Ron Wright

Jake Ellzey wins CD06 special election runoff

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:

.
FYI: When Congressman-Elect Ellzey is sworn in, that puts us another member down for quorum in the Texas House #txlege

— Scott Braddock (@scottbraddock) 10:42 PM – 27 July 2021

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.

Jana Sachez will run in CD06

Feb 18th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

We are now getting some candidate announcements for this forthcoming special election.

Jana Sanchez

A Democrat who previously ran for Texas’ 6th Congressional District is again running for the North Texas seat.

Jana Lynne Sanchez on Tuesday announced her bid for the seat, which spans southeast Tarrant County, including most of Arlington and Mansfield, as well as all of Ellis and Navarro counties.

Sanchez ran for the seat in 2018 against U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, who won 53% of the votes to Sanchez’s 45%. Wright died this month after battling COVID-19 and lung cancer.

[…]

“Although we didn’t win last time, we moved the district 11 points,” Sanchez said. “We see the district fundamentally changing.”

Sanchez has raised more than $100,000 for her congressional bid, according to her campaign.

See here and here for the background. There are a couple of Republicans who are now in, none of whom I’ve heard of, and there are some other Dems out there who may yet jump in. Sanchez raised $730K in 2018, not a bad total, and is off to a good start here. I have to imagine this race will eventually draw a ton of national money, but doing a good job of that yourself is the best way to make sure the race doesn’t get overlooked. Beto got 48% in 2018, running about two and a half points ahead of Sanchez. I’d call this race Lean Republican to start out, but it has the potential to be quite exciting. Daily Kos has more.

Are people leaving the Republican Party?

Feb 16th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

Some people are, in at least some states, if you go by voter registration data.

In the days after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, the phone lines and websites of local election officials across the country were jumping: Tens of thousands of Republicans were calling or logging on to switch their party affiliations.

In California, more than 33,000 registered Republicans left the party during the three weeks after the Washington riot. In Pennsylvania, more than 12,000 voters left the G.O.P. in the past month, and more than 10,000 Republicans changed their registration in Arizona.

An analysis of January voting records by The New York Times found that nearly 140,000 Republicans had quit the party in 25 states that had readily available data (19 states do not have registration by party). Voting experts said the data indicated a stronger-than-usual flight from a political party after a presidential election, as well as the potential start of a damaging period for G.O.P. registrations as voters recoil from the Capitol violence and its fallout.

[…]

The biggest spikes in Republicans leaving the party came in the days after Jan. 6, especially in California, where there were 1,020 Republican changes on Jan. 5 — and then 3,243 on Jan. 7. In Arizona, there were 233 Republican changes in the first five days of January, and 3,317 in the next week. Most of the Republicans in these states and others switched to unaffiliated status.

Voter rolls often change after presidential elections, when registrations sometimes shift toward the winner’s party or people update their old affiliations to correspond to their current party preferences, often at a department of motor vehicles. Other states remove inactive voters, deceased voters or those who moved out of state from all parties, and lump those people together with voters who changed their own registrations. Of the 25 states surveyed by The Times, Nevada, Kansas, Utah and Oklahoma had combined such voter list maintenance with registration changes, so their overall totals would not be limited to changes that voters made themselves. Other states may have done so, as well, but did not indicate in their public data.

Among Democrats, 79,000 have left the party since early January.

But the tumult at the Capitol, and the historic unpopularity of former President Donald J. Trump, have made for an intensely fluid period in American politics. Many Republicans denounced the pro-Trump forces that rioted on Jan. 6, and 10 Republican House members voted to impeach Mr. Trump. Sizable numbers of Republicans now say they support key elements of President Biden’s stimulus package; typically, the opposing party is wary if not hostile toward the major policy priorities of a new president.

“Since this is such a highly unusual activity, it probably is indicative of a larger undercurrent that’s happening, where there are other people who are likewise thinking that they no longer feel like they’re part of the Republican Party, but they just haven’t contacted election officials to tell them that they might change their party registration,” said Michael P. McDonald, a professor of political science at the University of Florida. “So this is probably a tip of an iceberg.”

