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Susan Wright

Jake Ellzey wins CD06 special election runoff

Jul 29th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

I confess, I had totally forgotten about this.

Jake Ellzey

State Rep. Jake Ellzey of Waxahachie beat fellow Republican Susan Wright on Tuesday to succeed her late husband, U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, and pull off a major upset against a candidate backed by former President Donald Trump.

With all precincts reporting Wednesday morning, Ellzey got 53% of the vote, while Susan Wright, a longtime GOP activist, received 47%, according to unofficial results.

Ellzey declared victory in a speech shortly after 9 p.m., addressing supporters in Ennis.

[…]

Susan Wright and Ellzey came out on top of a May 1 special election that featured 21 other candidates. She finished first with 19% of the vote, while Ellzey got 14%.

Trump endorsed Susan Wright in the final days before the May 1 election. He got more involved in the runoff, issuing three statements reiterating his endorsement, starring in a robocall for her and headlining a telephone rally for her on Monday night.

Ellzey relied on support from former Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Houston, a fellow Navy veteran who came off the sidelines in the runoff. Perry and other Ellzey allies suggested Trump had been misled into endorsing Susan Wright.

National attention on the race dimmed after Democrats narrowly missed the runoff, a disappointment for the party in a district that Trump won by only 3 percentage points last year. But Ellzey kept things competitive in the intraparty matchup, significantly outraising Susan Wright during the latest campaign finance reporting period and rallying his supporters against a barrage of attacks from the pro-Wright Club for Growth.

The DMN goes into the campaign and the Trump effect.

Ellzey’s victory was a blow to former President Donald Trump, who endorsed Wright over the objections of several major Texas Republicans, including former Texas Gov. Rick Perry.

Trump is perceived to be the leader of the Republican Party, both nationally and locally, and the 6th Congressional District race was a test of his political clout in his post presidency. Though he didn’t campaign for Wright in Texas, he hosted two tele-rallies on her behalf, but couldn’t push her past Ellzey.

[…]

The contest, which featured two Republican candidates, was largely a test on whether Trump is still the most influential player in the Republican Party.

His backing of Wright is believed to have helped her in Ellis and Navarro counties, both Republican strongholds easily carried by Trump in his presidential elections, and where Ellzey, who lives in Waxahachie, had hoped to establish a beachhead. He represents a Texas House district that is anchored in Ellis County.

Wright won Trump’s endorsement upon the advice from officials at the Club for Growth, and his belief, according to several with knowledge of his decision, that Wright had a built-in advantage because she’s the widow of Ron Wright.

In the days leading up to the general election, Trump stepped up his outreach to voters, twice restating his endorsement of Wright, recording automatic phone calls that went throughout the district and advertising through his super PAC on television.

Ellzey’s biggest challenge was to overcome Trump’s endorsement, and he struggled at times to find an answer to why the former president saw fit to get involved in the race.

For most of the campaign, Ellzey, with surrogates like Perry, appealed to base Republican voters. But days before the election he sent campaign mailers to Democratic Party voters in the district. Those mailers, along with text messages voters received from some source, portrayed Ellzey as a fighter for public education, while pointing out that Wright is endorsed by Trump.

It’s possible that Ellzey was able to mine Democratic voters who otherwise would have skipped a race featuring two Republicans. Wright’s campaign had already been pounding Ellzey as a tool for Democrats, so he couldn’t openly court those voters until the final days of his campaign.

“He would like it if Democrats vote for him, but he sure doesn’t want to go out on a date with one,” Democratic strategist Matt Angle said of Ellzey’s imagery.

There was some discourse, mostly on Twitter, about how this result was a referendum on Trump and his influence. I would advise anyone to take that with an extreme grain of salt, as we should always be at least a little skeptical of special election and runoff results. That said, if Wright had won, Trump would be crowing about it, and the received wisdom would be that his influence was the difference maker. That would have been way overblown as well, but to the extent that one accepts that premise, it’s worth keeping the counterexample in mind.

Ellzey’s last-minute campaign pitch to Democrats was a smart play. They were obviously not the main targets in the race, but this wasn’t a primary runoff and they were allowed to participate. One might also recall that CD06 is (at least as currently drawn) a purple district, one in which Joe Biden got 48% of the vote. In other words, there were plenty of Dems to court, even with a very simple message, and that could be a big deal in an otherwise close race. If what Dem voters got out of it was a finger in the eye to Trump, it was worth it. As relationships go, this was a total one-night stand, but it got Ellzey where he wanted to go.

