Friday, March 09, 2018

Your new Texas Congressional delegation (part 2)

(Note: Part 1, with profiles of Congressional District races 1 through 7, is here.  Two updates to the "statewides" post have been made pending developments in those contests since Wednesday.  And  the special election to replace my city councilman (RIP) has been called by Mayor Turner for May 5.  That's less than sixty days away.  While two state reps have already declared they intend to be the next state senator from the East Side (replacing the pending CongressLatina for CD-29, see below), I hear of no candidates for District K yet.  Perhaps out of respect they are waiting until services for CM Green, scheduled for Sunday, are past.)

CD-8: Incumbent Republican and House Ways and Means chairman Kevin Brady versus sacrificial lamb Steven David in November.

CD-9: Al Green has no GOP challenger in the fall.

CD-10: Michael McCaul, House Homeland Security chairman, will face either Tawana Cadien for the fourth consecutive time or, more likely, Mike Siegel, who got 40% in a seven-way Democratic primary.  Since Cadien lost in 2016, 2014, and 2012 -- topping out at 38% two years ago -- this district's badly gerrymandered Democrats, scattered between northwest Houston and southeast/north Austin, might want to try something different.  The definition of insanity being what it is.

CD-11: Michael Conaway (R) against Jennie Lou Leeder.  Nothing to see here.

CD-12: Kay Granger versus Vanessa Adia, a teacher who supports Medicare for All.  It's a damn shame this district is mostly Tarrant County; Democratic voters there just rejected a progressive, Allison Campolo, in favor of conservaDem Beverly Powell to face off against SD-10 Republican incumbent Konni "Out LGBT School Children to their Parents" Burton.  The D primary vote was 62-38 in favor of the Wendy Davis-endorsed Powell.  What few Democrats there are on the west side of the Metroplex -- this summer's TDP convention is going to be held in Fort Worth -- are as far to the right as Democrats can be without being Republicans.  And Tarrant County Republicans are already about as bad as can be.


I'd like to be more hopeful for Adia, the kind of candidate who deserves support from Democrats.

CD-13: Mac Thornberry (R, incumbent) against D Greg Sagan.  Sigh.

CD-14: Progressive darling Adrienne Bell is taking on dirtbag incumbent Randy Weber in Southeast Texas, the coastal district that runs from Freeport to Beaumont.  Maybe Harvey crushing the residents here, along with Weber's feeble response associated with the disaster, can impact this race.  Weber has whined and tried to blame others for Trump's FEMA dragging their feet over the last six months.

... Weber is one of eight Texas GOP congressmen who voted against providing much-needed aid to New York and New Jersey after Superstorm Sandy -- a group now being dubbed the "Comeuppance Caucus."

Bell needs more of Weber's incompetence and another miracle or two to pull off the upset.

CD-15: Rookie incumbent D Vicente Gonzalez draws R challenger Tim Westley for the second time in this South Texas (straight south, from the San Antonio eastern suburbs and exurbs all the way to Edinburg on the border).  Westley got under 38% two  years ago riding Trump's threadbare coattails; don't expect him to perform any better this time around.

CD-16Veronica Escobar will join Sylvia Garcia as the state's first two Latina Congresswomen, a story both overtold and a circumstance long overdue.  She will defeat her R opponent Rick Seeburger and replace Robert "Beto" O'Rourke in Congress.  I expect her to vote more progressively than the man currently in that seat.

CD-17: Bill Flores, R incumbent, over a token D challenger, Rick Kennedy.

CD-18: Sheila Jackson Lee will return to Washington after beating R Ava Reynero Pate.

CD-19: Jodey Arrington, also a Republican first-term incumbent, is unlikely to lose to D Miguel Levario in this West Texas district that includes Abilene, Big Spring, Lubbock, Plainview, and points further west and in-between.

CD-20: Congressman Joaquin Castro will be unopposed in the fall.

