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

A lot of women ran for office as Democrats in 2018. A lot of them won, and a lot of them who didn’t win are trying again.

[Gina Ortiz Jones isn’t] the only woman who’s back for a second round.

In April, MJ Hegar, who got within three points of defeating U.S. Representative John Carter, an eight-term incumbent in a deep-red district north of Austin, announced she would challenge U.S. Senator John Cornyn. Julie Oliver, who lost Texas’ 25th Congressional District to three-term Republican Roger Williams, despite cutting a 21-point spread down to just under nine, is also running again. So is Kim Olson, the Democratic challenger who lost to Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller. This time she’s running to represent Texas’ 24th Congressional District, which spans the suburbs of Dallas and Fort Worth.

At least six Democratic women who lost their bids for the Texas Legislature in 2018 are running again in 2020, says Monica Gomez, the political director at Annie’s List, a political action committee that supports progressive women running for state and local office in Texas. Two more are coming back to run for different seats. “We haven’t seen this kind of rededication to running again in Texas since Annie’s List was founded in 2003,” Gomez says. She estimates that in the organization’s history, a total of 10 candidates have run again after a loss. “So eight in one cycle is a very large increase.”

The record-breaking number of first-time female candidates who ran for office in 2018 led to a record-breaking number of first-time female officeholders: 127 women now serve in Congress, the most ever and a 23-seat increase from 2017. Despite these gains, women remain grossly underrepresented in public office at every level. Women hold 24 percent of seats in the 116th U.S. Congress and 29 percent of statewide executive positions across the country. Texas sends 38 people to Congress; in 2019, only six of them are women. In the Texas Legislature, women hold 43 of 181 seats, or 24 percent—five points lower than the national average.

Why are women persistently underrepresented in politics? Over the past decade, a body of research has established that when women run, they win elections at the same rate as men. Melanie Wasserman, an economist at UCLA who studies occupational segregation by gender, wanted to learn more. So in 2018 she analyzed the political trajectories of more than 11,000 candidates over two decades in local California elections, focusing on how candidates responded after losing an election. She found that women were 56 percent less likely than men to run again after a loss, noting what she called a “gender gap in persistence.”

“If I make the assumption that the candidates who drop out have similar chances of winning as those that run again, then the gender gap in persistence can explain quite a lot of the gender gap in officeholding,” Wasserman told the Observer. “It would increase female representation among officeholders at the local level by 17 percent.”

In other words, perhaps we should be paying more attention to the losers—the women who run, lose, and choose to run again.

I’ve discussed some repeat Congressional candidates before; several of the second-shot brigade are men as well. The candidates mentioned in this story are:

MJ Hegar (Senate, previously CD31)
Gina Ortiz Jones (CD23)
Kim Olson (CD24, previously Ag Commissioner)
Julie Oliver (CD25)
Sarah DeMerchant (HD26)
Joanna Cattanach (HD108)

Others for Congress that could have been mentioned:

Jennie Lou Leeder (CD21, previously CD11)
Adrienne Bell (CD14)
Jan McDowell (CD24)
Christine Eady Mann (CD31)

As for the other legislative candidates, I’d say Eliz Markowitz (SBOE in 2018, HD28 in 2020) counts, and it looks like Natali Hurtado is doing it again in HD126. That leaves four more, going by Monica Gomez’s math, and I have no idea who they may be. Please leave a comment if you do know.

Not all of these candidates will make it to November, of course. All except Markowitz and Hurtado have at least one primary opponent as far as I can tell. McDowell and Olson are running for the same seat (with others in the mix as well), Leeder is unlikely to make it past Wendy Davis, and of course Hegar is in a pleasantly crowded field. I’ve been idly wondering if she might do what some had been crying for Beto to do and get back into the race she’d run last time, in CD31 where no other candidates of her stature have emerged yet. I doubt it – she’s still a strong contender for the Senate nom, and if anyone else has had the same thought as I have, I’ve not seen them express it – but anything is possible up till the filing deadline. DeMerchant will face off against Suleman Lalani and Rish Oberoi, while Cattanach has Shawn Terry. Point being, there are still more chapters of this story to be written. The next one will be out in December.

UPDATE: Forgot about Sema Hernandez for the federal races. Still don’t know who the other four repeat legislative candidates are.

UPDATE: I have been informed about a couple of “try again”-ers for this year. Brandy Chambers (HD112) and Celina Montoya (HD121) are both repeat candidates from 2018. Ann Johnson (HD134) ran in 2012 and is running again.

Marchant joins the exodus

Aug 6th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

The line at the door keeps growing.

Rep. Kenny Marchant

U.S. Rep. Kenny Marchant will not seek reelection in 2020, two sources confirmed to The Texas Tribune late Sunday.

He is the fourth member of the Texas delegation to announce his retirement in recent days. Marchant’s decision was first reported by The New York Times.

Marchant, who was elected to Congress in 2004, is a founding member of the House Tea Party Caucus. He represents Texas’ 24th Congressional District, which spans the northern suburbs of Forth Worth and Dallas. The district has historically been reliably red, but Marchant’s margins of victory have grown thinner in recent elections. In 2016, he won by a comfortable two-digit margin. Last year, Marchant squeaked by with a 3 point win over Democrat Jan McDowell.

[…]

The senior representative joins an exodus of Texas Republicans, including U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, U.S. Rep. Mike Conaway, and U.S. Rep. Will Hurd. In several cases, members have stepped down ahead of facing toss-up races for seats they could once hold without much effort.

As you may recall, the Politico story that ran the day before Will Hurd’s retirement announcement named Marchant and Rep. Mike McCaul in CD10 as rumored leavers. They’re one for two so far. As we know, Beto carried CD24, and it’s entirely possible that a better candidate might have already sent him packing. Be that as it may, there are multiple candidates running now, with Kim Olson, Crystal Fletcher, and Candace Valenzuela all doing well in fundraising. As with CDs 22 and 23, I don’t expect Marchant’s quitting to have much effect on the Democratic field – this was already a top tier race, and people were already drawn to it. I do expect a scramble on the Republican side, but we’ll leave that for another day.

One final note about Marchant, whose statement is here. Like Mike Conaway, he was the beneficiary of a district drawn just for him in the 2003 DeLay re-redistricting. They don’t draw ’em like they used to, I guess. In the meantime, we’ll keep an eye on Mike McCaul and any other potential retirees out there. Daily Kos has more.

UPDATE: Also from dKos:

Team Red still has a large bench here despite the changing political winds, and they quickly got their first candidate when former Irving Mayor Beth Van Duyne, who resigned from her post at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on Friday, told the Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek that she was in. Van Duyne had been mentioned as a candidate for the nearby 32nd district, but that seat contains none of her Irving base.

There are several other Republicans who could run here including the congressman’s son, former Carrollton Mayor Matthew Marchant. The younger Marchant said Mondayhe was “[g]etting a lot of encouragement, but I’m focusing on my dad’s years of service today.” Former GOP state Rep. Matt Rinaldi also didn’t rule anything out, saying he’d “received numerous calls asking me to consider running but haven’t yet made a decision either way.” Last year, Rinaldi lost the general election by a brutal 57-43 margin in a seat that backed Clinton 52-44.

The National Journal also name drops former state Rep. Ron Simmons and state Sen. Jane Nelson as possible contenders. However, former state Sen. Konni Burton quickly said no.

Should be a fun primary on their side.

July 2019 campaign finance reports: Congress

Jul 22nd, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

Let’s move over to Congress and the Senate, where there are several new candidates, with more on the way. The January roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle, and the April report is here. For comparison, the July 2017 report is here. The FEC summary page is here.

MJ Hegar – Senate
Chris Bell – Senate
Amanda Edwards – Senate
Sema Hernandez – Senate
Adrian Ocegueda – Senate
Michael Cooper – Senate

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessia Cisneros – CD28

Elisa Cardnell – CD02
Lori Burch – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Mike Siegel – CD10
Pritesh Gandhi – CD10
Shannon Hutcheson – CD10
Jennie Lou Leeder – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Nyanza Moore – CD22
Derrick Reed – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Liz Wahl – CD23
Rosey Ramos Abuabara – CD23
Jan McDowell – CD24
Kim Olson – CD24
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
Crystal Lee Fletcher – CD24
John Biggan – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Christine Eady Mann – CD31
Murray Holcomb – CD31


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Hegar         1,029,038    481,087        0    595,433       
Sen   Bell
Sen   Edwards
Sen   Hernandez
Sen   Ocegueda            638         15      500        623
Sen   Cooper

07    Fletcher      1,149,351    245,963        0    945,455
32    Allred        1,122,389    250,636        0    975,198  

28    Cuellar         722,816    243,234        0  3,024,586
28    Cisneros        147,266     21,799        0    125,466