One more thing:

It doesn’t change the math directly – 51 missing Democrats still make for a lack of quorum – but if a couple of Republicans are not there as well, for whatever the reason, then you’d need more Democrats to be back to get to the minimum number of 100 present members. I would normally expect the special election to replace Ellzey in the House (his district is HD10) to be this November, but it’s possible Greg Abbott will expedite it because of the forthcoming special session(s) on redistricting. We should know for sure in a couple of weeks. Daily Kos has more.

CD06 special election result

May 2nd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

I’m not going to stay up late and wait till every last vote has been counted in CD06. You can see the latest report from the SOS here. As of when I drafted this, Susan Wright and Jake Ellzey were leading, with Jana Sanchez just a bit behind Ellzey. If that holds, it will be an all-GOP runoff, which is not great but not terribly surprising. It wasn’t just that the three Dems who raised the most money split the vote, it was also the no-name, no-money Dems who collected votes. I have no idea who Tammy Allison is, but she was actually the third-best Dem in the race, with over five percent of the vote. Multi-candidate special elections are weird, man.

The takes I saw last night on Twitter were scorching hot, but honestly things wouldn’t be all that much different if Sanchez had collected a couple hundred more votes (as of when I last checked) and slipped ahead of Ellzey and into the runoff. Having three viable Dems, plus one who perhaps benefitted from being the first name on the ballot in Tarrant County, was a heavy lift to overcome. It’s what I was worried about from the beginning. I don’t have anything more insightful than that to say.

One more CD06 update

Apr 29th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Some dude made an endorsement in the race.

Rep. Ron Wright

Former President Donald Trump has endorsed fellow Republican Susan Wright in the crowded Saturday special election to replace her late husband, U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington.

The endorsement is a massive development in a race that features 11 Republicans, including at least two former Trump administration officials. A number of the GOP contenders have been closely aligning themselves with the former president.

[…]

Wright’s Republican rivals include Brian Harrison, the chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Trump, and Sery Kim, who worked at the Small Business Administration under the former president. There is also Dan Rodimer, the former pro wrestler who moved to Texas after an unsuccessful congressional campaign last year in Nevada that had Trump’s support.

The candidates’ efforts to show their loyalty to Trump has gotten so intense that a Trump spokesperson had to issue a statement last week clarifying that he had not yet gotten involved in the race.

See here and here for recent updates. Susan Wright is widely considered the frontrunner, though she hasn’t raised as much money as some other candidates. Maybe this is to cement her position, maybe it’s out of concern that she’s not in as strong a position as one might have thought, who knows. What I do know is that the endorsement announcement wasn’t made on Twitter.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Republican divide:

When House Republicans gather in Florida this week for their annual policy retreat, Rep. Adam Kinzinger, R-Ill., will be a thousand miles away in Texas, campaigning for Michael Wood in the upcoming special election in Texas’ 6th Congressional District.

Wood, a Marine Reserve major, is one of 23 candidates running in the May 1 election to succeed Rep. Ron Wright, R-Texas, who died in February from COVID-19 and complications from cancer. The crowded field includes Wright’s widow, a former wrestler, and several Republicans who served in the Trump administration.

But Wood is the only openly anti-Trump candidate in the race — and hopes voters in the sprawling district that includes diversifying swaths of the Dallas-Forth Worth suburbs — where Trump won by three percentage points in 2020 after winning by 12 in 2016 — will help push him through the field and into a runoff should no candidate receive a majority of votes.

“The Republican Party has lost its way and now is the time to fight for its renewal,” Wood says on his campaign website. “We were once a party of ideas, but we have devolved into a cult of personality. This must end, and Texas must lead the way.”

Wood’s long shot bid is also an early test for Kinzinger, one of ten Republicans in the House who voted to impeach Trump for inciting the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and his efforts to overturn the election results.

[…]

In Texas, Wood told ABC News he views his special election as the “first battle for the soul of the Republican Party” since the 2020 election cycle.

“It’s just going to be one data point in what’s going to have to be a very long fight,” he said.

I appreciate their efforts to try and rehabilitate a degenerate and depraved Republican Party. Let’s just say I don’t share their optimism about their chances.

Some polling data:

The progressive firm Data for Progress has released a survey of the May 1 all-party primary that shows Republican party activist Susan Wright, the wife of the late Rep. Ron Wright, in first with 22%.