But, he cautioned, it could also be the vocal “never Trump” reality simply coming into focus as Republicans finally took the step of changing their registration, even though they hadn’t supported the president and his party since 2016.

A more detailed case against this thesis is made by G. Elliott Morris, who notes that voter registration is not the same as voter behavior – in states where people register by party, they don’t necessarily vote that way – and that at least some of these former Republicans have changed their affiliation because the establishment GOP didn’t support Trump enough following the election and the insurrection. In other words, some number of these folks aren’t any more likely to vote for a Democrat. Finally, the total numbers here are really small in terms of overall voter registration, well less than one percent. In other words, what we have here looks more like a drip than a stream.

On the other hand, the public now has a very low opinion of the Republican Party and a significantly more favorable view of the Democratic Party. Republicans also have issues with corporate donors, which may be a drag on them at least through 2022. And while President Biden’s current approval ratings are extremely polarized, I note that he’s basically the inverse of Trump with independents, getting 60% of approval there where Trump had 40% at this same point in their presidencies. Who knows where any of this will go from here, but right now, you’d rather be on Team Biden than on his opposition.

None of this applies directly to Texas, since of course we don’t register by party. We measure affiliation by primary voting, so we will have much more limited data until whenever we get to have primaries in 2022. That said, the forthcoming special election in CD06, to fill the seat left vacant by the passing of Rep. Ron Wright, may provide a yardstick as well. Trump carried the district in 2020 by a 51-48 margin, basically the same margin by which Ted Cruz carried it in 2018. Rep. Wright won by a more comfortable 53-44, and Trump won it 54-42 in 2016. A Democratic win in what I presume would be a June runoff would surely be a big deal, while a Republican victory would be seen as evidence that nothing much has changed. It’s super early and we have no candidates yet, so hold onto your hot takes for now.

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.

RIP, Rep. Ron Wright

Feb 9th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

7 comments

Condolences to his friends and family.

Rep. Ron Wright

U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, an Arlington Republican, has died.

His campaign staff announced the news Monday. Wright had lived for years with cancer and was diagnosed with COVID-19 in January. He was 67.

“His wife Susan was by his side and he is now in the presence of their Lord and Savior,” the statement said. “Over the past few years, Congressman Wright had kept a rigorous work schedule on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives and at home in Texas’ Congressional District 6 while being treated for cancer. For the previous two weeks, Ron and Susan had been admitted to Baylor Hospital in Dallas after contracting COVID-19.”

Wright was diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2018, per the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. He was previously hospitalized in mid-September.

Wright was in his second term in the U.S. House, but he was no stranger to Congress or local politics. A fan of bow ties, Wright was a fixture in the Tarrant County political scene. In the late 1990s, Wright was a columnist for the Star-Telegram. In 2000, he shifted to the political arena to serve as former U.S. Rep. Joe Barton’s district director and as an at-large member of the Arlington City Council through 2008. From 2004-08, Wright held the post of mayor pro tempore.

[…]

The district is historically Republican, but Democrats made some effort to challenge the district in the last two cycles. Even so, Wright won reelection by a 9-percentage-point margin in 2020.

There will be a special election at some point for this seat, and it should be pretty competitive. CD06 was carried by Trump by a 51-48 margin in 2020; Joe Biden’s performance there closely matches Beto’s 48% in 2018. Trump had won CD06 by a 54-42 margin in 2016, so this was a big shift in the Dem direction, with Tarrant County leading the way. CD06 was low on the Dem target list in 2020, but I expect it to get a lot more attention in 2021. If this develops as a D versus R runoff, look for a lot of money to be spent on it.

That’s for another day. Today we mourn the passing of Rep. Ron Wright. May he rest in peace.

The overlooked Congressional race

Oct 17th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

There are ten Congressional races involving Republican-held seats that are seen as competitive. Nine of them have gotten a fair amount of attention. The tenth is CD06, and the Texas Signal steps in to fill the gap.