02    Cardnell         77,407     42,968        0     34,439
03    Burch            46,595     45,690   19,649          0
06    Daniel
10    Siegel          246,978    108,466   30,000    142,003
10    Gandhi          342,539     78,308        0    264,230
10    Hutcheson       324,312     47,984        0    276,327
21    Leeder           10,864      7,202        0      3,657
22    Kulkarni        420,824    103,170        0    345,421
22    Moore            73,705     68,118    5,500      5,586
22    Reed
23    Ortiz Jones     587,527     82,359        0    596,686
23    Wahl              7,399      3,473    1,000      3,926
23    Abuabara
24    McDowell         40,036     31,500        0     21,856
24    Olson           303,218    103,267   24,500    199,950
24    Valenzuela       81,728     51,557        0     30,171
24    Fletcher        105,930      5,370        0    100,560
24    Biggan           24,407     23,422    9,134        984
25    Oliver          121,508     12,966    2,664    108,542
26    Ianuzzi          57,883     26,228   40,886     31,654
31    Mann             42,305     20,648        0     23,094
31    Holcomb          36,225      6,892        0     29,332

This was drafted before Amanda Edwards and Sen. Royce West announced their entries. Edwards now has an FEC link but hasn’t done any reporting yet. She can’t transfer money from her City Council campaign account as noted before, but can refund money to her donors and ask them to redirect it to her Senate campaign. West has $1.4 million in his state campaign account. I’m pretty sure he can use that money for the federal election, which puts him into the top spot in the money race for now. MJ Hegar’s million-dollar haul would be great for another Congressional run, but it’s no great shakes for a statewide contest. She wasn’t in for the whole quarter, though, so let’s see how she does now. Chris Bell was raising some money via an exploratory committee before he made his entry official, but I can’t figure out how to find that data. Sema Hernandez, who has now been a candidate for Senate in two election cycles, still does not have an FEC report filed from either cycle. That’s despite having a a donation link that goes to ActBlue, which provides all required contribution information to candidates every reporting period. For those of you who may wonder why I never bother to mention her when I write about the Senate race, now you know why. I’ll think about taking her candidacy seriously when she does the same.

Freshman Reps. Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred are doing what they need to do, though Fletcher may need to step it up further as her opponents are more active so far than Allred’s are. I’m really curious about the primary fight in CD28. Rep. Henry Cuellar clearly knows how to raise money, and he’s already sitting on a big pile, but Jessica Cisneros took in that $147K in only four weeks’ time. I think she’ll have bigger challenges than financial ones, but at least she’ll have the resources to run a real campaign.

Including Wendy Davis in CD21, there are four Congressional candidates who are new or new to me: Derrick Reed, Pearland City Council member, running in CD22; Crystal Fletcher, attorney, in CD24; and Murray Holcomb, surgeon, in CD31. Reed entered in July, so he has no report. Fletcher posted some nice numbers in CD24, in a field with some strong candidates. Holcomb only started raising money on June 12, so that’s not bad at all for less than three weeks. Christine Mann is the experienced candidate in CD31, but keep an eye on Murray Holcomb. It’s very possible that the DCCC or other groups are still recruiting for that race, but it looks like we may have a contender.

Overall, things look pretty good from a Dem perspective. Gina Jones picked right up where she left off in CD23, raising that amount in about half of the allotted time period. Rosey Abuabara may provide a challenge to her, but so far at least the field she faces looks less fierce than it was last year. Sri Kulkarni and Kim Olson are off to roaring starts, with Candace Valenzuela and newcomer Crystal Fletcher doing all right. I don’t know how Nyanza Moore managed to spend nearly all the money she raised, but that’s not a sustainable pace. CD10 is looking a bit like CD07 did in 2018, and that’s with newcomers Pritesh Gandhi and Shannon Hutcheson outdoing holdover Mike Siegel. Julie Oliver and CD25 aren’t on any watch list, but that’s a better haul than she had in any quarter in the last cycle, so good on her. Elisa Cardnell isn’t getting the traction Todd Litton got, but I have hope that she’ll start to take off.

On the flip side, I have no idea what Lorie Burch is doing in CD03. She raised very little and spent most of what she had this period. I hope that’s a temporary situation. I was really wishing for more from Jennie Lou Leeder in CD21. I always wanted Wendy Davis to jump in, but having a strong alternate option, not to mention a reason to start working now, was appealing. We’ll have to wait and see how Stephen Daniel does in CD06, and while Murray Holcomb is off to a nice enough start I’d still like to see someone really break out in CD31. We have the targets, we need to be aiming at all of them.

The repeat Congressional candidates

Jun 3rd, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The Trib looks at how the key 2020 Democratic Congressional campaigns are shaping up. Short answer: There are a number of repeat candidates from 2018.

Mike Siegel

The situation in the 24th District is emblematic of a broader trend across the state. As national Democrats zero in on Texas as the linchpin of their 2020 strategy, the primaries are filling up with a mix of candidates who ran last time and new entrants encouraged by the post-2018 political landscape.

In four of the six targeted districts, the Democratic nominees from last time are already running again. In a fifth district, the runner up from the Democratic primary is pursuing a rematch.

The primary fields are still taking shape, but one of the early choices they are presenting to primary voters is crystallizing: Should voters stick with the candidate who helped move the needle last cycle or go with someone new to finish the job?

The candidates who are running again seem cognizant of the dynamic. Mike Siegel is making a second bid for the 10th District after coming within 5 percentage points of U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, last year. He said it is a “fair question” for primary voters to ask whether he is ready for the higher stakes this time around.

“I hear that potential criticism, and I’m taking action to show that this campaign is going to fulfill the requirements for a campaign that is a national battleground, that will be tightly contested, where you’re going up against a very well-funded incumbent,” Siegel said.

Siegel entered the 2020 primary in January, 11 months earlier than when he got in the race last time — and he quit his job days later. He raised more in the first quarter this year than he did during the entire 2018 primary. And he said he is working to professionalize his campaign in ways that he was unable to during the last election cycle, when he could not find a campaign manager.

The newcomers in the 10th District include Austin doctor Pritesh Gandhi and Austin lawyer Shannon Hutcheson. Both quickly proved their seriousness, with Gandhi raising about $161,000 within the first month of his candidacy and Hutcheson raking in over $165,000 after just two days as a candidate.

In Marchant’s district, the Democratic field numbered at least half a dozen candidates earlier this year — one has since dropped out. Those remaining include [2018 candidate Jan] McDowell; Kim Olson, the 2018 nominee for agriculture commissioner; John Biggan, the runner-up to McDowell in the 2018 primary for the seat; and Candace Valenzuela, a Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board member.

[…]

There is one targeted primary that bucks the trend — sort of. In the 21st District, where national Democrats are hoping to knock out U.S. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Austin, 2018 Democratic nominee Joseph Kopser made clear early on this cycle that he would not run again. But a 2018 candidate from another congressional district, Jennie Lou Leeder, is running for the 21st District this time, and another not-so-newcomer is considering a campaign: Davis, the 2014 gubernatorial candidate.

A lot of this we already know, but there are a few new bits. My first thought in reading this was “wait, what is that fifth district and who is the candidate?” I emailed author Patrick Svitekl and was informed that it’s CD31, where primary runnerup Christine Eady Mann has officially entered the race. We didn’t get much of an impression of Dr. Mann in 2018 as MJ Hegar kind of dominated the coverage from the beginning, but she raised a few bucks in her short campaign and has a good profile for this race. As with all the other targeted districts I can’t imagine she’ll have the primary to herself, but we’ll see how she does. Assuming MJ Hegar is at the top of the statewide ticket, whoever does run in CD31 ought to get a bit of a turnout bonus, so hopefully she can capitalize on that.

I skipped over paragraphs about CDs 22 and 23, where the former is Sri Kulkarni and Nyanza Moore, and the latter is Gina Ortiz Jones and no others that I know about at this time. I’d seen an announcement on Facebook about Shannon Hutcheson but don’t know anything more about her than what you can find there. John Biggan was the runnerup in the CD24 primary, but as Jan McDowell won it without a runoff that doesn’t mean much. He raised about as much as Christine Mann in a slightly shorter period of time. The really new name for me is Jennie Lou Leeder, who had been the Democratic candidate in CD11 in 2018. The southeast end of CD11 abuts CD21, and Leeder grew up in Llano, which is one of the adjacent counties (she now lives in Austin), so this makes some sense. For sure, CD21 is a very different district, as Beto O’Rourke got all of 21.5% in the deep red CD11. That said, Leeder, a former Chair of the Llano County Democratic Party, raised $85K in this impossible district (basically what Christine Mann and John Biggan raised in their primary races), which in context is pretty amazing. Until and unless Wendy Davis jumps in, she’s the biggest name in that race. And of course, with all these races, one or (probably) more others will enter. In 2018, some topflight challengers entered during Q3. I have a feeling that will be less likely this time, but we’ll see.