2018 Democratic nominee Jana Lynne Sanchez leads Republican state Rep. Jake Ellzey by a small 16-13 margin in the contest for the second spot in an all-but-assured runoff, with a few other candidates from each party also in striking distance. Former Trump administration official Brian Harrison and Democrat Shawn Lassiter, who works as an education advocate, are both at 10%, while 2020 Democratic state House nominee Lydia Bean is at 9%.

The only other poll we’ve seen all month was a Meeting Street Research survey for the conservative blog the Washington Free Beacon from mid-April that showed a very tight four-way race. Those numbers had Sanchez and Wright at 16% and 15%, respectively, with Ellzey at 14% and Harrison taking 12%.

Data for Progress also polled a hypothetical runoff between Wright and Sanchez and found the Republican up 53-43. This seat, which includes part of Arlington and rural areas south of Dallas, supported Trump only 51-48 in 2020 after backing him 54-42 four years before, but Republicans have done better downballot.

Poll data is here. My advice is to take it with a grain of salt – multi-candidate special elections are ridiculously hard to poll, and this one has a cast of characters to rival “Game of Thrones”. The runoff result is interesting, but even if we get the Wright/Sanchez matchup, the dynamics of this runoff will likely be very different, with much more money involved.

Turnout in early voting has been brisk in Tarrant County, which is the Dem-friendlier part of the district and where there is also an open seat Mayoral race in Fort Worth. Election Day is Saturday, I’ll have the result on Sunday.

April 2021 campaign finance reports: CD06 special election

Apr 25th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

As noted in Friday’s post, here’s a look at the campaign finance reports for the candidates that have raised at least a few bucks in the CD06 special election.

Brian Harrison (R)
Jake Ellzey (R)
Dan Rodimer (R)
Shawn Lassiter (D)
Jana Sanchez (D)
Susan Wright (R)
Lydia Bean (D)
Michael Egan (R)
Michael Wood (R)


Party Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
GOP   Harrison        647,334    264,566  285,000    382,768
GOP   Ellzey          503,523    103,246   43,175    400,276
GOP   Rodimer         337,100    173,523        0    163,577
Dem   Lassiter        322,254    201,066        0    121,188
Dem   Sanchez         299,007    202,813        0     96,193
GOP   Wright          286,331    158,120   65,486    128,210
Dem   Bean            223,056    114,814        0    108,242
GOP   Egan            116,074     38,507        0     77,586
GOP   Wood             98,626     23,645        0     74,981

I arbitrarily cut it off here, as everyone else raised less than $50K, including Sery Kim, whose bid for attention did not lead to an influx of cash. This link should show you the FEC summary page for all the CD06 candidates, or you can visit the Daily Kos Q1 Congressional fundraising roundup to see how candidates that didn’t make this cut fared.

Loan amounts are rolled into the Raised figure, so Brian Harrison’s haul is in actuality a bit more than half of what is shown in that column. Still counts for the main purpose, which is getting your name out there before the voters, and his $350K-plus raised from people other than himself is still one of the top two. I’m a little surprised that Susan Wright didn’t do better, given her status as the widow of Ron Wright and the large amount of establishment support she has, but then Ron Wright was never a huge moneybags either. She has the most name ID, and that’s what this game is all about.

As for the Dems, the game theorist in me wishes there was clear separation between them, with one candidate well ahead of the others. That’s the best path to putting someone in the runoff, whereas the concern here is that they will split the Dem vote evenly enough to lock them all out. That said, there are more Republicans with enough support to slice that piece of the pie multiple ways, and that means that an all-Dem runoff is not out of the question if things shake out in the most favorable way possible. It’s unlikely, to be sure – an all-R runoff is the better bet than an all-D overtime – but the chances are not zero. I don’t have a preference among Shawn Lassiter, Jana Sanchez, and Lydia Bean – any of them would be light years better than any Republican, and a win by any of them would be pretty seismic – but if you anointed me the official Head Honcho of the Smoke-Filled Room, I’d have had them draw cards to decide which one of them got to be The One True Candidate, to maximize the chances that she would make it to the second round. But here we are, and all three of them have a shot. Hope for the best.

Checking in on CD06

Apr 23rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Wingnuts attack!

Rep. Ron Wright

State Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie, is suddenly under intense fire from his right flank as he has emerged as a leading candidate in the special election to replace the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington.