Stephen Daniel

The race in the Texas sixth congressional district between challenger attorney Stephen Daniel and incumbent Rep. Ron Wright has been chugging along, under the radar from other clashes in the state. However, many pundits have looked at the district, which includes parts of Arlington, as well as Waxahachie and Corsicana, and have proclaimed it’s a sleeper for flipping, something Daniel himself sees in the final weeks of the campaign.

In 2018, Jana Lynne Sanchez ran for the seat. It was the first time in years a serious Democratic challenger had entered into the race. In the documentary film Surge, which recently premiered in Texas at the Dallas International Film Festival and is airing on Showtime, filmmakers chronicle the battle Sanchez endured to raise money and to get people interested in a race many deemed out of reach.

Sanchez came within seven points of Wright. Two years later, several polls are showing an even tighter race between Daniel and Wright, a combative Texas conservative and the former Chief of Staff to Rep. Joe Barton, who retired from the seat after explicit photos appeared on social media. Wright was recently hospitalized after complications from lung cancer treatment.

Wright has said that women who have abortions have committed murder and should be jailed. As a former columnist for the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, he said that “white males are the only species without some form of federal protection.” Like most Republicans in Congress, he supports dismantling the Affordable Care Act. Texas currently leads the nation in the number of uninsured, and since the COVID-19 pandemic, more than 650,000 Texans have lost their health insurance.

Access to healthcare prompted Daniel to enter into the race against Wright. In an interview with the Texas Signal, he spoke about his background growing up in a small town and being the first person in his family to go to college. “There’s a lot of people who flat out can’t afford healthcare,” said Daniel.

[…]

Like every campaign, Daniel and his team had to adjust to the pandemic era. He misses the in-person experience of block walking, where he could personally connect with voters. He particularly enjoyed campaigning alongside statehouse candidates. There are five competitive races in the sixth congressional district. Now, that campaigning has moved to Zoom and other virtual settings.

Daniel is optimistic. “The path to turning Texas blue goes through Texas sixth [district],” he said. Nearly seventy percent of the voting bloc in the district is in Arlington and Tarrant county. He sees firsthand how voters in the district are changing. The DCCC recently added the race to their Texas target list.

There was one poll of this race, done by the DCCC back in June, that had Wright up by four points, 45-41. The DCCC Executive Director mentioned CD06 as a race to watch a couple of weeks ago, for whatever that means. Daniel has been a modest but decent fundraiser who would need some help to get a boost. (I have not heard anything about his Q3 report as yet.) I should note that Beto lost CD06 by a 51.2 to 48.0 margin, which made it closer than the more-touted CDs 03 (51.3 to 47.9) and 25 (52.1 to 47.0), with that pattern holding true for other races as well. I don’t know exactly why CD06 has gotten less attention than the other races – Daniel was unopposed in the primary, so there hasn’t been much to report on – but that’s the way it is sometimes. However you want to look at it, this is a race to keep an eye on.

On a side note, seven of the ten Democratic candidates in those competitive races are women. Daniel, along with Mike Siegel in CD10, is vying to join Rep. Lloyd Doggett as the white Democratic Congressmen from Texas. I believe the last time there were as many as three white male Democratic members of Congress from Texas was 2009-10, when then-Reps. Chet Edwards and Gene Green were still serving. Nick Lampson had been there in the prior session, in that election where Tom DeLay withdrew and the Republicans ran Shelley Sekula Gibbs as a write-in, but he lost to Pete Olson in 2008. Edwards was wiped out in 2010, and Green retired prior to the 2018 election.

How many Congressional seats are really in play for Texas Dems?

Aug 30th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

7 comments

By one measure, more than you probably think. From Jonathan Tilove of the Statesman:

Last weekend, I read an interview in Salon with Rachel Bitecofer, a political scientist at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Va.

She is also an election analyst whose forecast of big Democratic gains in the 2018 midterm election was uncannily, uniquely accurate. She is now using the same model to forecast that any Democratic presidential candidate will win a minimum of 278 electoral votes in 2020 against President Donald Trump, eight more than the 270 needed to win.

