In Texas, one of the strongest trends was the overperformance of women. In the Governor’s race, the latest poll had Lupe Valdez behind Andrew White, and facing a severe fundraising deficit, but she easily lead the field with 43% to Andrew White’s 27%
In Beto’s Senate race, Sema Hernandez, who didn’t appear to have much of a campaign besides tweeting basic policy planks on Twitter, garnered almost 25% of the vote and won quite a few counties.
In TX-07, Lizzie Fletcher and Laura Moser entered the run-off, blowing past Jason Westin and Alex Triantaphyllis, the latter who had raised the most money in the competition.
In TX-16 and TX-29, Veronica Escobar and Sylvia Garcia blew past their opposition to garner over 60% of the vote and avoid a run-off. Sylvia Garcia was outraised a lot by Tahir Javed, a Chuck Schumer backed candidate, but his campaign didn’t even get 30% of the vote.
In TX-21, expected frontrunner Joseph Kopser finished 2nd, despite having raised the most money and having the most national endorsements. Crowe, another serious Democrat finished third. However, it was Mary Wilson, a little known-Democrat with no fundraising or national support that ended up finishing 1st, with over 30% of the vote. Either she ran a stealth-campaign without any money, or the plurality of Democratic voters in TX-21 liked the sound of “Mary” when scanning the ballot.
In TX-21, Gina Ortiz Jones dominated the field, garnering over 40% of the vote. Expected frontrunner, Jay Hulings, who fundraiser the most, had endorsements from Steny Hoyer/Castro brothers/Blue Dogs/Congressional Hispanic Caucus, finished an embarrassing 4th, behind two other candidates that struggled with fundraising.
In TX-32, Lillian Salerno secured a run-off spot against star candidate Colin Allred. The strongest fundraiser of the bunch, Ed Meier, finished in 4th place.
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2018-03-07/texas-primary-female-candidates-have-a-strong-election-dayIf the trend holds up nationwide, we could see women overperform expectations and win primaries against well-funded candidates like Jay Hulings, Joseph Kopser, and Ed Meier. It also proved that money doesn’t mean much in primaries like these, so other candidates that seem strong on paper might end up flopping and only garnering 15% of the vote, like Hulings, Triantaphyllis, and Meier.