CD-21: In one of the more closely-watched races in the the state, a minor upset sent progressive favorite Derrick Crowe to the sidelines when his 23% of the primary vote was only good for third place.  Establishment Dem Joseph Kopser and surprise vote leader Mary Street Wilson go to the May runoff.  The Texas Observer, with the graphic and the story.

Mary Wilson, a former math teacher running for Congressional District 21, raised a measly $40,000 over the last year. She had a handful of profiles in Science magazine, Dame, and KUT. In comparison, Joseph Kopser raised about $770,000, received a slew of endorsements and a ton of press coverage. Derrick Crowe, a former Nancy Pelosi staffer, and Elliott McFadden, the former Travis County executive director, also raised far more than Wilson and received endorsements from prominent groups.

Still, Wilson is the one headed to a runoff with Kopser. In fact, she received almost 1,000 more votes than Kopser.

The winner will face either Chip Roy, a former COS to "Carnival" Cruz, or Matt McCall, who challenged retiring incumbent Lamar Smith twice, in 2014 and 2016.   It's worth noting that Roy doesn't live in the district.  That didn't slow him down much; he posted a ten-point advantage over McCall on Tuesday.  Whichever GOPer prevails in May will be favored in November.

CD-22: Fort Bend/Sugar Land Republican incumbent Pete Olson waits for his Democratic opponent in the fall, one of Sri Preston Kulkarni or Letitia PlummerSteve Brown, former county chair and the Texas Democrats' Railroad Commission nominee in 2014 and the 2016 HD-27 nominee (sadly, he couldn't beat the unbelievably corrupt Ron Reynolds) finished third by less than 1000 votes.  Might be time for a line of work outside politics, Steve.

Fort Bend County, the nation's most diverse, is very slowly turning purple, but like the rest of Texas, still lags GOP turnout.  This is the kind of suburban battleground Democrats must win in 2018 if there's going to be any blue wave to speak of.

CD-23: The only swing district in the state until Democrats got enthused following Hillary Clinton's strong showing in CD-7 and CD-32 in 2016.  Will Hurd defeated Pete Gallego twice in the past four years, both times with less than 50% of the vote.  (Gallego won 50-45 in 2012 over incumbent Quico Canseco.)  This time there are two progressive Democrats who will battle in the summer runoff to face Hurd in the fall: Gina Ortiz Jones and Rick Treviño.  Either candidate should be marginally favored to take the seat away from the GOP.  Democrats turned out over 44,000 voters in the sprawling Big Bend district while Republicans managed just under 31K.

Update: This article delves into some detail about Ortiz Jones' military intelligence experience.  It will be 'spy vs. spy' if Ortiz Jones makes it to the general against Hurd, himself a former CIA agent.

CD-24: R Incumbent Kenny Marchant will be heavily favored to beat D Jan McDowell.

CD-25: Progressive Ds Chris Perri and Julie Oliver will run off to face incumbent Roger Williams.  Hill Country Democrats, as with their counterparts in CD-23 above, rejected the centrist establishment candidates in their primary.  This makes me hopeful, but the real test will be how things go for the May winner in November.  The seat is rated 'safe' or 'solid' for Republicans.

CD-26: The Berniecrat, Linsey Fagan, eked out a win over the Clintonite, Will Fisher, 53-47 in this North Texas seat held by incumbent quack Dr. Michael Burgess.  Rs outvoted Ds in their respective primaries 55K to 16K.

CD-27: Both parties will hold runoff elections to nominate a standard-bearer to replace Blake "Animal House" Farenthold in this south-Austin-to-Victoria-and-Corpus district.  The Dems have Raul Roy Barrera, who was beaten by Farenthold 62-38 in 2016, and Eric Holguin; the Repubs, Bech Bruun and Michael Cloud.  The two Democrats boast good positions on healthcare; there isn't much I could find that would tell me about whether these Republicans were freaks or something less so.  This report from the Caller Times told me nothing; this report from KRIS-TV was helpful with regard to all of the carpetbaggers who were in the race and has links to all candidates, pre-election day.  The district has a  Cook PVI R +13 rating.