But even more interesting to me, she is predicting that, if the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — the D-trip, as she and others commonly call it — applies resources generously and wisely, it could flip nine Texas House seats in 2020, half again as many as the six seats the DCCC is now targeting.

In addition to what will be open seats now held by Republicans in the 23rd Congressional District, where Will Hurd is not seeking reelection; the 22nd, where Pete Olson is retiring; and the 24th, where Kenny Marchant joined the Texodus; the DCCC is also setting its sights on the 21st, held by freshman Rep. Chip Roy; the 31st, held by veteran John Carter; and the 10th, which now belongs to Austin’s Michael McCaul.

But Bitecofer also includes three U.S. House districts on her list that are not now on the DCCC target list — the 25th Congressional District, where Democrat Julie Oliver is making a second run at incumbent Roger Williams, also of Austin; the 2nd, held by freshman Dan Crenshaw; and the 3rd, held by another freshman, Van Taylor, who I’ve never before heard mentioned as potential Democratic target of opportunity.

In fact, according to Bitecofer, nine of the Democrats’ 18 best chances for pickups in 2020 congressional races nationally are in Texas, which makes it, in her estimation, Ground Zero next year.

I interviewed Bitecofer on Monday and realized that it’s not so much that her analysis flies in the face of conventional wisdom about Texas politics, as it flies above it.

[…]

Under Bitecofer’s model, it doesn’t really matter if the Democratic congressional candidate is a fire-breathing progressive or a milquetoast moderate, as long as they remind voters that the election is all about Trump.

Bitecofer exudes confidence in her forecast.

Of McCaul, she said: “He’s a dead man walking if the DCCC drops money in that race, and then it doesn’t really matter who the Democrats nominate. Other handicappers will have it as `lean red’ when they do their races, and I will have it as ‘will flip’ if the DCCC has put it on its list.”

Bitecofer’s model is based on the number of college-educated voters in a given district, and it happens that Texas, being a mostly urban and suburban state, has a lot of them. You can read Tilove’s interview with her, or that Salon article, or listen to this interview she did on The Gist with Mike Pesca, but that’s the basic idea behind it.

Bitecofer’s model is alluring, but note the assumption of the DCCC targeting the district. That means pouring money into it, which also means that the Democratic nominee is already doing well in the fundraising department. By that reckoning, we need to dial back the enthusiasm a bit. CD03 has no candidate at this time now that Lorie Burch has ended her candidacy. CD31, which is on the DCCC list, doesn’t have a proven candidate yet. The two who filed Q2 finance reports have raised a few bucks, but the fact that freshman State Rep. James Talerico had been encouraged to run tells me this one is not at all settled. Elisa Cardnell in CD02 has raised some money and has been campaigning for months now, but Crenshaw has a national profile and a sheen from his Saturday Night Live appearance that he’s doing his best to tarnish but is still there. Julie Oliver is off to a nice start in CD25, but that’s the district of the nine with the weakest overall Dem performance from 2018. I’m still enough of a skeptic to think those numbers matter, too.

(Note also that Bitecofer does not include CD06 in her list. Beto did slightly better there than in CDs 03 and 25, and I personally would be inclined to think it’s a bit more reachable, but as of the Q2 reporting period there wasn’t a candidate yet. Minor details and all that.)

Anyway, I’d say that Dems are in a strong position in CDs 10, 21, 22, 23, and 24, and we’ll see what happens after that. For what it’s worth, just flipping those five seats – and can we take a moment to acknowledge how amazing it is that one can write such a thing and not feel ridiculous about it? – would make the Congressional caucus from Texas 18 Dems and 18 GOPers. That’s not too shabby.

We have a candidate in CD06

Jul 12th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Good.

Rep. Ron Wright

A Waxahachie Democrat who is business partners with Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins is running for Congress in 2020 against Rep. Ron Wright, an Arlington Republican who was first elected to office last year.