This is where I pipe up and note that while they are not currently on the DCCC target list, CDs 02, 03, 06, and 25 are all worth watching and should be competitive based on 2018 results. CD03 (Lorie Burch) and CD25 (Julie Oliver) also feature return candidates; CD02 (Elisa Cardnell) and CD06 (no one that I know of yet) will have new faces. Of the four, CD06 is most likely to slip onto a target list if 2020 is going well, but that first requires a strong candidate, and the other three won’t be far behind. In a really good year, all four will be on the radar if not on an official list. I can’t wait to see what the various models will be saying.

Ortiz Jones 2.0

May 17th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Gina Ortiz Jones is back for another go at CD23.

Gina Ortiz Jones

Gina Ortiz Jones, the Democrat who narrowly lost last year to U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, is running again.

Jones, a former Air Force intelligence officer, launched her long-anticipated 2020 bid Tuesday morning, setting the stage for a rematch in Texas’ most competitive congressional district.

“Last November, I came up a little bit short in my run for Congress — 926 votes — but I’ve never been one to back down because the promise of our country is worth fighting for,” Jones said in a brief video posted to Twitter.

Jones had been expected to run again after her razor-thin loss in November, when she declined to concede for nearly two weeks while all outstanding ballots were counted. Within several weeks of accepting defeat, she informed supporters that she was “very likely” to pursue a rematch.

She is the first major candidate to enter the 2020 Democratic primary in the massive 23rd District, which stretches from San Antonio to El Paso and covers hundreds of miles of Texas-Mexico border. The field already includes Liz Wahl, the former U.S. anchor for Russia Today who quit live on-air in 2014.

This was expected – she kind of never stopped running after her close loss in 2018. The main question I have is how big the primary field will be this time around. In 2018, she had two opponents with establishment backing and fundraising chops, and wound up in the runoff with a Bernie type. Ortiz Jones starts out as the frontrunner, and she was a prodigious fundraiser in the last cycle, but this is a very winnable seat and there will be plenty of support available to whoever the nominee is, so I can’t imagine that Liz Wahl, who hasn’t raised anything yet, will be her main competition. Ortiz Jones herself didn’t get into the CD23 race till Q3 of 2017, so there’s still plenty of time for someone else to emerge. I’ll be very interested to see if she gets a relatively free shot at it.

To recap for the other races of interest:

CD02 – Elisa Cardnell is in.
CD03 – 2018 candidate Lorie Burch is in.
CD06 – I’m not aware of anyone yet. Jana Sanchez hasn’t given any indication she’s running. Ruby Woolridge made an unsuccessful run for Mayor of Arlington this year, which doesn’t mean she can’t or won’t try for this seat again, but does indicate she might have moved on.
CD10 – Mike Siegel and Pritesh Gandhi are in.
CD21 – Joseph Kopser is out, Wendy Davis is thinking about it, I’m not aware of anyone else.
CD22 – Sri Kulkarni and Nyanza Moore are in. Letitia Plummer, who lost the primary runoff to Kulkarni in 2018, is running for Houston City Council this fall. As with Ruby Woolridge, this doesn’t mean she couldn’t shift gears if that doesn’t work out, but she’d be on a tighter turnaround in that case, with the filing deadline in December.
CD24 – Kim Olson, Candace Valenzuela, and Jan McDowell are in.
CD25 – 2018 nominee Julie Oliver is in.
CD31 – MJ Hegar is running for Senate, and I am not aware of anyone else running for this at this time.

If you know of a candidate that I don’t know of, please leave a comment.

April 2019 campaign finance reports: Congress

Apr 29th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

It’s April, and that means it’s time once again to review campaign finance reports for Congressional candidates. The January roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle; these reports are the first ones for the 2019-20 cycle. A list of all Texas Democratic Congressional candidate campaign reports is here. A few points to note before we get started:

– FEC reports are cumulative for the cycle, so each number reported – raised, spent, on hand – is the current total for the entire cycle. Other systems – for Texas, for Harris County, for Houston, for HISD and HCC – are for that period only, though the cash on hand total will be as of that report. The point here is that for that cycle, raised + loans – spent = cash on hand for FEC reports, but not for other reports. For other reports, subtract the amount spent from the amount raised, then add or subtract as needed from the previous report’s cash on hand amount, and you should get the current cash on hand amount. Unless there are loans involved, in which case it gets more complicated. Trust me on this.

– Cash on hand carries over from 2018, however. For candidates that ran in 2018, that means that the “raised minus spent” total needs to be applied to the cash on hand amount from the previous cycle, and the same process as described above for other systems is what you need to use.

– Some of these reports are broken out by cycle, so for some candidates who were also on the ballot in 2018 you can choose to see the 2017-18 cycle or the 2019-20 period. Others, like for Mike Siegel and Sri Kulkarni, are not. This may be a function of timing, as it was originally the case that only the winners from 2018 (Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred) were done this way, but now others are as well. If so, then this will eventually be how it is for Siegal and Kulkarni.

– The report below for MJ Hegar is her Senate finance report. Her Congressional finance report from 2018 is separate. She did carry over her cash on hand from that cycle, as noted above. If Joaquin Castro does run for Senate, the linked report below will not be the one used for his Senate campaign.

– Most serious candidates from 2018 appeared during Q2 of 2017, so the short list of candidates now is to be expected. Look for this list to grow in the Q2 and Q3 roundups. Some announced candidates, like Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela in CD24, either did not do any Q1 fundraising or were not yet officially in the race.

I think that covers everything. Here are the reports:

MJ Hegar – Senate
Joaquin Castro – CD20/Senate?

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Todd Litton – CD02
Elisa Cardnell – CD02
Lori Burch – CD03
Mike Siegel – CD10
Pritesh Gandhi – CD10
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Nyanza Moore – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Liz Wahl – CD23
Jan McDowell – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
20    Castro           36,028     77,076        0     87,572
      Hegar             2,281     12,858        0     36,904

07    Fletcher        582,918     79,831        0    545,154
32    Allred          530,399    106,816        0    527,027


02    Litton            2,346     12,221        0     11,157
02    Cardnell         19,697      3,750        0     16,046
03    Burch            41,623     16,006   20,149     24,339
10    Siegel          143,232     44,081        0    102,641
10    Gandhi          162,380      5,320        0    157,059
22    Kulkarni              0     14,539        0     13,228
22    Moore            43,561     24,932        0     18,583
23    Ortiz Jones           0     14,828        0    103,518
23    Wahl              4,581      3,304        0      1,277
24    McDowell         15,193     13,515        0     14,998
25    Oliver           
26    Ianuzzi          47,731     12,465   40,695     35,266

New names here include Elise Cardnell, Pritesh Gandhi, Nyanza Moore, Liz Wahl, and Carol Ianuzzi. Mike Siegel and Sri Kulkarni are repeat candidates from 2018 that we have already noted. For the others, Julie Oliver is back, Lorie Burch is back, Gina Ortiz Jones is reportedly back, Jan McDowell is back and appears to be raising money as she never quite did in 2018. I don’t know if Todd Litton is back or not, but I included him here just in case. It’s possible there are some other active candidates among the no-money-raised reports included on the FEC summary page, but I’m not going to sweat that now. We’ll know much more when the Q2 reports come out. For now, this is what we have.

Add CD10 to the contested primaries list

Apr 25th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

It has been that way for awhile now, but I’m only just noticing that there is a second candidate for the Democratic nomination in CD10. This Statesman story, which is about the multiple Congressional districts being targeted by Democrats for 2020, has the scoop.

Mike Siegel

There is perhaps no better example of the changed political landscape in Texas than the 10th Congressional District, stretching from West Austin to the Houston suburbs, where Democrats are already lining up to challenge incumbent Michael McCaul, the Austin Republican once considered invincible.

Mike Siegel, who ran an underfunded campaign in 2018 and lost to McCaul by just 4.3 points, will face political newcomer Pritesh Gandhi, an Austin primary care physician for the underserved, in the 2020 Democratic primary, possibly among others considering candidacies.

Gandhi, 36, a former Fulbright scholar and Schweitzer fellow, has the poise and bearing of someone who has been preparing all his life for this opportunity, and thinks he’s got what it takes to do what Siegel, 41, was unable to.

“What a lot of folks are asking, ‘Mike did a great job last year, why are you running?’” said Gandhi, who was born and raised in the Houston area and is the associate chief medical officer for People’s Community Clinic in Austin. “It is important for the party to have an open and honest discussion around what the issues are and the kind of candidate we can nominate that can beat McCaul.”

Siegel, meanwhile, left his job as a former assistant city attorney in Austin to run full-time. He has hired a campaign manager and is spending 20 to 30 hours a week calling potential contributors.

[…]

Pritesh Gandhi

Siegel said if he had lost by 10 points, he would not be making another go at McCaul.

But he recalled, on “election night, we were on the CNN board until late at night when the rural county Republican surge came in.”

“The fact that we came so close without money really made me wonder, if I did everything the DCCC tells me to,” Seigel said. “I had a grassroots, progressive coalition helping me, which is key. That’s a huge advantage in this primary for 2020. That is a big part of the foundation I’m building on, so what I’m hoping to add to that is the full-fledged D.C.-approved campaign structure.”