CD-28: Henry Cuellar, the shittiest Blue Dog Democrat in all of Congress (with regular appearances on Fox News, including recently defending the NRA) had no primary opponent and has no general election Republican challenger.  This is disgraceful.

CD-29:  Much already said, written, and videotaped about Sylvia Garcia, having outhustled her moneybags challenger Tahir Javed, the other Garcias, and my pick, Hector Morales, to go on to Congress after she vanquishes her Republican challenger, either Phillip Aronoff or Carmen Maria Monteil.  The scrum has already begun to replace her in the Texas Senate.

CD-30: Eddie Bernice Johnson will go back to DC for her fourteenth term in the US House after winning her primary.  She faces no R challenger.

CD-31: MJ Hegar and Christine Mann will battle each other in May for the right to move on to face Republican John Carter in November.  Both women are solid, but Mann has the progressive bonafides.  The district is safe for the eight-term incumbent to make it nine.

Update: Read this piece in the Greanville Post about "CIA Democrats", which includes brief profiles of Hegar (above) and Ed Meier (next).

CD-32: Pete Sessions was re-elected in 2016 by a 71-18 margin over a Libertarian (no Democrat entered the race that year; the Green and my friend, Gary Stuard, got 10%), but because Hilary Clinton carried it by 2 points, 49-47, it's considered a pick-up opportunity.  Accordingly, seven Democrats bid for the nom, and former NFL player Colin Allred (39%) and progressive champion Lillian Salerno (18%) emerged from Tuesday's primary as the top two.  Neither raised very much money in defeating better financially-supported centrists and establishment candidates with higher name recognition, like Dallas TV broadcaster Brent Shipp and Ed Meier, the former Hillary Clinton transition team co-chair (LOL).  The district is R+5, and the Dallas-region Ds turned out 40,000 voters on their side of the primary, while the Rs managed just a little more, at 41.3K.

l. to r.: Allred, Meier, Salerno, Shipp

Allred's popularity may be enough to get him to November, and Sessions might be in big trouble.

CD-33: D incumbent Marc Veazey easily won his primary and will probably do the same in the general election over R Willie Billups.

CD-34: Incumbent Filemon Vela was unopposed in the D primary, as was his R challenger, Rey Gonzalez.  I would not expect to see this seat flip.

CD-35: Longtime Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett, with no primary opponent, will face -- and defeat -- Republican David Smalling.

CD-36:  Rock Goddess Dayna Steele moves on to November in a match with the Republican incumbent, Woodville dentist Brian Babin, for this Houston suburbs/East Texas seat.  The district scores R+26, but Steele's celebrity status and Babin's complete lack of visibility and charisma could put it in play.  Babin was trapped in his house during Harvey.  Even my 94-year-old mother was able to evacuate ahead of the storm, alone, which ultimately flooded and destroyed her home.  I have long gotten the distinct impression that Babin is one of the more inept Republicans in the Texas delegation.  I certainly hope the voters of the 36th -- not known for their intelligence, since they sent Steve Stockman back to Congress before he flamed out a second time in a swirl of corruption -- can see fit to elect a voice of reason this go-around.

Moving on to Austin representatives and Harris County races this weekend.

Wednesday, March 07, 2018

Your new Texas Congressional delegation (part 1)


I was tempted to write "fresh", but then CD-1 incumbent Louie Gohmert is in another rematch with Shirley McKellar, who must just love losing to him.  She's the deep East Texas equivalent of James Cargas.  More on that in a quick minute.

-- CD-2: Todd Litton bested the four others on the D side, at least three of whom were to his left, to move on to the general election against either Kevin Roberts or Dan Crenshaw in November for the right to replace Ted Poe.  Kathaleen Wall got in bed with Trump, spent six million bucks, secured the endorsement of Greg Abbott and Ted Cruz, and missed the runoff by .3 of one percent, or about 145 votes.  I'm tempted to thank God.  The Republican who wins will still be favored in the fall.