The Club for Growth, the national anti-tax group, is spending six figures trying to stop him ahead of the May 1 contest, and on Tuesday, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz voiced opposition to Ellzey, one of 11 Republicans running.

“Texans in CD-6 deserve a strong conservative voice in Congress,” Cruz said in a statement to The Texas Tribune. “Jake Ellzey’s financial support from never-Trumpers, openness to amnesty, and opposition to school choice should concern Texans looking for a conservative leader.”

Cruz’s team provided the statement after the Tribune asked for the senator’s position on the race, a lingering point of interest after another GOP candidate, Dan Rodimer, began his campaign last month while reportedly claiming Cruz’s encouragement to run. Cruz has not endorsed a candidate in the race.

Early voting began Monday for the special election to fill the seat of Wright, who died in February after being hospitalized with COVID-19. There are 23 candidates total, and other top GOP contenders include Wright’s widow, Susan Wright, as well as Brian Harrison, the former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump. There are 10 Democrats running, and they are hoping to advance to an all-but-guaranteed runoff and then flip the Republican-leaning seat.

But for now, Ellzey is the center of attention, at least on the GOP side. Ellzey has been building momentum in recent days, and campaign finance reports released Monday showed that he was not only the top fundraiser from either party but that he also had more money in the bank for the homestretch than any other candidate. Ellzey raised $504,000 in under two months and had $400,000 cash on hand as of April 11.

That reminds me that I need to look at the Q1 finance reports, to see how other candidates did, and how much money there is overall. Whatever there was for the first round, you can bet there will be much more for the runoff, especially if it’s D versus R. Towards that end, generally ignore the polls.

The jungle primary for the Texas 6th special election is just under 2 weeks away, and we have a poll, so everyone is freaking out. The source of the trouble is that the lead Democrat is perilously close to the 2nd Republican, raising fears that the GOP could get two candidates ahead of the lead Democrat, and guarantee a victory before the runoff. This is a theoretical possibility, but not actually a real problem, because that poll should not be taken seriously.

This is a district that is 52% white by population – remember, this is an Arlington And Other Shit district, as I referred to it the first time I wrote about it – which has sizable Black (20%) and Hispanic (22%) populations. This district was Cruz +3 and Trump +3, but while the Tarrant portion of the district barely moved, from Beto +11.5% to Biden +11.9%, that elides a lot of the shift under the hood, with Beto doing better in the urban Arlington areas while Biden did better in the white suburbs, a fact that should surprise nobody. None of this is a shock.

The district contains a bit of the DFW quad – the bottom right corner of Tarrant, and this map from Jackson Bryman shows how the very minimal topline swing is actually two counterbalancing swings, as it is in the whole of the DFW Quad.

Now, I know what you’ll be saying – a district that’s 52% white by population will be more white than that when you apply a voter screen on it, and I don’t disagree. Echelon Insights released some electorate composition projections before 2020 in a handful of Congressional Districts, and their screen moved the (similarly ethnically diverse) Texas 22nd about 10% points whiter when comparing populations to electorates, which would make the 6th about 62% white, give or take. Seems reasonable enough to me, maybe a bit high if you think that Trumpian low-propensity whites and Hispanic don’t turn out, maybe a bit low if Black turnout sags. But yeah, something like a 60-65% white electorate would be reasonable.

This poll was 75% white.

[…]

So, what’s the actual state of play in the Texas 6th? Democrats will presumably make the runoff with Jana Lynne Sanchez, the GOP will get one of their potential nominees through, and Democrats are still the underdogs to actually flip the seat, but not out of the game by any means. This poll was R+10 when they asked just a generic D/R ballot test, which would represent a 2% swing to the GOP, but this is an overly white sample from a GOP pollster, so my prior – a swing to the Democrats from the 2020 Congressional result and a better result for the GOP as compared to the Presidential – is still the likeliest outcome.

I’ve seen references to this poll, which was sponsored by a right-wing publication. It’s not worth worrying about, even if it were a better poll sponsored by a better organization. Special elections are chaotic enough, and with so many candidates in the race the range of outputs is immense. Not many votes could easily be the difference between second place and third or fourth or fifth. I also believe that a two-party runoff is the most likely outcome, but two Rs and even two Ds could happen, if there’s sufficiently even distribution among the top contenders. Who knows?

How much should Dems try to compete in the CD06 special election?