Stephen Daniel, an attorney, on Wednesday announced his House campaign, telling The Dallas Morning News that residents in the suburban-rural district “haven’t been adequately represented” by the incumbent and that, politically, “it’s a closer district than people think.”

“A lot of people are disenchanted,” said the 42-year-old, who grew up just outside of the district in Itasca, a tiny town in Hill County, and then eventually moved to Ellis County after law school.

The campaign launch could signal that Democrats are serious about expanding the battleground map in Texas, which was already expected to host eight competitive House races next year. While Daniel is a political novice running in a traditional GOP stronghold — one that President Donald Trump won by 12 points in 2016 — the attorney’s ties to a prominent North Texas Democrat like Jenkins could give him a step up in fundraising, name ID and party support. Consider that Daniel is vowing to raise $4 million, which would be a stunning amount for a congressional seat that hasn’t been the subject of a full-on campaign bout in decades.

[…]

Democrats have already circled pick-up opportunities in six Lone Star State districts where the incumbent Republican House member last year won by 5 points or less. The only North Texan among that group is Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell. Republicans, meanwhile, are eager to win back two longtime GOP seats that they lost last year in Texas. One of those districts is now represented by Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat who ousted former Rep. Pete Sessions.

The contest for Wright’s seat could join that crowded docket. Daniel is pitching himself as a native son with humble roots. He “grew up very country,” he said, helping his dad work at a local landfill. He was also the first in his family to graduate from college, he said, ultimately earning a law degree from St. Mary’s University School of Law. He’s worked as a personal injury attorney for the last 15 years alongside Jenkins, who hailed Daniel’s “compassion, grit and tenacious spirit.”

“He cares about people and has earned the nickname ‘Bulldog’ for his zealous representation of his clients,” texted Jenkins, a longtime Democratic power player who was elected in 2010 as Dallas County judge.

As a reminder, this is Ron Wright. So yeah, I’m glad to see this. As noted, CD06 is not currently on the Dems’ target list, but Beto got 48.0% there, so it’s not a stretch to see it get on the radar. And the fastest way to get on that radar is via fundraising. Jana Sanchez, who is serving as Daniel’s treasurer, raised $734K last cycle, which in most other contexts would be excellent but is basically an opening bid here. I’ll definitely be looking for Stephen Daniel’s report at the end of this quarter. And with his entry, the only high profile district that still lacks a candidate is CD31; we’re still waiting on Wendy Davis in CD21, but we do have Jennie Lou Leeder, so that’s something. Let’s get that slate filled out.

Do we have someone running in CD06 yet?

Jun 9th, 2019

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

This guy really needs a strong opponent.

Rep. Ron Wright

U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, says on a video released by an abortion rights group that women commit murder if they have an abortion and should “absolutely” be punished

Reproaction, an abortion rights advocacy group, published a video May 30 asking Wright what he thought of women going to jail for self-managed abortions.

“Of course they should,” Wright says after saying he considers that by having an abortion “they committed murder.”

Asked if women should be punished in general for getting an abortion, Wright says, “Absolutely.” The video ends with one of his staff members cutting off the conversation.

The Dallas Morning News reached out to Wright’s office and received a comment hours later. In a statement, he reiterated his view that “abortion is the taking of an innocent life” and insisted that — despite what he said in the video — his comments were not directed at women who receive abortions.

“My remarks were directed to those who perform abortions. Those who perform the abortions should be held responsible,” he said in the statement.

Wright was elected to Congress last fall, replacing longtime GOP Rep. Joe Barton in the district that stretches from Arlington to Ellis and Navarro counties.

[…]

Aimee Arrambide, executive director of NARAL Pro-Choice Texas, said in a prepared statement that Wright and [State Rep. Tony] Tinderholt do not “represent the values of North Texans.” She referenced a Quinnipiac University poll released on Thursday showing Texans support abortion access.

“North Texans deserve better than anti-abortion extremists who want to punish women for having abortions., she said.

Calling for the punishment of a woman is not the traditional response from abortion opponents.

