Alvarado declares for SD-6

An aggressive move, probably to deter Sylvia Garcia (or at least make her pause).

The morning after his posthumous victory party, the late state Sen. Mario Gallegos, D-Houston, got his dying wish when his choice to succeed him announced her intention to seek the seat he held since 1994.

State Rep. Carol Alvarado, who was re-elected to her House seat without opposition Tuesday, announced her candidacy for the Senate seat in an email Wednesday.

Gallegos posthumously won re-election against Republican challenger R.W. Bray. His victory means that Gov. Rick Perry will have to call a special election to determine who will represent the voters in Senate District 6.

Here's the link to my prior speculation.

Alvarado's campaign will be managed by Marc Campos, who is -- in a word -- shit. But Alvarado shines like the sun, and so does her future. She can overcome the selection of a lousy campaign operative. Especially if she can successfully claim the mantle of inheritance and inevitability.

Alvarado is expected to formally announce her candidacy at an event with members of Gallegos' family on Monday.

I don't think this move clears the field for Alvarado, but that is certainly their (her and Campos') intention. Garcia has been unemployed so long and is holding so many IOUs that I just don't think she sits it out. I also expect Jarvis Johnson to enter this contest, and there will likely be Green and Libertarian candidates as well, since it is an open primary.

No rest for the wicked.

Update: The African American TeaBagger who lost to the dead guy earlier this week is going to take another shot at the race. Hey, he got about 30 percent, and if Democrats split between two or more candidates, he could make the runoff. That's his story at least, and I'm sure he'll stick to it.

More Good, Bad, and Ugly

Good:

-- Harris County bond proposals all passed with flying colors. In the midst of the caterwauling about being broke, it's heartening to know that some conservative voters understand the need for progress.

-- Barack Obama appears to have carried Harris County by two votes. Out of almost 1.2 million cast. There are still provisionals and a few mailed stragglers to be counted, so the outcome of which party controls elections in two years is still to be determined. We're split right down the middle here, folks.

I suppose somebody might choose to blame their losing on one of the two third parties.

-- Texas House Dems gained seven seats in the Lege, with Craig Eiland holding on to retain his Galveston-area seat. Gene Wu is the brightest star in that freshman class of 2013.

-- County Attorney Vince Ryan turned back Crazy Bob Talton 51.5-48.5. Maybe that stripper donation business cost him. Sheriff Adrian Garcia's race was closer (53-45) than it should have been, and not because of Remington Alessi (2%). Dr. Diane Trautman beat the Republican incumbent to claim a win for Harris County School Trustee.

-- Harris County Democratic incumbent judges Al Bennett, Larry Weiman, Kyle Carter, RK Sandhill, Michael Gomez, Jaclanel McFarland, Mike Engelhart, Robert Schaeffer, Alexandra Smoots-Hogan, Ruben Guerrero, David Mendoza, and Maria Jackson were all returned to the bench. Elaine Palmer, who defeated Judge Steven Kirkland in the May primary, also was elected.

D incumbents Josefina Rendon, Shawna Reagin, Randy Roll, Herb Ritchie, Erica Graham, and Damon Crenshaw and challengers Tracy Good, Donna Roth, Vivian King, and Mack McInnis all fell short.

All of these contests were decided by 3 percentage points or less, mostly on the strength of straight ticket voting. But the undervotes also played a large part in the demise of the Dems who lost. Apparently 60-70,000 voters who did not vote straight party didn't make it down the ballot to their races.

-- The two unopposed (by any Democrat) Greens on the statewide ballot, Josh Wendel running for TRC and Charles Waterbury for SCOTX, earned 10% in Harris County and 8% across Texas. Other Greens in downballot races performed to this level in statehouse races: David Courtney (SD-17, no Dem running) got 9%, Chris Christal (SD-26, against Dem incumbent Leticia Van De Putte) got 6%. Matthew Britt, the only candidate running against the odious Phil King in HD-61, gathered 11%. Herb Gonzales ran against a Dem incumbent in HD-124 and picked up 15%. Closer to home, Art Browning got nearly 10% as the sole challenger to Allen Fletcher. And Henry Cooper ran hard against Jessica Farrar, getting 14%.

These are foundational numbers for the Texas Green Party, and can be built upon in the future.

-- That said, the Libertarian Party of Texas approximately doubled the numbers of the Greens across the state. They have a better idea about how to secure continuous ballot access, running someone everywhere. They pose a greater long-term threat to Texas Republicans than do Texas Democrats, in my humble O.

(This last barely qualifies as good, in case you were wondering.)

Bad:

As mentioned last night, Texas Democrats have at least ten points of ground to make up with the electorate statewide. Keith Hampton's 55-41 defeat to Sharon Keller is particularly bitter. The appeals court wins were concentrated in the San Antonio-based 4th district, and the winners had Latino surnames. The two Harris County CCA, First and Fourteenth, saw Democratic challengers like Nile Copeland and Barbara Gardner lose by 5 to 7 points (53-46). Justice is still red as a baboon's behind in the Lone Star State.

-- Jill Stein got three-tenths of one percent of the Texas electorate. Disappointing to say the least. Gary Johnson got almost four times as much and that's underperforming for him compared to the rest of the country. I'll have more to say about this in the coming days.

-- Ann Harris Bennett lost her race for tax assessor/collector by 2,400 votes out of over 1.1 million total. There were almost 49,000 undervotes in that tilt.

Ugly:

There's some, but I'll hold it until later.

Charles Kuffner's wrap from last night covered a lot of this ground, and South Texas Chisme excerpts the Brownsville Herald's executive summary graf.

More added to this post as responses and analysis trickle out today.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

The Good:

-- After a contentious couple of hours -- during which Karl Rove attempted to get Fox News to rescind its call of Ohio and the subsequent re-election of President Obama -- Mitt Romney conceded just before midnight, Central time. The electoral college turned almost exactly as I projected two weeks ago. The only exception would be Florida, which is leaning to Obama.

-- In the US Senate: Chris Murphy, (CT), Sherrod Brown (OH), Joe Donnelly (IN), Elizabeth Warren (MA), Claire McCaskill (MO), Angus King (ME), Tim Kaine (VA), Tammy Baldwin (WI), and Martin Heinrich (NM) represent a significant progressive upgrade, and an upper chamber shaping up as 53-47 if Jon Tester in MT hangs on, a net gain of two for the Blue team.

As The Great Orange Satan summarized, over the past two election cycles...

7:32 PM PT: Teabaggers have now cost Republicans Senate seats in Missouri, Indiana, Colorado, Delaware, and Nevada.

Those five seats would've given the GOP the majority.

-- In the US House: Tammy Duckworth (IL), Alan Grayson (FL), Beto O'Rourke (TX-16), Pete Gallego (TX-23), and maybe even the fellow running against Michele Bachmann -- we'll see in the morning -- clean up some trash in the Congress. Update: Nope, but just barely.

-- Wendy Davis prevails in her state Senate race. In the Texas House, Joe Moody (HD-78), Mary Ann Perez (HD-144), Phillip Cortez (HD-117), and Abel Herrero (HD-34) represent Democratic flips.

The Bad:

-- The winning margin in statewide Texas races is still in the neighborhood of 55-41, with Romney and Ted Cruz performing slightly over than that and the Republican statewide judicials slightly under.

-- Ann Johnson came up well short of Sarah Davis in HD-134, 55-45.

The Ugly:

-- Randy Weber over Nick Lampson in CD-14, Steve Stockman over Max Martin in CD-36.

I'll have more tomorrow.

These toons close at 7 p.m. this evening