Mar 25th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Let’s make sure someone gets to the runoff, then we can worry about that.

Rep. Ron Wright

Democrats running to replace the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, believe they can flip the seat in an unpredictable off-year special election. But Democrats at large are not as sure — or willing to say it out loud.

That is becoming clear as campaigning ramps up for the May 1 contest, when 23 candidates — including 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats — will be on the ballot in Texas’ 6th Congressional District. With so many contenders, the race is likely to go to a mid-summer runoff, and Democrats involved hope they can secure a second-round spot on their way to turning the district blue.

While Democrats have cause for optimism — the district has rapidly trended blue in recent presidential election results — some are urging caution. They are mindful of a few factors, not the least of which is a 2020 election cycle in which high Democratic expectations culminated in deep disappointment throughout the ballot.

“We’re not counting our chickens before they hatch and we’re gonna work to earn every vote,” said Abhi Rahman, a Texas Democratic strategist who previously worked for the state party. “This is not a bellwether. This is the first of many battles that will eventually lead to Texas turning blue.”

With just under a month until early voting begins, national Democrats are showing few outward signs that they are ready to engage in the race, even as candidates and their supporters press the case that the district is flippable. They point out that Trump carried the district by only 3 percentage points in November after winning it by 12 points in 2016. Mitt Romney carried the district by 17 points in 2012.

“It absolutely is a competitive race,” said Stephen Daniel, the 2020 Democratic nominee for the seat, who opted against running in the special election. He added he thinks that national Democrats need “to get involved because I think the more resources you have to get out there and help you reach these voters can only help.”

On the flip side, Wright, who died in February weeks after testing positive for the coronavirus, won the seat when it was open in 2018 by 8 points and by 9 points in 2020. Both times the seat was a target of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, though the designation came late in the cycle and the group did not spend significant money in either election.

And while Trump carried the district by only 3 points in November, every other statewide Republican candidate, including U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, won it by more comfortable margins ranging from 6 to 8 points.

Yes, it’s a big field, and Democratic-aligned groups like Emily’s List are currently staying neutral since there are multiple female candidates and they don’t usually take sides in that kind of situation. (The AFL-CIO endorsed Lydia Bean, so not everyone is biding their time.) For what it’s worth, there have been a couple of polls released so far, the first on behalf of Jana Sanchez showing her comfortably in second place (and thus in the runoff) and the second on behalf of Lydia Bean that also showed Sanchez in second place but with about half the support and much closer to both Bean and to GOPer Jake Ellzey. Both have Susan Wright, the widow of Rep. Ron Wright, in first place. While I agree that Susan Wright is the likely frontrunner, I would caution you to not take any CD06 poll too seriously.

The Dem candidates so far are being cordial to one another, which is the right strategic move at this time. The best outcome from a strictly utilitarian perspective is for one of them to separate from the pack and be in good position to make it to overtime. After that, I do think there should be an investment by the national players in this race, if only to keep pace with the GOP entrant. Special elections in reasonably mixed districts are all about turnout, and it wouldn’t take that much to sneak past the finish line. By any reasonable objective, this is a Lean R district, but it’s far from hopeless. Step one is having someone to be there for the runoff. Everything else is just details.

Come one, come all to the CD06 special election

Mar 5th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Now that is what I call a field.

Rep. Ron Wright

A crowd of 23 candidates — including 11 Republicans and 10 Democrats — has filed for the May 1 special election to fill the seat of the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, according to the secretary of state’s office.

The filing deadline was 5 p.m. Wednesday. The race also attracted one independent and one Libertarian.

The GOP field saw a last-minute surprise. With less than an hour until the deadline, Dan Rodimer, the former professional wrestler who ran as a Republican for Congress last year in Nevada, arrived at the secretary of state’s office in Austin to file for the seat.

“We need fighters in Texas, and that’s what I’m coming here for,” Rodimer told The Texas Tribune. “I’m moving back to Texas. I have six children and I want them to be raised in a constitutional-friendly state.”

Some of the other candidates had already announced their campaigns, most notably Wright’s widow, longtime GOP activist Susan Wright. Other prominent Republican contenders include state Rep. Jake Ellzey of Waxahachie and Brian Harrison, the former chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump.

On Tuesday evening, one potential major GOP candidate, former Trump campaign adviser Katrina Pierson, announced she was not running.