Gandhi said he and his wife on Nov. 6 were watching the election.

“We saw the outcome, and right then and there we knew that this was going to be in the cards,” he said.

“It’s really not about Mike McCaul,” Gandhi said. “It’s about the Mike McCauls of the world and it’s about holding the Mike McCauls of the world accountable for the votes they take in office and for the party they support and for the president they support,” Gandhi said. “So I had to run. It was no choice for me.”

On Tuesday, a week after his third daughter was born, Gandhi was at the monthly meeting of the Austin Tejano Democrats at Casa Maria restaurant on South First Street in South Austin, introducing himself.

“I’ve spent my career fighting for people in this region, fighting for paid sick leave. I was on the border last year in Tornillo fighting for families and I do that every day in my job and so I’m happy to be here,” Gandhi said. “I’m sure in the next year I will get to know a whole bunch of you.”

“I think Mike (Siegel) is a great guy, a great dad. He’s a good lawyer. I have absolutely nothing negative to say about him,” Gandhi said after the meeting. “But I wouldn’t be running if I didn’t think the campaign we are building is the one that’s going to beat Mike McCaul, and I think part of the story here is that I have been fighting for these issues my whole life, all day and all night and every weekend long before I thought about politics.”

CD10 joins CD24 and CD22, and in the end probably all of the interesting districts and most of the not-as-interesting districts, inn attracting multiple viable candidates. That’s an encouraging sign. As it happens, I agree with both the proposition that Siegel did a great job in 2018, and that the voters in the Democratic primary should get the chance to decide whether Siegel or Gandhi or someone else represents the best choice to defeat the incumbent. Let’s talk it out – Gandhi is certainly modeling a good way to do it – and make a decision. And in the meantime, let’s be reaching out to all those voters.

As noted, the story is about multiple districts, all of which we are familiar with. Nothing to add for CD21, where Wendy Davis is still thinking about it, or CD31, where MJ Hegar still has a decision to make. As I discussed before, we’re about on par with where we were in 2018 for candidate announcements. By the time of the Q2 finance reports in 2017, many of the serious contenders were in, but there are quite a few names that hadn’t shown up (at least in time to raise some money) by then, including Mike Siegel, Sri Kulkarni, Gina Ortiz Jones, and MJ Hegar. So don’t panic if your district doesn’t have a candidate yet. There’s still plenty of time.

One more for CD24

Apr 21st, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Another contested primary.

Candace Valenzuela

Democrat Candace Valenzuela, a 34-year-old Carrollton-Farmers Branch school board member, is launching a campaign Monday against Texas GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant, one of the party’s top targets in 2020.

She will face an uphill battle for her party’s nomination in Texas’ 24th district, where several high-profile Democrats are eyeing the race. The suburban north Texas seat has long been a conservative stronghold, but the region’s rapidly changing demographics have recently made it more competitive.

Valenzuela, whose mother is Mexican-American and father is African-American, hopes to capitalize on that in her bid against Marchant, a seven-term congressman who narrowly beat a poorly funded opponent in 2018.

“We have a lot of folks moving into this area to live and go to work, this district isn’t the same as it was five-ten years ago,” Valenzuela said.

Valenzuela won her first and only election by defeating an 18-year incumbent on the school board of trustees in 2017, saying she wanted to add diversity to a panel did not match the student population.

[…]

Other candidates gearing up for the Democratic primary in the 24th district include Kim Olson, who ran unsuccessfully for state Agriculture Commissioner last year, Jan McDowell, the Democratic nominee against Marchant in 2016 and 2018, and Will Fisher, an attorney who ran unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in Texas’ 26th district last cycle.

See here for more on Olson’s entry. With the contested primaries now here and in CD22, I was wondering where things stood in comparison to 2018. In CD07, the field had begun to fill out in early April, with Jason Westin being the first of the candidates that raised significant money to enter. Alex Triantaphyllis entered in early May, with Laura Moser and eventual winner Lizzie Fletcher joining in mid-May. In CD32, Colin Allred was an early entrant, in late April.

There were lots of other contested primaries, of course, but you get the idea. Based on this much, I’d say we’re basically on the same track as in 2018. We had enough candidates by this time in the cycle to start to see real fundraising activity for the Q2 report. I expect we’ll have a similar experience this time. For tracking purposes, here’s what I know about other races of interest:

The DCCC top tier races:
CD10 – 2018 candidate Mike Siegel is in.
CD21 – Joe Kopser will not run again, but Wendy Davis is giving it a look.
CD23 – 2018 candidate Gina Ortiz Jones is giving all indications that she’s in, though she has not yet made an official announcement.
CD31 – MJ Hegar is being urged to run for this again, but she is currently looking at the Senate race. I have no idea who else might be looking at this one.

Other races:
CD02 – Elisa Cardnell is in, and it sounds like Todd Litton is not going to make another run.
CD03 – No idea yet.
CD06 – No idea yet.
CD25 – No idea yet.

That’s what I know at this time. I’ll be looking at the Q1 finance reports in the next few days, which may reveal some other names. If you know of more candidates, leave a comment and let us know.

UPDATE: Somehow, I managed to overlook CD22, where Sri Kulkarni and Nyanza Moore are in the race.

Precinct analysis: 2018 Congress

Mar 20th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

The 2018 Congressional races were the most expensive, the most hotly and broadly contested, and by far the most attention-grabbing races in the non-Beto division. We hadn’t seen anything remotely like it since the 2004 DeLay re-redistricting year, but we will see another round of it next year. Let’s break it all down, starting with the two districts where Dems picked up seats.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
CD07   52.5%   53.3%   45.8%   51.3%   52.3%   51.4%   45.9%
CD32   52.3%   54.9%   46.3%   51.6%   52.8%   51.3%   47.3%

Note that while Lizzie Fletcher had a slightly higher percentage than Colin Allred, Allred had a larger margin of victory, as there was a Libertarian candidate in CD32 who took two percent, thus giving Allred a six-and-a-half point win. As with the State Senate, I don’t believe these districts shift as far as they do in a Democratic direction without a significant number of habitual Republicans voting for Democratic candidates. Turnout was certainly a factor in the overall result, and that was driven by voter registration and relentless GOTV efforts, but these districts were plenty red below the Presidential level in 2016. Republicans other than Trump were still carrying these districts by double digits. And even in 2018, you can see that Republicans that didn’t carry a significant amount of Trump taint still did well. I believe conditions in 2020 will be similar to what they were in 2018 and as such make Fletcher and Allred early favorite to win. Ask me again next year at this time.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
CD10   46.8%   49.6%   43.9%   47.9%   48.4%   47.7%   44.9%
CD23   48.7%   52.1%   45.7%   49.4%   50.4%   50.3%   48.0%
CD24   47.5%   51.3%   43.7%   48.1%   49.2%   48.1%   44.9%

These are the districts Beto won but Republicans held. As SD08 was the Senate district that got away, so was CD24 for Congress. The difference is that SD08 had a candidate that raised money and had a visible campaign, with SD08 being far enough down the target list that no one really saw it coming as a close race. CD24 should have been on the list after 2016, but for whatever the reason it wasn’t. You just have to wonder what might have been. Mike Siegel did a good job with CD10 and will be back in 2018, hopefully with more help from the beginning. I still don’t know what to make of CD23, which was clearly winnable on paper but wasn’t as Democratic as I thought it would be given the overall conditions. Someone needs to do a deep dive and figure that out, or we’re going to keep pouring in millions of dollars and getting close losses to Will Hurd, who still hasn’t topped fifty percent in any race he’s run. Gina Ortiz Jones seems poised to run again, though I expect she’ll have company in the primary.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
CD02   45.6%   49.0%   42.7%   47.0%   47.8%   47.2%   43.2%
CD03   44.2%   47.9%   40.5%   45.0%   46.0%   44.5%   41.8%
CD06   45.4%   48.0%   42.2%   46.1%   46.7%   46.0%   43.5%
CD21   47.6%   49.5%   42.8%   46.8%   47.8%   46.9%   43.4%
CD22   46.4%   49.3%   42.9%   46.9%   47.9%   47.9%   44.6%
CD25   44.8%   47.0%   40.6%   45.0%   45.7%   44.6%   41.8%
CD31   47.7%   48.4%   41.5%   45.5%   46.4%   45.3%   42.9%