Elizabeth Nash, a state policy analyst for the Guttmacher Institute, said it’s hard to tell if the idea is becoming trend. With a combination of state legislatures moving to the right and Donald Trump taking office, abortion opponents feel momentum to overturn Roe v. Wade and that “they can say what they actually believe.”

Yeah, the hell with that guy. CD06 isn’t a top pickup opportunity, and it’s not on the DCCC target list. Wright won it by 7.7 points in 2018 as Beto got 48.0%, so it’s hardly out if the question. Having a good candidate who can raise some money would help. Of all the districts of interest, it’s the only one for which I’m not aware of anyone who might be running. If you know anything about possibilities, leave a comment. The sooner we get this sorted, the better. Think Progress has more.

CD06 poll: Wright 48, Sanchez 39

Aug 12th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Via Patrick Svitek on Twitter, I learned of a recent PPP poll in CD06. Here’s the polling memo, and here’s the information you’re most interested in:

Q1 Do you approve or disapprove of President Donald Trump’s job performance?
48% Approve
46% Disapprove
 5% Not sure
Q2 If the election for U.S. House of Representatives were held today, would you vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in your District?
45% Democratic candidate
49% Republican candidate
 6% Not sure
Q3 If the candidates for U.S. House of Representatives this fall were Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez and Republican Ron Wright, who would you vote for?
39% Jana Lynne Sanchez
48% Ron Wright
13% Not sure

Not exactly sure why there’s a dropoff from the generic Democrat to Jana Sanchez, but that’s not a terribly unusual event in polls. Smokey Joe Barton won in 2016 by 19 points, and he won in 2014 by 25 points, so whichever result is closer to the truth represents a much tighter race than we’ve seen recently. As noted in other contexts, this is consistent with statewide polling showing narrower than usual margins. I hope we see more Congessional-level polls in the state going forward.

Runoff races, part 4: Republicans

May 16th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Again, not going to spend too much time on this, but here are the US House and State House races for which there are Republican primary runoffs:


Dist  Candidate    March%
=========================
CD02  Roberts      33.03%
CD02  Crenshaw     27.42%

CD05  Gooden       29.97%
CD05  Pounds       21.95%

CD06  Wright       45.15%
CD06  Ellzey       21.76%

CD21  Roy          27.06%
CD21  McCall       16.93%

CD27  Bruun        36.09%
CD27  Cloud        33.83%

CD29  Aronoff      38.60%
CD29  Montiel      23.58%


HD04  Spitzer      45.78%
HD04  Bell         26.21%

HD08  Harris       44.99%
HD08  McNutt       39.39%

HD13  Wolfskill    38.47%
HD13  Leman        36.28%

HD54  Cosper       44.60%
HD54  Buckley      41.55%

HD62  Smith        45.84%
HD62  Lawson       34.35%

HD107 Metzger      45.32%
HD107 Ruzicka      27.34%

HD121 Beebe        29.56%
HD121 Allison      26.34%

We’ve discussed CD02 and CD21 in recent days. Bunni Pounds in CD05 is the Republicans’ best hope to bolster the ranks of female members of Congress from Texas. I mean sure, Carmen Montiel is still in the running in CD29, but I think we can all agree that winning the runoff would be her last hurrah. In any event, Pounds is outgoing Rep. Jeb Hensarling’s preferred successor, and she has the support of Mike Pence. Which, it turns out, has caused some drama in the White House, because everything these days causes drama in the White House. The two contenders in CD27 are also running in the special election. It would be funny if the runoff loser wound up winning that race, but my guess would be that the runoff loser withdraws from the special election.