-- CD-3: Van Taylor ran against Chet Edwards in 2004, right after the DeLay redistricting, and lost to the Blue Dog (who continued to fend off R challengers until 2010, losing to Bill Flores).  Taylor went on to win election to the Texas House and later the Texas Senate (where he is currently representing SD-8), and is now favored to hold the seat of retiring Rep. Sam Johnson.  He'll face either Lorie Burch or 'the other' Sam Johnson, of the Dems, in November.

-- CD-4: Incumbent John Ratcliffe is likely to vanquish his D challenger, Catherine Krantz.

-- CD-5:  Two GOPers will run off in May to replace Jeb Hensarling; Lance Gooden and Bunni Pounds.  The Rabbit Lady was a Hensarling campaign manager, political consultant, and fundraiser prior to hopping into this race.  Gooden seeks a promotion from the Texas House; the third-place finisher in the R primary is/was former state Rep. Kenneth Sheets.  The Democrat waiting to be skunked in the fall is Dan Wood.

-- CD-6: This contest drew thirteen Republican challengers after Smokey Joe Barton finally quit following the, ah, exposé of himself on Twitter.  The two who will go to May 22 are Ron Wright, a former Barton chief of staff, and JK 'Jake' Ellzey, a retired Navy pilot.  Democrats have two women in their runoff: Ruby Faye Woolridge and Jana Lynne Sanchez, who finished in a virtual tie yesterday. Woolridge led by just 19 votes out of over 29,000 cast.  Sanchez has followed me on Twitter from her campaign's earliest days and has a fascinating life story.

Jana Lynne Sanchez grew up in the Ellis County, Texas towns of Maypearl, Midlothian and Waxahachie. Her grandparents, migrant farm workers, settled in Rockett, outside of Waxahachie in the 1950s. Her grandfather was an undocumented immigrant from Mexico who lived in the U.S. most of his life, before becoming a citizen in 1969. Her father, one of 27 children, grew up on the road and had little formal education.

Jana attended Rice University in Houston on multiple scholarships and thanks to financial aid, student loans, work-study jobs, and the support of family. After graduating from Rice with a degree in Political Science, she went on to work as a political fundraiser, raising millions for state-wide and local candidates in California. She also managed political campaigns in Alabama before turning to journalism.

She began her career writing about food and travel for the Baltimore Sun before becoming a technology journalist. Later she was a foreign correspondent for Reuters in Amsterdam. In 2005 she co-founded CitySavvy, an award-winning financial and corporate communications consultancy with offices in London and Amsterdam (www.citysavvy.com). At the end of 2014 she returned to Texas.

Jana serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board for the School of Social Sciences at Rice and is active in progressive political causes in Texas. She’s an aspiring country songwriter, singer and guitarist.

It'll be uphill for either woman to win this district, but if there is a Trump/Barton/#MeToo/#Time'sUp backlash in the fall, this would be a great place for it to hit.  I'll be watching this runoff almost as closely as ...

CD-7:  Laura Moser (8077 votes, 24.3%) scrambled into the runoff with Lizzie Pannill Fletcher (9731, 29.3%).  Dr. Jason Westin just missed, in show (6364, 19.2%), and to my delight, Alex T came in fourth (5219, 5.7%).  The Tough Guy raised and spent around a million dollars, much more than the others.  Ivan Sanchez and Joshua Butler finished fifth and sixth, and in dead-ass last ... James Cargas, with just 650 votes, or 2%.  The undervote in this race was 923 votes.

I cannot tell you how happy this makes me.  If I never see this guy's name on my ballot ever again, it will be too soon.

I've got 29 more of these to do and no more time left today to do 'em.  Back tomorrow morning, early (as usual) later.  Too much to do offline.  Texas Lege and county race takes still to finish as well.

