Texas Megathread

[badgate]

What does a football game have to do with anything?

[Indy Texas]

What about the primary nomination runoffs for Agriculture Commissioner and Railroad Commissioner, Place 1 ?

AgComm: I give it to Sid Miller over Tommy Merritt. Miller has the Tea Party on his side.

RR: Ryan Sitton has the support of the oil & gas industry, but this is a far-down-ballot race with little visibility. Wayne Christian has zero oil & gas experience but has held elected office before and is plugged in to SoCon/Evangelical GOP politics (I mean, the guy's last name is Christian, after all). Advantage to Christian.

[TX Conservative Dem]

I'm hoping Branch wins on Tuesday night because he's got endorsement of many Texas law enforcement agencies.

Paxton keeps running the same old boring TV Ad from February: embarrassing.

Branch has been running new TV Ads.

[Kushahontas]

not only is Branch running new ads, they're done quite well. Lol @ Paxton.

[moderatevoter]

IndyTexas, who is the less crazy of the two?

[Indy Texas]

IndyTexas, who is the less crazy of the two?

Of which two?

For Ag Commissioner, both the candidates are basically stereotypical palm-greasing, glad-handing good ole boys. Both of them saw their careers in the State House end when they got primaried from the right and lost. I'm not sure either of them is legitimately qualified for the job.

For RR Commissioner, you face the Sophie's choice of having a guy who is sane and experienced but also a total oil industry shill regulating the oil industry, or having a whacko-bird SoCon who has no background or connections to the oil industry and occasionally expressed legitimate skepticism towards it (he once co-sponsored a bill to promote renewable energy in Texas, which Sitton is now criticizing him for).

[moderatevoter]

Oh I meant between Paxton and Branch.

[TX Conservative Dem]

Branch is less crazy and honest.

[badgate]

"honest"

[Indy Texas]

Branch is less crazy, and honest.

FTFY

[TX Conservative Dem]

My statewide runoff predictions:
Lieutenant Governor-GOP: Patrick-51
Dewhurst (Inc.)-49

State Attorney General (Open)-GOP
Branch-53
Paxton-45

Commissioner of Agriculture (Open)-GOP
Miller-56
Merritt-41

Commissioner of Agriculture-DEM
Kinky-57
Hogan-43: this dude is LAZY: WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU CAMPAIGNING FOR POLITICAL OFFICE FOR (paraphrasing Christie's pissed off attitude)

Commissioner of Railroads, Place 1 (Open)-GOP
Christian-54
Sitton-42

[badgate]

I voted for Jim Hogan.

[Indy Texas]

Perhaps the Libertarian LG candidate will get a bunch of late-campaign attention and Dan Patrick can get Cuccinelli'd.

[badgate]

Dan Branch endorsed Morgan Meyer in the HD-108 Republican runoff.

If you don't know anything about the race, you just need to know that the runoff has been extremely ugly.

[Indy Texas]

Dan Branch endorsed Morgan Meyer in the HD-108 Republican runoff.

If you don't know anything about the race, you just need to know that the runoff has been extremely ugly.

So I've heard. Is there an unwritten rule that rich white men in Dallas have to either have girls' names like Morgan or Kelly or WASP-y one-syllable names like Chart or Court or Whit or Shep?

Chart Westcott has managed to earn a fake Twitter account in his honor:

https://twitter.com/TheChartWestcot

[TX Conservative Dem]

What's the latest of State Rep. Stefani Carter (R-Dallas)'s reelection campaign?

Can she win the runoff or will she get the boot?

[Indy Texas]

What's the latest of State Rep. Stefani Carter (R-Dallas)'s reelection campaign?

Can she win the runoff or will she get the boot?

I hope she gets thrown out. She was being heralded as the Tea Party dream - a black woman with a Harvard degree who sounded intelligent and wasn't a Cain/Carson/Keyes-type fundamentalist - and she ended up being incredibly overrated.

She didn't do anything to stand out last session; her decision to randomly run for railroad commissioner and then drop out and try to keep her seat after other people had already entered the race showed she's an inept politician; and then she went and hit someone with her car and tried to cover her tracks by filing a claim on the other person's insurance and pretending it wasn't her fault.

Tarrant County's Republican delegation has always been a hotbed of crazy and inept, but that seems to be spilling into Dallas County. And with Dan Branch gone, it won't get any better. Que lástima.

[All Along The Watchtower]

Hopefully the Texas Democratic Party gets some new life breathed into it with this election, even though they'll likely lose. Gotta start somewhere.

[Indy Texas]

Guess this might as well be the unofficial election night thread.

Now the only suspense is just how badly the Dew is going to lose.

[rbt48]

Dewhurst has lost, according to AP:  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2014/by_state/TX_Lieutenant_Governor_0527.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

Currently trailing 65 to 35%.

[Indy Texas]

He's conceding right now. Livestream is below...

http://www.texastribune.org/livestream/

[Maxwell]

If he had not run for re-election, he would've saved himself the embarassment.

[Indy Texas]

If he had not run for re-election, he would've saved himself the embarassment.

And a few million dollars of his money.

[RogueBeaver]

Ratcliffe gets the AP check.

I-TX: Why didn't Dewhurst either retire or concede in March? Ego?

[Indy Texas]

Ratcliffe gets the AP check.

I-TX: Why didn't Dewhurst either retire or concede in March? Ego?

Because he could afford not to. If it were anyone else, he would have more or less had to pull the plug because even if he didn't see the writing on the wall, his backers would. That's the Achilles heel of every multimillionaire who has ever run for office.

It's funny how people who are so good at putting money in the right places when it comes to businesses and investments can so foolishly throw good money after bad in political races.