These were the other competitive districts; each Dem finished within ten points of the Republican winner. CDs 21, 22, and 31 are on the DCCC list for 2020. Honestly, I think all seven of these deserve at least second-tier consideration. Note that MJ Hegar outperformed every Dem other than Beto, while Joe Kopser outperformed them all other than Beto and Justin Nelson. Only Lizzie Fletcher and Colin Allred can make those claims. If Texas really is winnable by the Democratic Presidential nominee, well, you can imagine the possibilities. Keep an eye on CD02, which I believe will benefit from being in Harris County in a Presidential year, and CD03, where Collin County will have a couple of hot State House races.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
CD12   33.9%   39.1%   33.5%   37.0%   37.6%   36.7%   34.2%
CD14   39.3%   41.1%   36.8%   40.2%   40.7%   40.6%   38.4%
CD17   41.3%   44.8%   39.3%   43.6%   43.4%   42.9%   40.1%
CD26   39.0%   42.5%   35.8%   39.6%   40.3%   39.2%   36.4%
CD27   36.6%   38.9%   33.0%   38.0%   38.3%   38.5%   36.0%
CD36   27.4%   28.0%   24.5%   28.0%   28.0%   27.8%   25.7%

These are the other races I followed, mostly because the candidates managed to raise a respectable – or, in Dayna Steele’s case, a truly remarkable – amount of money. CD17, which is mostly Brazos and McLennan and a piece of Travis counties, and CD26, which is mostly Denton with a bit of Tarrant, might bear watching in the way that CDs 03 and 25 did last year, if they get energetic and interesting candidates. It would take something truly seismic for more than that to happen.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
CD15   59.7%   57.4%   51.3%   55.7%   56.8%   56.4%   56.2%
CD28      NA   58.7%   52.7%   57.0%   58.5%   57.8%   56.6%
CD34   60.0%   57.7%   50.1%   55.8%   57.0%   56.8%   55.9%

We’ll see something like this in the State House races as well, but Republicans do have some Democrats to target beyond Fletcher and Allred. I don’t think 2020 is the year for a real challenge, but in a bad year for Team Blue you can see where you’d need to concentrate your concern. Keep your eyes open for shenanigans with these districts when 2021 rolls around and new maps are drawn. I’d call that the real short-term danger.

Kim Olson looking at CD24

Mar 14th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

I’m down with this.

Kim Olson

While retired Air Force Col. Kim Olson, a Democrat who lost the 2018 general election for state agriculture secretary by a respectable 51-46 margin, has shown some interest in challenging GOP Sen. John Cornyn, the Texas Tribune’s Patrick Svitek flags some social media posts suggesting that she’s planning to take on GOP Rep. Kenny Marchant instead.

The Palo Pinto County Democratic Party posted on Facebook on Sunday that Olson would run for Texas’ 24th District in the northern Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs, saying that she “sent a text out last night and gave permission to share this information with you.” Jan McDowell, who was the 2018 nominee against Marchant and said she “intend[s]” to try again, also said on Friday that she’d heard Olson would run here. McDowell, who raised very little money but held Marchant to a shockingly close 51-48win, doesn’t sound at all inclined to defer to Olson, though. McDowell said that, while Olson is a “national treasure,” she “lives in Mineral Wells … nowhere even close to our district!”

Olson, who has yet to say anything publicly about a run against Marchant, did move to Mineral Wells in rural Texas in 2010, which is well to the west of this suburban seat. However, Olson is a former human resources director for the Dallas Independent School District, so she does have some ties to the area.

Texas’ 24th District, which includes a small portion of the cities of Dallas and Fort Worth as well as most of the suburb of Irving, had been safely red turf until recently. However, after voting for Mitt Romney by a 60-38 margin in 2012, it went for Trump by a much narrower 51-45 in 2016, and last year, according to analyst Miles Coleman, Beto O’Rourke actually edged Ted Cruz here 51-48.

You don’t have to take Miles Coleman’s word for it, it’s right here in the official TLC numbers that Beto won CD24 by a 51-48 margin. Justin Nelson also carried it, 49-48. Kim Olson trailed in CD24 by a similar margin. I would not give Jan McDowell credit for “holding” Kenny Marchant to 51%. The Democratic surge, which began in that district in 2016, is what did it.

Olson, who has speculated on as a candidate against John Cornyn, has not committed to CD24 as yet, but she’s clearly thinking about it:

Statement from @KimOlsonTx today about #TX24.

— Jeff Dalton (@demtoolbox) 7:29 PM – 11 March 2019

Count me as being in favor of this. If Jan McDowell intends to try again a third time, so much the better because it means Olson – and hey, McDowell too – will have to get an early start at both organizing and fundraising, to win the March race first. I’m very much rooting for Kim Olson to take the plunge here.

UPDATE: Sitting in my inbox this morning is an email from Kim Olson announcing her candidacy.

Kim is ready to serve Texans and represent TX-24.

Let’s also to help Kim and her team:
Turn Tarrant County Blue
Flip 6 Texas House Seats
Hold the US House

You in for Kim, send a pledge [email protected]

Go Kim!

Add one more to the list of potential Cornyn opponents list

Mar 9th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Joe Kopser, who made a strong showing in CD21 in 2018, puts himself on the roster of possible not-Beto challengers for John Cornyn in 2020.

Joseph Kopser

Call it the other “Beto Effect“.

Just months after Democrat Beto O’Rourke outperformed expectations by coming within three points of defeating Republican U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, Texas Democrats are lining up to run against the sate’s other U.S. Senator, John Cornyn, in 2020.

The latest possible contender is veteran and 2018 Congressional candidate Joseph Kopser, who lost to Republican Chip Roy for an open seat previously held by U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio.

“Everything’s on the table for me,” Kopser said in a Wednesday phone interview with the Tribune.

Kopser spoke admiringly of Cornyn, but said he was still considering a run against the state’s senior senator.

“He’s a guy I respect,” Kopser said. “But also, I think if you’ve been in Washington too long, you need to come home.”

[…]

All of the interest in running against Cornyn is a striking contrast to two years ago, when multiple Democrats passed on challenging Cruz, leaving O’Rourke as the most prominent name in the primary.

Along with looking at challenging Cornyn, both Hegar and Kopser are also debating whether to run in U.S. House rematches in 2020. Both ran in GOP-leaning districts yet came within three points of defeating their Republican opponents – U.S. Reps. John Carter, R-Round Rock, and Roy, respectively.

See here and here for the background. Kopser was not on my list of possible candidates for this slot in 2020 – neither was Wendy Davis, for that matter – but there’s no reason he couldn’t have been. At this point, I’d say if Beto really is out then Joaquin Castro is my first choice, MJ Hegar is my second choice (though that may mean a greatly diminished chance of taking CD31), and after that it’s a tossup for me between Wendy Davis and Joe Kopser. If he’d rather take another shot at CD21, that’s fine, too. I feel like there may be a wider range of decent candidates there than in CD31 if it comes to it, but if we’ve learned anything from 2018 it’s that there are many more strong possible candidates out there than we’d been giving ourselves credit for. And, as the story notes, now many of them are much more interested in running for something. It’s been a long time since we’ve had a more-good-candidates-than-available-races problem. As I said in the beginning of this cycle, I’m confident we’ll have someone worthwhile running against Cornyn. I feel that has already come true.

One more thing:

A year ago, I was honored to be the Democratic nominee for Ag Commissioner. I traveled all around this great state, running to serve Texans. That hasn’t changed, so I shall run again. Stay tuned! #kim2020

— Kim Olson Col. ret. (@KimOlsonTX) 10:59 PM – 7 March 2019

We may get multiple strong candidates in a primary for Senate regardless of how the Congressional situation sorts itself out.

What about Joaquin

Mar 2nd, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

If Beto O’Rourke is indeed not running for Senate, Rep. Joaquin Castro may step up to do it.

Rep. Joaquin Castro

Democratic presidential candidate Julián Castro told the Associated Press on Thursday that his twin brother, U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro, D-San Antonio, is considering challenging U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, for the U.S. Senate in 2020.

“He’s considering that, but he really has not made a decision about whether he’s going to do that,” Castro said while on the presidential campaign trail in Las Vegas.

“I think he’d beat him. My brother would win,” Castro said. “There are a lot of Texans that clearly have problems with the way that (Cornyn) has represented the state. Most recently, refusing to stand up to Trump even though a lot of land is going to get taken, a lot of Texas landowners’ property is going to get taken if there’s a wall.”

Matthew Jones, a campaign advisor to Joaquin Castro, confirmed Friday morning that, “Congressman Castro will seriously consider running for Senate in 2020.”

“Right now, he’s focused on protecting Texans—and all Americans — from the most consequential challenge to our constitutional separation of powers that we have seen in a generation,” Jones said. “He will not stand by while the president attempts to unilaterally strip Texans of their land to build a wall in a manner that most Americans, especially Texans, disagree with.”

A Joaquin Castro Senate candidacy would be an answered prayer for Texas Democrats amid the expectation that former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso, who narrowly lost a Senate challenge to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in November, has decided to pass on challenging Cornyn and may soon join Julián Castro as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president.

[…]

Julián Castro’s dropping his brother’s name into the race also comes the same week that Joaquin’s promising congressional career — one reason he chose not to run for Senate in 2016 — truly delivered on its promise, with Castro leading the successful effort by House Democrats to pass a resolution he drafted to block President Trump’s emergency declaration, which Trump issued to secure border wall funds that Congress has denied him.