On the Democratic side, the field includes Jana Lynne Sanchez, the 2018 Democratic nominee for the seat; Lydia Bean, last year’s Democratic nominee against state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth; and Shawn Lassiter, a Fort Worth education nonprofit leader.

See here and here for some background. The full list of candidates can be found at the end of the story. A field this size tends to defy analysis, but we’ll get some idea of who has legs and who doesn’t when we see the Q1 finance reports, which will include whatever fundraising activity these folks can muster up for the rest of the month. I do feel confident saying there will be some separation evident from that. Just getting your name out there, and distinguishing yourself from the almost two dozen (!) other candidates will be a heck of a challenge.

An early analysis of the CD06 special election

Mar 3rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Four your perusal.

Rep. Ron Wright

So, this is the part where I say the take I’ve had in my head since the seat opened up – Joe Biden should have won the district, and it was a fairly pathetic result to lose by 3. The district – a diverse, socially liberal seat without too many whites without a degree should have gone blue. What we can’t say with certainty, but I feel very confident about, is that Biden’s numbers with white voters and Beto’s numbers with Hispanics would have left the seat as a dead tie, because Beto outran Biden by 14% with Hispanics, and correcting that would move the seat left by about 3%. If Biden had managed to actually meaningfully advance off 2018 with college whites, the district is his, and honestly, it would be so fairly easily. That inability to convert those voters at the pace or speed that many expected, led by polls that just entirely missed reality, was a shock.

Given my prior beliefs – that rural whites and low propensity Hispanics won’t turn out like they did in 2020 – I feel pretty good in saying that the electorate that will vote on special election day (and in the weeks before) will be an electorate that would have voted for Joe Biden. I expect Tarrant to cast a greater share of votes this year than 2020, I expect the % of the electorate with a college degree to rise, and I expect Black voters in the district to be motivated to continue the arduous work of bailing out white America, because that seems to be the life that white America demands of them. That said, I don’t think Democrats are favoured – after all, the GOP did outrun Biden/Trump by 5% downballot.

There are three wrinkles in this conversation, which all matter. The first is that the widow is running, which could engender some sympathy from voters, making this election a harder data point to extrapolate from, and the second is a related point, which is that I have no idea who the Democratic nominee will be. I can’t pretend to be too eager to run the guy who managed to underrun Joe Biden by 5% again, but I’m not sure who would be better. Neither of those issues radically change my assessment of this race.

My first thought, from the moment the race unfortunately triggered, was that we would get a result better for Democrats than November 2020 and not good enough to credibly contend, in other words, a 3-5% loss with a couple of tied internals that gets certain parts of Twitter excited. That remains my prediction – something between the Presidential result and the House result, one that is good news for Democrats but not great news, or inarguably good for them. Again, I expect the GOP to win this seat. But I won’t be surprised if they lose it, because of the third wrinkle this race has seen.

The third wrinkle to this race – don’t worry, I hadn’t forgotten about it – is the song of fire and ice that Texas had to live with (and, in many places, is still living with). Or, maybe better, the song of ice and ice. The cold snap has exposed the state as woefully unprepared for huge amounts of snow, which leads to debatable positions on how southern states should prepare for freak snowstorms. That Texans got absolutely fucked by ERCOT, and are staring at 5 figure power bills that are a fucking disgrace, is not up for similar debate. This debacle – and the way that Democrats from AOC to Beto have stepped up to the plate, while Ted Cruz cut and run to Cancun – has the potential to sour people on the Texas GOP, especially if the threat of people actually having to pay those sorts of expenses is still hanging in the air on voting day.

Emphasis in the original, and see here and here for some background. Stephen Daniel, the 2020 candidate alluded to above, is not running, but 2018 candidate Jana Sanchez, who trailed Beto by about three points in 2018, is running. I agree that probably doesn’t matter that much, but for what it’s worth, I think it’s more that Ron Wright, who had previously been the Tax Assessor/Collector in Tarrant County, ran ahead of the GOP pack more than Daniel and Sanchez ran behind. That advantage likely transfers to Susan Wright, but it may vanish if she finishes out of the money. The filing deadline is today, so we’ll see how big and potentially chaotic this field will be.

The CD06 field is already big

Mar 1st, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Pretty common for this kind of special election.

Rep. Ron Wright

The race to replace the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, has already attracted a crowd of candidates — and more are expected in the coming days.