The statewides: One May 22 runoff and November matchups

-- O'Rourke versus Cruz is your marquee.  As posted earlier, Lyin' Ted wasted no time in calling Robert a pussy "liberal man".  This is how it's going to be for the next eight months, Donkeys; better get used to it.  If Bob doesn't start counter-punching now, this race is gonna be over before the kids are out of school for the summer.

Update: This is the best take on the whole "Rafael versus Robert" nothingburger.  As a reminder, I will be using the candidates' birth names, not their chosen nicknames nor their assumed names (as with the incumbent lite governor), but I will be making puns like this out of them.

Don't leave the fighting-back to the bloggers, Bobo.

-- Valdez (or Average White Guy) against the juggernaut with $43 million, a bad attitude, and an ileostomy bag.  Valdez has a lot to do in the less-than-six-months after May 22 so as not to embarrass herself or the Texas Democrats to any worse outcome than they have experienced for the past 24 years.  Surely improving on 38% and not losing the female vote again, as Wendy Davis managed, is not so difficult as it sounds, yes?  No?

-- Mike Collier versus Danny Goeb.  Once more, if Texas conservatives actually functioned with a speck of rationality, this would not be a brainer.  But this is Texas, and conservatives think with their red, swollen, baboon-ish ass and not with the proper end.

"Keep Texas RED!"

Update (3/9): Goeb's challenger in the GOP primary, Scott Milder, has endorsed Collier this morning.

"I cannot on good conscience vote for a man who I know to be a liar, nor can I vote for a man who willfully ignores and disrespects his legislative colleagues and his constituents," Milder said in the (Facebook) post. "I will be casting my vote for Mike Collier, the rational Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, and will strongly encourage all Texans who voted for me in this race to cast their votes for Mr. Collier as well."

[...]

"It doesn't happen very often that a Republican endorses a Democrat, but public education groups recruited (Milder) to run against Patrick and he and I viewed proper funding of public education as very important," said Collier, a retired Kingwood CPA and business executive.

"I've already had a fair number of moderate Republican donors (to Milder's campaign) who have called and said they want to join me."

The salience here is that Milder earned nearly 368,000 votes last Tuesday.  That covers a lot of the ground between Democrat (bit more than a million voters) and GOP (over 1.5 MM) totals in the two March 6 elections.  It also provides a bigger opening for Collier to go after the Joe Straus/Sarah Davis Caucus.  This development doesn't enthuse me at all -- I voted for Michael Cooper because I thought Collier was too much like a Republican as it is -- but it can prove beneficial for him if he can walk the line between pandering to mild conservatives while not losing any D votes.

If Straus, for example, followed suit with his endorsement as well as some of that cash he's still sitting on, it would become a more compelling storyline for November, the corporate media, and "we just wanna win something" Dems (Kuffner).  Not so much me.

-- Ken Paxton versus Justin Nelson.  Ordinarily when your state's top law enforcement official is under criminal indictment for fraud, he would stand no chance of being re-elected, much less nominated.  Paxton drew no primary opponent.  Why are Texas Republicans afraid to run against him?  Texas Republicans nominated his wife to serve in the Texas Senate, for crine out loud.

Banana republics point and laugh at this.  National politicos -- poorly informed ones -- posit questions a ten-second Google search would clear up for them.  This may indicate a depth of ignorance and dysfunction of our political gatekeepers that even cynical ol' me hasn't plumbed.

-- Sid Miller versus Kim Olson.  Would anyone mind if I just typed 'ditto' to all of the above -- especially the baboon's ass -- and moved on?  Okay, one thing: Jim Hogan, just as he did in 2014 as a "Democrat", made no effort to get elected beyond pay his filing fee but almost pushed Sid into a runoff.  Trey Blocker is still drinking somewhere this morning.