“This is the most consequential vote we will take in a generation on the balance of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government,” Castro said before the House voted Tuesday 245 to 182 in favor of the resolution. The resolution still has to pass the Senate, which is possible, and survive a certain presidential veto, which is almost certainly beyond reach. But it has already succeeded as an effective political response to the president.

The Castro twins have pursued parallel political careers, but Julián Castro, born a minute earlier, has been first among equals, serving as mayor of San Antonio and as a member of President Barack Obama’s Cabinet as secretary of Housing and Urban Development. He delivered the keynote address at the 2012 Democratic National Convention, was considered for vice president by Hillary Clinton in 2016, has written a memoir, and is now running for president while his twin brother remains in Congress.

But in the less than two months since Julián Castro launched his bid for president, it is Joaquin who has had the higher political profile, punctuated by this week’s moment of triumph. He was elected chairman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in the new Congress, and was elected vice chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, as well as serving on the Education and Labor and House Intelligence committees On Homeland Security. He has been integrally involved in the investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign and any potential Russian collusion by Trump and his campaign, and a frequent cable news presence.

As of this writing we still don’t have direct-from-Beto’s-mouth confirmation of his plans for 2020, but this seems like a decent sign that Beto is truly not a candidate for Senate next year. Which is a shame, in my opinion, but it’s his choice to make. As for Joaquin, he’s always been high on my list, but I remain skeptical that he will give up a very good gig in the Democratic-majority House for at best a coin flip for Senate. Obviously, I could be wrong about that – I’m not Joaquin Castro (spoiler alert), I don’t know what his risk profile and ambition levels are. If he does run, I think that’s a good sign that he thinks he can win, though how much of that is irrational exuberance and how much is a cold, hard assessment of the political landscape and strategic options is anyone’s guess. For certain, the fact that it even makes sense for him to publicly think about it is a clear indicator that Texas is being viewed as an opportunity for Dems next year. He may not rake in $80 million, but Joaquin Castro will have no trouble raising money if he hops in.

There are other potential candidates out there – MJ Hegar, Kim Olson, Wendy Davis, probably more though those are the most prominent ones to make noise about it. There’s a good case to be made that Dems should want a female candidate to oppose Cornyn. I feel confident saying that Beto and Joaquin are the first two in line, and if either of them says they’re in they will almost certainly have the nomination with at most token opposition. But one of them has to say they’re in first. The Trib has more.

Everyone’s talking about John Cornyn

Feb 26th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

7 comments

I feel like I’ve read more stories about John Cornyn lately than I read about Beto a year ago at this time.

Big John Cornyn

As President Donald Trump embarked for El Paso on Monday to rally support for a border wall, Texas Republican John Cornyn sent out a personal message through his 2020 U.S. Senate re-election campaign:

“Texas stands with President Trump.”

For Cornyn, seeking a fourth term in the Senate, the message underscored some of the central challenges of his re-election bid: for better or worse, his fate is inextricably tied to that of a famously polarizing and unpredictable president, with whom he will share a ballot.

“As in the rest of my life, I don’t sweat too much the things I can’t control,” Cornyn said later in the week. “I look at the things I can control, and I can control my preparation for what I think will likely be a fairly serious opposition in 2020. The president is at the top of the ticket, and I believe he will be responsible for nearly 100 percent of the turnout, about half of the voters for him, and half against him.”

[…]

“The degree of difficulty John Cornyn is going to have in 2020 right now I think very much rests in the hands of Beto O’Rourke,” said political scientist James Henson, director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas.

While Cruz labeled O’Rourke “too liberal for Texas,” Democrats like the contrast of a youthful, relative outsider against a 67-year-old incumbent who earned his stripes the old-fashioned way: working his way patiently up the Senate GOP ladder.

To many Texas Republicans, O’Rourke represents Cornyn’s worst-case-scenario. But some also see him as a one-off candidate that no other Texas Democrat can easily replicate. Next in the Democratic echelon are U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro and his twin brother, former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro. Many believe that Julián Castro’s own White House bid takes both brothers out of the Senate race.

Other than O’Rourke – who Texas Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak calls “a hundred-year flood” in Texas politics – that would seem to clear the decks for Cornyn.

“Whoever runs against Cornyn doesn’t start where Beto stops,” Mackowiak said. “They start wherever they are.”

For Texas Democrats, that means starting with an expected voter share in the high 30 to low 40 percentage points – the average electoral result pre-Beto.

See here and here for some recent examples. We don’t really learn anything new in this story – spoiler alert, his campaign manager thinks Republicans need to work on their turnout in 2020 – just that the phenomenon of John Cornyn Is Taking 2020 Seriously and Will Beto Run For Senate Against John Cornyn has not come close to petering out.

There’s also the new startup of Who Will Run Against Cornyn If It’s Not Beto stories.

Democrats who are said to be considering a Senate run: MJ Hegar, an Afghanistan war hero and author who came within 2.9 points of toppling U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, and North Texas farmer Kim Olson, who lost by 4.9 points to Republican state Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

Another potential candidate, according to party activists is former state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, who suffered a lopsided loss in the 2014 governor’s race.

On Valentine’s Day, Cornyn’s campaign launched an online fundraising appeal citing Hegar and Davis as possible candidates.

But some Texas Democrats see the party’s best chances for success in a reprise of O’Rourke’s Senate campaign. O’Rourke hasn’t publicly mentioned a Senate run as a possibility — he told Oprah Winfrey last week that he’ll decide whether to run for president by the end of the month — but Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., met with O’Rourke last week to discuss a possible challenge to Cornyn, according to Politico.

“It’s very significant that Schumer is talking to Texans,” said Matt Angle, director of the Lone Star Project, a political action committee, who said the Democratic leader had spoken to other potential candidates. “It signifies that Schumer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee think Cornyn is vulnerable — and they’re right.”

A survey conducted Wednesday and Thursday by the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling found in a hypothetical matchup, 47 percent of registered Texas voters support Cornyn and 45 percent prefer O’Rourke, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

You can see more about that poll here. I got an email about it but didn’t do a post because it’s crazy early and there’s no data beyond the topline numbers. It actually would have been useful if they had included some other potential matchups for Cornyn – Big John versus MJ Hegar or Kim Olson or Joaquin Castro – just to see how they compared to Cornyn versus Beto. It would at least be a data point for where a less-known Democrat starts out in this matchup. In theory, we will have some clarity about this in about a week.

We’ll know soon enough if Beto is running for President

Feb 9th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Thanks, Oprah.

Beto O’Rourke

Beto O’Rourke said Tuesday he will decide whether to run for president by the end of the month, signaling his closely watched deliberations over a 2020 run are entering their final stages.

The former Democratic congressman from El Paso and U.S. Senate nominee made the comment during an interview with media mogul Oprah Winfrey, who pressed him on his long-awaited decision — and whether he’s given himself a deadline.

“The serious answer is really soon,” O’Rourke replied. “Before the end of this month.”

[…]

The O’Rourke interview will air at 7 p.m. Feb. 16 on Winfrey’s OWN TV network. It will also be available on her “SuperSoul Conservations” podcast.

Winfrey tried several times to nail O’Rourke down on his 2020 decision to no avail. In a parting message, she said, “You seem like you’re getting ready to run.”

In the interview, O’Rourke also reflected on the lessons of his Senate campaign last year and the meeting he had with former President Barack Obama in the wake of the race. O’Rourke said Obama did not encourage him to run for president but that they discussed 2020 more generally — and the strain a White House bid can put on a family.

Getting a decision sooner rather than later would be nice, if only so we can sort out the who’s-running-against-Cornyn question in a reasonable fashion. Assuming the choice is between “running for President” and “running again for Senate” and not “running for something” and “not running for anything at this time”, I look at it this way: Beto’s odds of beating Donald Trump are higher than his chances of beating John Cornyn, but his odds of beating John Cornyn are higher than his chance of getting the chance to run against Trump. You need a clear assessment of how much higher those odds are in each of those comparisons if you want to make a rational, outcome-maximizing decision.

Not that these decisions are necessarily rational, of course. Beto’s gonna do what Beto thinks is best, however he arrives at that decision. I’m honestly not sure where “run for Senate” is on the list of choices for him, but I could believe it’s in third place, after “run for President” and “don’t run for anything”. If that’s the case, then where do Texas Dems stand in a no-Beto 2020?

But if O’Rourke doesn’t run against Cornyn, who will? The structural conditions that would make a Senate run in 2020 so enticing for O’Rourke would also be there for another Democratic candidate. You might think that ambitious Texas Democrats would be lining up to run, all but declaring their candidacies in the event that O’Rourke should decline to pursue the Senate seat. (If O’Rourke decides to run against Cornyn, he’ll almost certainly clear the Democratic field.) After all, O’Rourke discussed the possibility of running for Senate in 2018 in early November 2016. We’re already in February 2019. Where are the candidates?

“The conversations would be very quiet now,” said Matt Angle, the founder of the Lone Star Project, a progressive PAC. “You don’t want to say it would be really great if someone else runs and then Beto runs instead.”