Even before Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that the special election would be May 1, Democrats and Republicans were lining up for the seat, and as of Wednesday, at least 10 contenders had entered the contest. They range from the obscure to well-known, most notably including Wright’s widow, Susan Wright, who made her bid official Wednesday morning.

The filing deadline is a week away — 5 p.m. March 3.

The district has been trending Democratic in statewide results, though Ron Wright won his races comfortably, and national Democrats are now faced with the decision of how hard to push to flip the district in the special election. Last year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee targeted 10 GOP-held districts in Texas — including Ron Wright’s — and captured none of them.

Still, some Democrats see opportunity.

The district “fundamentally changed as the Republican Party has changed,” said one of the Democrats running, Jana Lynne Sanchez, the 2018 nominee for the seat.

For Republicans, the race could turn into a referendum on the direction of their party after the presidency of Donald Trump, who has connections to at least two potential contenders. So far, though, much of the discussion on the GOP side of the contest has centered on the candidacy of Susan Wright, who starts off as the most formidable-looking candidate and was already collecting endorsements Wednesday.

[…]

On the Democratic side, the first to declare was Sanchez, who faced Ron Wright for the congressional seat when it was open three years ago and lost by 8 points. When Sanchez announced her special election campaign on Feb. 16, she said she had already collected $100,000 for the race.

“I am the only candidate who will be able to raise the money that’s necessary,” she said in an interview.

Sanchez was followed by fellow Democrats Shawn Lassiter, an eduction nonprofit leader in Fort Worth, and then Lydia Bean, the Democratic nominee last year against state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth. Lassiter, who was previously running for the Fort Worth City Council, released a launch video Wednesday morning in which she speaks directly to the camera, inside a powerless home, about the leadership failures that led to the Texas winter weather crisis last week.

A fourth Democratic candidate, Matthew Hinterlong of Dallas, filed FEC papers for the seat later Wednesday.

See here for the background. The Republican side includes Susan Wright, Jake Ellzey, Sery Kim, and the two guys you’ve never heard of, Mike Egan and John Anthony Castro. Multiple others may join in, such as Katrina Pierson, Brian Harrison, Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams, and Manny Ramirez, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association. Having that many Republicans in the race eases my fear somewhat about multiple Dems splitting the vote too finely for any of them to make it to a runoff, but it does not alleviate it altogether. As to whether the DCCC or other national groups get involved, I’d be hard pressed to imagine them sitting it out in a D-versus-R runoff, but they may very well keep their powder dry until then. We’ll see how big this field gets.

May 1 special election date set for CD06

Feb 24th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Here we go.

Rep. Ron Wright

Gov. Greg Abbott has selected May 1 as the date for the special election to succeed late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington.

Wright died earlier this month after a yearslong struggle with cancer and testing positive for COVID-19 in January.

The candidate filing deadline for the special election is March 3, and early voting starts April 19.

The special election for the Republican-leaning seat is set to draw a large crowd, and several candidates have already announced or filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission.

On the Republican side, Wright’s wife, Susan Wright, is expected to launch a campaign as soon as this week. She could be joined by a slew of potential GOP contenders including state Rep. Jake Ellzey, R-Waxahachie; Katrina Pierson, the former Trump campaign spokesperson; and Brian Harrison, who was chief of staff at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services under Trump.

Two Democrats have declared their candidacies: Jana Lynne Sanchez, the 2018 Democratic nominee for the seat, and Lydia Bean, last year’s Democratic nominee for state House District 93.

See here, here, here, and here for the background. Note that this is not the same date as for the regular May elections. That was how it was in 2012 when the primaries were moved to May, and how it surely will be next year when we have to have May primaries. If you live in CD06 and also in a city or school district or other jurisdiction that has May-of-odd-year elections, congratulations, you’ll be voting twice – possibly in different locations – this May.

As for the potential candidates, I’ll say this much: I have no preference between Jana Sanchez and Lydia Bean, but having them both in the race greatly decreases the odds that we can get a Democrat into the runoff. According to Texas Elects, Fort Worth educator Shawn Lassiter is also in the race as a Dem, plus three more Republicans you’ve never heard of. We’ve seen this movie before, in Houston City Council At Large races, and we know how it ends. Don’t know that there’s anything to be done other than point that out, but there it is.

Susan Wright appears ready to run in CD06

Feb 23rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

She’d likely make a strong candidate.