-- George Pee Bush v. Miguel Sauzo.  There was some buzz about Bush being in trouble against Jerry Patterson that I read as late as Monday morning.  Can't find that article now.  Some journalist had their webmaster scrub it, I guess.  Screenshot, anyone?  The story this morning is that it's okay to fluff Trump if you're a Texas Republican, or IOKIYAATxR.  I don't think anybody asked Kathaleen Wall about that, though.  (Next post.)

-- Glenn Hegar against Joi Chevalier.  Maybe a spirited race for the most boring job in state government could turn in the Democrats' favor.  Chevalier defeated my candidate, Tim Mahoney, by a nose, perhaps on the strength of glowing endorsements in the Dallas News, the Houston Chronicle, and others.  Chevalier is the only African American on the state D slate who's not a judicial candidate.  If she can campaign effectively, raise and spend a little money to get her name out there, take advantage of whatever boost she can get running against the charisma-challenged GOP beancounter Jethro Bodine ... possibly there's a chance.

-- Christi Craddick facing off with Roman McAllen to run Texas railroads fellate oil and gas interests under the guise of regulating them.  No offense intended to Mr. McAllen, but he's up against more Texas Republican nepotism here.  He'd be one against two other conservatives in trying to slow down the fracking train if he pulled off the upset anyway.  Still, if the Latin@ turnout (as with evidence of the Russians hacking the election) were to finally show up, I could be a believer.  I remain of the opinion that the onus is all on Lupe.

One judicial tilt I'll mention for now: Sharon "Killer" Keller barely survived her primary and will match up with Maria Jackson in the fall.  If I do any volunteer work this cycle, it will be in this race.

Congressional races, a much hotter topic, coming, maybe by lunchtime today.

*heavy sigh*


As Election Day got under way, Houston City Council member Larry Green -- my representative downtown -- was found deceased in his bed at home after failing to appear at the regularly-scheduled weekly council meeting.  Just 52, it's a tremendous loss for the city, District K, and of course his family and friends.  His political future was quite bright.  And his legacy will encapsulate many things, but every time I see one of the painted electrical boxes in my 'hood, I'll think of him warmly.


As to a couple of top-of-the-ticket results from last night ...

-- Projected almost precisely by the TexTrib's poll from just over two weeks ago, Lupe Valdez and Andrew (Average) White (Guy) will run off in May for the right to get crushed by face Greg Abbott in November.  They finished at 42.9 and 27.4% respectively; the TT predicted 43-24.  Likewise, the Trib had Abbott prevailing with 95% in his primary; he underperformed that slightly at 90.4.  << This link has the final tallies for all the statewide, Congressional, judicial, and statehouse races I'll be referring to in this and subsequent posts.  Just click and open it now so you can scroll down as I continue.  It's the best resource I found, for the county maps alone.  (Credit where it's due: the TexTrib has beaten the pants off everybody else this cycle.)

My man Tom Wakely gained no traction.  The two African American candidates, Cedric Davis and Grady Yarbrough, along with Jeff Payne and even Adrian Ocegueda, finished ahead of him.  Valdez will win the runoff easily if Latin@s return in the summer.  But she needs to start raising some money, get better coaching and preparation if she's going to debate White, and otherwise project some viability as a potential and likely favored nominee.

-- Sema Hernandez earned almost 246,000 votes (or 23.7%) in the D US Senate primary.  She raised less than $10K for her campaign.  I'll let you nerds do the math on her cost per vote.  She won about three dozen mostly rural and RGV counties; Webb (Laredo) appears to be the largest.  Considering the degree to which she was both ignored and disrespected by the media and her primary opponent, that's amazing.  O'Rourke didn't 'coast', folks.  And because the GOP gorged their turnout numbers on Election Day -- the Senate primary on the R side drew over 1.5 million votes, while the Dems totaled just over a million, and Ted Cruz has already fired a shot at "liberal man Robert" -- the prospects for the blue wave seem to be ... swirling?

More on the way.