[…]

When I spoke with Jason Stanford, a former Democratic strategist who is now an executive at the public relations firm Hill + Knowlton, he insisted that Democrats have a “deeper bench in Texas than people suspect.” He pointed to Dallas state representative Rafael Anchia, Dallas County judge Clay Jenkins, former gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis, and Mark Strama, a former Texas state rep who is now an executive at Google Fiber. These four people might make fine candidates and senators, but aside from Davis, they have almost no statewide profile. They’re not the names you’d expect to hear bandied about if Democrats thought the 2020 Senate seat was theirs for the taking.

Maybe O’Rourke will run for Senate after all. Maybe a new face like Allred or Garcia or Hegar will gamble their political future on a Senate run. Maybe a big-city mayor like San Antonio’s Ron Nirenberg will go for the prize. Maybe a lesser-known name from the bench like Anchia or Jenkins will catch fire. Kim Olson, the Democrats’ 2018 candidate for agriculture commissioner, has suggested she’s considering a 2020 run.

But some Democrats aren’t convinced a strong option will materialize. “If Beto doesn’t run for Senate, I’m not convinced we’ll have a strong viable candidate,” Harold Cook, a Democratic political operative, told me. “I fear that a lot of the most prominent Democrats who might want to run may well conclude that Beto got so close either because Beto is a one-of-a-kind candidate or that Cruz is so intensely disliked that no other opponent would fare as badly as he did.”

I’m more optimistic than that. As for the “who”, surely none of the just-elected members of Congress would run for Senate in 2020, and it looks a lot like most if not all of the just-missed Congressional candidates from 2018 will try again, so they’re off the list. One person that I suggested as a possibility but is omitted here is Justin Nelson. Maybe he’s hoping that AG will be on the ballot in 2020 following a conviction of Ken Paxton. Or maybe Senate isn’t his thing. I continue to believe there are plenty of good candidates available, and one of them will step up if Beto doesn’t choose this path. Big John Cornyn is expecting and preparing for a fight, and he’s going to get it, one way or another.

Precinct analysis: Fort Bend

Jan 21st, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Did you know that Fort Bend County went blue in 2018 as well? Of course you did. Let’s take a closer look at how that happened.


Dist     Cruz   Beto Dikeman    Cruz%   Beto%    Dike%
======================================================
HD26   32,451  33,532    406   48.88%   50.51%   0.61%
HD27   17,563  47,484    348   26.86%   72.61%   0.53%
HD28   42,974  40,330    581   51.23%   48.08%   0.69%
HD85   18,435  21,053    281   46.36%   52.94%   0.71%

CC1    27,497  28,827    359   48.51%   50.86%   0.63%
CC2    11,238  40,905    263   21.44%   78.05%   0.50%
CC3    42,882  33,373    544   55.84%   43.45%   0.71%
CC4    29,806  39,294    450   42.86%   56.50%   0.65%

As a reminder, HD85 is only partially in Fort Bend. It also covers Wharton and Jackson counties, which are both red and which are the reason this district is not as competitive as it might look. The other three State Rep districts are fully within Fort Bend. The bottom four entries are for the four County Commissioner precincts.

For comparison, here are the 2016 data for the County Commissioner precincts and for the State Rep districts. Beto, as is the case pretty much everywhere we look, outperformed the 2016 baseline everywhere. In 2016, HD26 was won by Donald Trump by five points and by downballot Republicans by 15 points. In 2016, County Commissioner Precinct 1 was won by Trump by three points and downballot Republicans by ten or so, while Precinct 4 was won by Hillary Clinton by six points but by downballot Republicans also by six points. Trump won CC3 by 19 points and HD28 by ten points. All this happened while Clinton carried Fort Bend. Anyone still surprised that Dems swept FBC this year?


Dist   Abbott  Valdez Tippts  Abbott%  Valdez%   Tipp%
======================================================
HD26   36,516  28,762    898   55.18%   43.46%   1.36%
HD27   21,429  42,795    975   32.87%   65.64%   1.50%
HD28   47,549  35,016  1,213   56.76%   41.80%   1.45%
HD85   20,373  18,801    527   51.32%   47.36%   1.33%

CC1    30,249  25,584    779   53.43%   45.19%   1.38%
CC2    14,099  37,443    728   26.97%   71.63%   1.39%
CC3    47,081  28,501  1,129   61.37%   37.15%   1.47%
CC4    34,438  33,846    977   49.72%   48.87%   1.41%


Dist  Patrick Collier  McKen Patrick% Collier%  McKen%
======================================================
HD26   33,307  31,571  1,091   50.49%   47.86%   1.65%
HD27   18,455  45,617  1,018   28.35%   70.08%   1.56%
HD28   43,848  38,174  1,496   52.50%   45.71%   1.79%
HD85   18,824  20,025    685   47.61%   50.65%   1.73%

CC1    27,935  27,510    968   49.52%   48.77%   1.72%
CC2    11,979  39,438    796   22.94%   75.53%   1.52%
CC3    43,517  31,523  1,419   56.92%   41.23%   1.86%
CC4    31,003  36,916  1,107   44.91%   53.48%   1.60%


Dist   Paxton  Nelson Harris  Paxton%  Nelson% Harris%
======================================================
HD26   32,377  32,192  1,246   49.19%   48.91%   1.89%
HD27   17,454  46,307  1,249   26.85%   71.23%   1.92%
HD28   42,892  38,800  1,700   51.43%   46.53%   2.04%
HD85   18,234  20,455    775   46.20%   51.83%   1.96%
						
CC1    27,165  28,003  1,142   48.24%   49.73%   2.03%
CC2    11,271  39,983    915   21.60%   76.64%   1.75%
CC3    42,689  32,005  1,620   55.94%   41.94%   2.12%
CC4    29,832  37,763  1,293   43.31%   54.82%   1.88%


Dist    Hegar    Chev   Sand   Hegar%    Chev%   Sand%
======================================================
HD26   34,744  29,182  1,566   53.05%   44.56%   2.39%
HD27   18,579  44,486  1,690   28.69%   68.70%   2.61%
HD28   45,403  35,587  2,176   54.59%   42.79%   2.62%
HD85   19,151  19,106  1,107   48.65%   48.54%   2.81%

CC1    28,590  26,036  1,501   50.94%   46.39%   2.67%
CC2    11,842  38,830  1,361   22.76%   74.63%   2.62%
CC3    45,266  28,887  1,942   59.49%   37.96%   2.55%
CC4    32,179  34,608  1,735   46.96%   50.51%   2.53%


Dist     Bush   Suazo   Pina    Bush%   Suazo%   Pina%
======================================================
HD26   34,619  29,520  1,518   52.73%   44.96%   2.31%
HD27   19,148  44,329  1,352   29.54%   68.38%   2.09%
HD28   45,308  35,889  2,099   54.39%   43.09%   2.52%
HD85   19,175  19,251  1,001   48.63%   48.83%   2.54%

CC1    28,572  26,224  1,430   50.82%   46.64%   2.54%
CC2    12,382  38,693    995   23.78%   74.31%   1.91%
CC3    44,897  29,245  2,060   58.92%   38.38%   2.70%
CC4    32,399  34,827  1,485   47.15%   50.69%   2.16%


Dist   Miller   Olson   Carp  Miller%   Olson%   Carp%
======================================================
HD26   32,617  31,836  1,092   49.76%   48.57%   1.67%
HD27   17,346  46,414    982   26.79%   71.69%   1.52%
HD28   43,153  38,535  1,436   51.91%   46.36%   1.73%
HD85   18,190  20,465    699   46.22%   52.00%   1.78%

CC1    27,153  27,991    984   48.38%   49.87%   1.75%
CC2    11,087  40,180    739   21.32%   77.26%   1.42%
CC3    43,016  31,680  1,367   56.55%   41.65%   1.80%
CC4    30,050  37,399  1,119   43.83%   54.54%   1.63%


Dist Craddick McAllen Wright   Cradd% McAllen% Wright%
======================================================
HD26   34,651  29,418  1,446   52.89%   44.90%   2.21%
HD27   18,632  44,694  1,400   28.79%   69.05%   2.16%
HD28   45,440  35,871  1,842   54.65%   43.14%   2.22%
HD85   19,057  19,321    950   48.46%   49.13%   2.42%
						
CC1    28,489  26,271  1,321   50.80%   46.84%   2.36%
CC2    11,864  39,056  1,092   22.81%   75.09%   2.10%
CC3    45,237  29,103  1,746   59.46%   38.25%   2.29%
CC4    32,190  34,874  1,479   46.96%   50.88%   2.16%

Everyone met or exceeded the downballot baseline in the State Rep districts, while the top three Dems (Collier, Nelson, Olson) exceeded the Hillary mark in each. Dems should find a strong candidate to try to win back the County Commissioner seat in Precinct 1 in 2020, it sure looks like they’d have a decent shot at it.