Rep. Ron Wright

Susan Wright, the wife of the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, is getting close to launching a campaign for his seat and could announce her bid as soon as this week, according to two people close to the family who were not authorized to speak on the record about her plans.

Ron Wright died earlier this month after living for years with cancer and testing positive for the coronavirus in January. His funeral was Saturday.

His death triggers a special election in the increasingly competitive 6th Congressional District. Gov. Greg Abbott has not yet scheduled the special election, but it is likely to happen May 1 or sooner.

Susan Wright, who was not immediately available for comment, is a longtime GOP activist who serves on the State Republican Executive Committee. She also contracted COVID-19 recently and was hospitalized, though she was discharged before her husband’s death. She was “by his side” when he died Feb. 7, his campaign said.

[…]

It remains to be seen whether national Democrats will make a serious push in the special election. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which targeted the district last election cycle, is “looking at” competing in the special election, committee chair Sean Patrick Maloney said in a Washington Post interview published last week.

Jana Lynne Sanchez, the Democrat who lost to Ron Wright by 8 points in 2018, has already announced she is running in the special election. Wright’s 2020 challenger, Stephen Daniel, has not ruled out a run. He lost by 9 points in November.

See here, here, and here for the background. I don’t know anything about Susan Wright, but she brings some obvious advantages to the race if she chooses to run. She would also likely discourage other viable Republicans from getting into the race, which would make her path easier. I still think this would be a competitive election, but one in which the Republicans would be favored. I say it’s worth some investment, though I can understand the reluctance to go all in on a relative longshot. Still early days, we’ll see how it goes when the special election date is set.

A few names begin to emerge for CD06

Feb 13th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

From Daily Kos Elections:

Rep. Ron Wright

A special election will take place later this year to succeed Republican Rep. Ron Wright, who died Sunday after contracting COVID-19, and a few names have already surfaced in both parties as possible special election candidates. Understandably, though, would-be contenders are hesitant to say much so soon after the incumbent’s death.

On the Republican side, Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams said he would think about the race at a later date. Fort Worth City Council member Cary Moon, meanwhile, didn’t directly indicate if he was interested in his communication with the Fort Worth Star Telegram, though he did describe himself as “a business owner with good ties to the district.”

The Dallas Morning News notes that some Republicans may be waiting to see if the congressman’s widow, Susan Wright, runs before deciding what they’d do. The paper also mentions Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn as a possible contender. Waybourn later put out a statement “asking everyone on behalf of Congressman Wright’s family to refrain from speculating on who might replace such an amazing man – that season is not here yet.”

One Republican who did say he wouldn’t be campaigning here is former Rep. Joe Barton, who represented Texas’ 6th District for 17 terms before leaving office amid a sex scandal in 2018. Barton did, however, take the chance to name state Rep. David Cook and Waxahachie Mayor David Hill as potential candidates for Team Red.

On the Democratic side, 2020 nominee Stephen Daniel said he was thinking about another try. 2018 nominee Jana Lynne Sanchez, who went on to serve as Daniel’s campaign manager, did not address her plans in her statement about Wright’s death, saying, “[W]e can talk about politics later.” The Dallas Morning News also mentioned state Sen. Beverly Powell as a possibility, while Barton speculated that state Rep. Chris Turner “would be a good candidate” for the Democrats.

See here for the background. Both Sen. Powell and Rep. Turner are based in Tarrant County, where the bulk of CD06 is and where Dems took a majority of the vote in that part of the district in 2020. That would be the key to winning a special election, especially a special election runoff. Neither they nor Rep. Cook would risk their own seat in the process, since they would remain in place until and unless they won. It may be early to speak publicly about this seat, but it’s not too early to call around a bit and see what kind of financial support might be available. My guess is that we may start hearing some actual candidate-speak next week, and for sure we’ll hear it once the date for the special election is set.

For what it’s worth, the last special election in Texas to succeed a member of Congress that had died was in 1997. Rep. Frank Tejada of CD28 died on January 30 from pneumonia after having battled brain cancer. The special election to succeed him happened almost immediately, on March 15; Ciro Rodriguez won the runoff four weeks later. Election law was different then, in that there were more uniform election dates, including one in March, which meant the next legal election date following Rep. Tejada’s passing was right there. The lead time for the election was also shorter, since the MOVE Act was not in place then. I expect that this special election will be set for May, the next uniform election date on the calendar, and we’ll need to have an announcement about it in the next couple of weeks.