In the State House races, HD121 is Joe Straus’ seat, while HD08 belonged to his deputy Byron Cook. Thomas McNutt and Matt Beebe are the wingnuts backed by Tim Dunn and Empower Texans who have run against Straus and Cook in the past, so if you hope to retain a touch of sanity in the lower chamber, root for their opponents. Scott Cosper is the lone incumbent in a runoff. Stuart Spitzer is a return customer in HD04 best known for his extreme love of virginity. HD107 is held by freshman Dem Victoria Neave, who like Rep. Oliveira had a recent brush with the law, and in part due to that may be the one truly vulnerable Dem in any legislative chamber this cycle. HD107 is also the latest example of Why Every Vote Matters, as primary runnerup Joe Ruzicka collected 2,070 votes in March, exactly one more than third place finisher Brad Perry’s 2,069 votes.

Finally, there’s the runoff for Justice of the Peace in Precinct 5 in Harris County, a race that will be decided by the Republican runoff as no Democrat filed for it. (There actually was a Dem who filed but he either withdrew or was disqualified late in the game, I don’t know which, and there wasn’t the time to collect enough petition signatures for a backup candidate.) The race is between normal incumbent Republican Jeff Williams and village idiot Michael Wolfe, backed by the likes of Steven Hotze and Eric Dick, the Tweedledum to Wolfe’s Tweedledumber. Go read Erica Greider if you want to know more about it.

2018 primary results: Congress

Mar 7th, 2018

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Sen. Sylvia Garcia

Statewide Dem totals
Statewide GOP totals

Harris County Dem totals
Harris County GOP totals

(Please note that all results were coming in very slowly. I expect there will still be some precincts not yet reported by the time this publishes. So, I’m going to be less specific than usual, and may have to make a correction or two by Thursday.)

Barring anything strange, Texas will have its first two Latina members of Congress, as Sylvia Garcia (CD29) and Veronica Escobar (CD16) were both over 60%. I for one approve of both of these results. Now we can have that important debate about whether one of them is officially the “first” Latina or if they both get to share that designation; I lean towards the latter, as you know, and it appears that the Trib is with me as well. Maybe this will be a short debate. In any event, my congratulations to both women.

Veronica Escobar

Todd Litton was over 50% in CD02 with about a third of the precincts in. Lizzie Fletcher and Laura Moser were headed towards the runoff in CD07 with just under half of the precincts reporting; Jason Westin was within about 850 votes of Moser, but he was losing ground. I will note that Fletcher, who led Moser by about seven points overall, led her in absentee ballots by 36-18, in early in person votes by 30-23 (nearly identical to the overall tally), and on E-Day 28-27. Maybe that’s the DCCC effect, maybe Fletcher has earlier-by-nature voters, and maybe it’s just one of those random and meaningless things.

Other Dem Congressional results of interest:

– Gina Ortiz Jones was at 40% in CD23, so she will face someone in the runoff. Judy Canales and Rick Trevino was neck and neck for second, with Jay Hulings trailing them both by about two points.

– Colin Allred was also around 40%, in the CD32 race. Lillian Salerno, Brett Shipp, and Ed Meier were competing for runnerup, in that order.

– Joseph Kopser and Mary Wilson were right around 30% for CD21, with Derrick Crowe just under 23%.

– Jana Sanchez and Ruby Faye Woolridge were both around 37% in CD06.

– MJ Hegar and Christine Eady Mann were well ahead in CD31.

– Jan Powell (53% in CD24) avoided a runoff. Lorie Burch (49% plus in CD03) just missed avoiding one.

– Sri Kulkarni was at 32% in CD22, with Letitia Plummer and Steve Brown both around 22%. In CD10, Mike Siegel was up around 43%, while Tawana Cadien, Tami Walker, and Madeline Eden were in the running for the second slot.

– Dayna Steele was winning in CD36 handily. This is one of those results that makes me happy.

– On the Republican side, Lance Gooden and Bunni Pounds led in CD05, Ron Wright and Jake Ellzey led in CD06, Michael Cloud and Bech Bruun were the top two in CD27. I have only a vague idea who some of these people are. Ted Cruz minion Chip Roy led in the CD21 clusterbubble, with Matt McCall and William Negley both having a shot at second place. Finally, Kevin Roberts was leading in CD02, and while Kathaleen Wall had the early advantage for runnerup, Dan Crenshaw was making a late push, leading the field on E-Day. Dear sweet baby Jesus, please spare us from two more months of Kathaleen Wall’s soul-sucking TV ads. Thank you.