Here are the countywide candidates for Fort Bend:


Dist    Vacek    Midd   Vacek%   Midd%
======================================
HD26   33,939   30,925  52.32%  47.68%
HD27   17,978   46,218  28.00%  72.00%
HD28   44,422   37,771  54.05%  45.95%
HD85   19,031   20,001  48.76%  51.24%
				
CC1    28,339   27,352  50.89%  49.11%
CC2    11,489   40,138  22.25%  77.75%
CC3    44,369   30,842  58.99%  41.01%
CC4    31,173   36,583  46.01%  53.99%


Dist   Hebert   George Hebert% George%
======================================
HD26   35,058   30,030  53.86%  46.14%
HD27   18,504   45,803  28.77%  71.23%
HD28   45,183   37,094  54.92%  45.08%
HD85   19,256   19,856  49.23%  50.77%
				
CC1    29,061   26,671  52.14%  47.86%
CC2    11,779   39,896  22.79%  77.21%
CC3    45,061   30,192  59.88%  40.12%
CC4    32,100   36,024  47.12%  52.88%

Brian Middleton met or exceeded the Hillary standard everywhere, while KP George was a point or so behind him. Both were still enough to win. Note that for whatever the reason, there were no Democratic candidates running for County Clerk or County Treasurer. One presumes that will not be the case in 2022, and one presumes there will be a full slate for the county offices next year, with Sheriff being the big prize.

We should have 2018 election data on the elected officials’ profiles and the Legislative Council’s FTP site in a couple of weeks. When that happens, I’ll be back to focus on other districts of interest. In the meantime, I hope you found this useful.

Recruiting more women for 2020

Dec 26th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

We made a lot of progress towards better gender balance in our various legislative bodies this year. If we want to make more progress in 2020, it starts with finding and recruiting more female candidates.

Kim Olson

Even on a rainy Thursday night in the busy weeks before Christmas, nearly two dozen women crowded into a country club meeting room here, fired up about the possibility of running for office.

Democratic recruiters report that about 100 women attended similar “Candidate 101” classes across Texas last week. The party is searching far and wide for potential candidates as Democratic leaders look to capitalize on momentum from the November midterm election, when women claimed a greater share of political power in Congress than ever before.

The 102 women elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in November represent 23 percent of House members. Women will hold 38 of the 181 available seats when the Texas Legislature convenes in January — about 20 percent.

“I think there’s more work to be done for increasing diversity so everybody has a seat at the table,” said Pooja Sethi, who is Indian and who worked as a fundraiser for several Austin-area Democratic candidates. She wants to see more South Asians in the Texas Legislature. “The future is bright.”

Hmm. I count 41 women currently in the Lege, with Reps. Carol Alvarado and Joe Pickett needing to be succeeded. I also counted 37 from the previous session. I may have miscounted – feel free to double check me – but I’m not sure where that 38 comes from. Be that as it may, eight of the 12 Democratic challengers in the House that won were women.

Kim Olson, a Democrat and retired Air Force Colonel, said she awoke after Trump’s election “mad as hell” and determined to run for office — she just didn’t know which one.

After learning Democrats were having a tough time finding candidates to run for Texas agriculture commissioner, the beekeeper and farmer decided that was the office she wanted, she told the women gathered at the “Candidate 101” course in Cedar Park.

With no name recognition but a strong personality, she earned 3.8 million votes — more than any other woman who has run statewide in Texas, including former Gov. Ann Richards and former U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson and failed gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis. Olson, who raised close to $450,000 — largely in donations of less than $200 — fell 5 percentage points short of defeating Republican Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller.

Olson said she wants to use the political capital she has built to find a female candidate to run against U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, whose seat is up for re-election 2020.

Noting that 2020 will mark the 100-year anniversary of women’s winning the right to vote, she said, “Some woman is going to run. If Beto (O’Rourke) doesn’t do it, let’s find the right woman.”

Olson hinted she would be willing to run herself if no suitable candidate emerges, but stressed she wants to help “take these kids from JV to varsity.”

“I’m going to be unapologetic — it’s got to be all about women,” she said. “This what the long game looks like.”

I’m down with Kim Olson running for Senate if Beto opts out. We’re only about halfway to where we should be, so this very much is about the long game.

Yes, we’re already looking ahead to 2020

Nov 24th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Close races one year fuel speculation about the next.

Rep. Beto O’Rourke

Much of the immediate speculation about 2020 in Texas has centered on O’Rourke, who was being discussed as a potential presidential candidate even before he reached the finish line in the Senate race. While running against Cruz, he denied interest in a White House bid. Since then, he has not said what he plans to do next beyond spending more time with his family and then starting to think about what he learned from his Senate campaign. But that has not stopped the 2020 drumbeat surrounding him. A poll released last week pegged him as Democratic voters’ No. 3 pick among possible contenders, and a cryptic blog post Thursday about running — a morning jog, that is — stirred speculation anew.

If O’Rourke runs for president, he would have to contend with another Texan who has been preparing for a likely White House bid for nearly two years: Julían Castro, the former U.S. housing secretary and San Antonio mayor. People close to Castro have been saying a O’Rourke run would not change his plans, a point Castro himself made Friday to the Associated Press. Castro, who said last month he is “likely” to make a White House bid, intends to make an announcement about his plans in early 2019.

Instead of running for president in 2020, some Texas Democrats would like O’Rourke to take on U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who will be at the top of the ballot in two years. But privately, O’Rourke has not expressed interest in challenging Cornyn, according to his inner circle.

[…]

O’Rourke is not the only statewide candidate from Nov. 6 who is already coming up in 2020 conversations. Kim Olson, the fiery Democrat who finished five points behind Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, has been punctuating her post-election social media posts with the hashtag “#kim2020,” and a spokeswoman for Olson said she is “currently exploring all opportunities to determine the best way to continue serving Texas and Texans.”

At the congressional level, the next cycle is also already looming large.

Democrats picked up two seats on Nov. 6, dislodging Republican U.S. Reps. John Culberson of Houston and Pete Sessions of Dallas. But they also came surprisingly close in several districts that were once considered far out of reach, and the Democratic nominees in those races emerged as local rock stars who are already being encouraged to try again in 2020. That is even before any retirement announcements from GOP incumbents who may not be game for another competitive race in 2020.

Among the rising stars are Sri Preston Kulkarni, a former diplomat who came within five points of taking out U.S. Rep. Pete Olson, R-Sugar Land. In a message to supporters the weekend after the election, Kulkarni acknowledged that the 2020 discussion was already taking shape, saying that many people have asked him to run again for the seat but he is “not ready to commit to that yet.”

Then there is MJ Hegar, the former military pilot who gained a national fanbase taking on U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, and finished just 3 points behind him. In a post-election interview, she noted that even her most loyal supporters told her from the start that it would be a “two-cycle race” to win the seat.

“I’ve been approached by a lot of different people to run for a variety of different offices… and I’m still considering the best way to serve my community,” Hegar said. Running for the congressional seat again, she added, is “one of the options I’m considering.”

Farther down the ballot, Democrats are already setting their sights on capturing the state House majority in 2020 — a huge prize ahead of the next redistricting round. They made significant progress on Nov. 6, flipping a dozen seats and growing their ranks from 55 members to 67. That means Democrats are entering the 2020 cycle nine seats removed from the majority — well within reach, according to Democrats inside and outside Texas.

Dems will also have a chance to reclaim SD19, which now ranks as the one and only pickup the Republicans had this cycle. There really aren’t any other close Senate districts on the ballot in 2020 – the closest would be SDs 11 (Larry Taylor) and 12 (Jane Nelson), as they are the only ones where Trump got less than 60%. I’ll be interested to see what their numbers look like from this year, and I will be banging the drum for a good candidate to run in SD11, but it’s fair to say both of these would be a stretch.

The first order of business is figuring out who wants to run for US Senate – if Beto wants to try again, it’ll be his, and if not there ought to be some spirited jockeying for the “consensus” position. Texas Leftist suggested in my comments that Kim Olson might run for the Railroad Commission, which is the one other non-judicial statewide race on the ballot. (With the caveat that if Ken Paxton is forced to resign at some point, the replacement that Greg Abbott names might have to be there as well, depending on the timing. Imagine that for a minute.) I like that people are talking about the Congressional seats that are still available – the early start that a lot of our candidates had in this cycle gave them a leg up on fundraising.

And on it goes from there. The other thing that is encouraging about all this is that we’ve had cycles – even this one, for some races – where the question wasn’t who will run for thus-and-such seat, but will anyone run for it? I will say that we will need to make sure that if any quality candidates who sign up for a statewide race get gadfly/perennial candidate primary opponents, we will all need to step it up in the primaries to make sure they don’t get Grady Yarbroughed or Jim Hoganed. Democrats have finally gotten to the point of being taken seriously. Let’s not screw that up just yet.

Kim Olson

Kim is ready to serve Texans and represent TX-24.

You in for Kim, send a pledge [email protected]

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