– I would be remiss if I did not note that Pounds has a decent shot at being the third woman elected to Congress from Texas this year; if she prevails in the CD05 runoff, she’ll be as in as Garcia and Escobar are. Wall’s path to that destination is a bit cloudier now, but unless Crenshaw catches her she still has a shot at it.

– Some of these results were changing as I was drafting this. Like I said, I’ll likely have some cleanup to do for tomorrow. Check those links at the top of the post.

Smokey Joe will not run for re-election

Dec 1st, 2017

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Another one bites the dust.

Rep. Joe Barton

Embattled U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, R-Ennis, announced his retirement from Congress on Thursday.

“I am very proud of my public record and the many accomplishments of my office. It has been a tremendous honor to represent the 6th District of Texas for over three decades, but now it is time to step aside and let there be a new voice.”

“I am announcing today that I will not seek reelection in 2018,” he said. “To the people of the 6th District, thank you for your support and friendship.”

Barton’s decision was first announced by The Dallas Morning News.

The decision came after a tumultuous week for the congressman, after a nude photo of Barton surfaced on social media.

The drumbeat for Barton’s exit came from local officials, including state Sen. Konni Burton, R-Colleyville, and Tarrant County GOP Chairman Tim O’Hare.

His retirement sets off a race to replace him, a race that is all but certain to be determined in the GOP primary.

Two Republicans, perennial candidate Monte Mitchell and former Navy pilot Jake Ellzey, entered the race in recent days. As Barton’s problems mounted, a movement got underway to draft Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector Ron Wright, a former Barton staffer. He did not immediately return a call after Barton’s announcement.

See here and here for the background. A subsequent report about pervy text messages sent by Barton to a local Republican activist probably pushed him in the direction of this decision. I quibble with the Trib’s “all but certain to be determined in the GOP primary” characterization. I’d classify CD06 as Strong Republican, but not Safe Republican. The GOP will be a big favorite, but they can’t take this one for granted, especially in a year as bad as 2018 is threatening to be.

It should be noted that Barton is not resigning. Unless he has a further announcement to make, he’ll serve out the rest of his term. Nonetheless, the fact that he felt compelled to step down causes Think Progress to castigate national Democrats for their failure to put the same kind of pressure on Sen. Al Franken and Rep. John Conyers. It’s entirely possible there’s more to the Barton story than what we know now, just as it turned out there was more to the Franken story than what first came out, but they make a good point. At the very least, all of these incidents, and no doubt more of them to come, show just how badly Congress needs a sexual harassment policy and process in place that works for the victims.

(And just as a reminder: Donald Trump is still President, Roy Moore is likely to be elected Senator, and Clarence Thomas, who is oddly overlooked in the ongoing conversation about sexual assault and harassment, remains on the Supreme Court, having been appointed by a President who turned out to have his own gropiness issues. It’s harassment all the way down.)

As for the field in CD06, the Star-Telegram updates us:

Republican Tarrant County Tax Assessor-Collector Ron Wright — a former chief of staff and district director for Barton — said he will file to run for the 6th Congressional District, which includes most of Arlington and Mansfield and all of Ellis and Navarro counties.

[…]

Republican J.K. “Jake” Ellzey, a Texas Veterans Commission member who lives in Midlothian, also has filed to run for the post.

Several Democrats are in the race, including Ruby Faye Woolridge of Arlington, who ran against Barton in 2016; Jana Lynne Sanchez, a public relations specialist from Arlington; Levii R. Shocklee of Arlington; and John W. Duncan.

As I noted before, there are a couple of other Dems who have filed finance reports for CD06 and have campaign webpages up. On the Republican side, State Sen. Konni Burton, who is up for re-election but hasn’t filed yet, could jump over to this race. Nothing like a fleet of Congressional retirements to shake things up at the lower levels. RG Ratcliffe and Daily Kos have more.

Ron Wright

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