Posted on 05/29/2012 8:09:51 PM PDT by Bigtigermike
The Texas Republican Senate primary is headed for a runoff, after Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst fell just shy of 50 percent of the vote Tuesday.
Dewhurst will face former state solicitor general Ted Cruz, a favorite of the tea party, in the July 31 runoff. The winner of that runoff will be a heavy favorite to succeed retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas), after Democrats failed to land a top-tier recruit.
With 43 percent of precincts reporting, Dewhurst led Cruz 46 percent to 32 percent. Seven other candidates split the vote enough, though, to push the two into a runoff.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Ditto. But I have serious doubts about him pulling nearly ALL of the voters from Dewhurst’s side over to his.
Still, stranger things have happened.
Dewhurst’s campaign used a parade of lies to sway voters away from Cruz.
Cruz is more conservative. If the grassroots conservatives unite behind Cruz, he will win.
Good, a victory tonight. Let’s finish off Dewhurst. His ads were disgusting.
Woot!
Dewhurst’s ads were a complete joke and patently false. David Dewhurst is a sleazeball that used his office as Lt. Gov. to kill many conservative measures. He killed the anti-TSA groping bill just to name one. The people that voted for him are truly sheep that shouldn’t be allowed to vote.
/johnny
The one I heard - repeatedly, today - was how Cruz sat on Pro-Amnesty boards. Anyone else hear that one?
I hope so.
What did Dewhurst get, 47%? That’s going to be hard to overcome given a static scenario of voter shifting.
Of course, nothing is static here.
Congrats Ted.
Calling all Conservative Freepers: Let’s support Ted..whether or not you live in Texas. He needs our help to defeat Dewhurst who apparently learned how to attack his opponent from Mittens Romney and his slimey PAC, Restore Our Future.
Dewhurst is at 46 with 46 in. He’s just above single variance for getting 50 percent. At double variance, Cruz will have it locked up.
The old "if you repeat a lie enough times, (for some) it becomes the truth".
Good news, Ted Cruz in July.
It’s going to be a tough slog. Most Leppert voters who vote in the runoff will vote for Dewhurst. And Dewhurst will continue to outspend Cruz two to one.
Crus has already challenged Dewhurst to three runoff debates, and Dewhurst declined. Cruz is still very much the underdog in the race. Sure, he can still win it, but conservatives are going to have to work their butts off for him over the next 60 days.
When has it ever been easy for conservatives.
Just getting into a runoff was a great victory for Ted.
Let loose the dogs of war!
Yahoo!!!!! Now it’s on to the really tough part of the campaign - getting Cruz over the top. It’s going to be Austin against the Tea Party and Conservatives.
I'd listen closer but I have other, more important stations that need attention.
ditto
I don’t know if this is meaningful or not, but I found something interesting, at least, in the numbers that are being reported.
The TX Secretary of State reports Early Votes and Total Votes...so you just calculate to get the election day votes (at least I’m assuming that works).
As of right now, here are the total vote counts:
EARLY
Cruz 199,636 (30.1%)
Dewhurst 318,067 (47.9%)
Total cast - 663,623
TOTAL
Cruz 387,289 (32.6%)
Dewhurst 535,277 (45.1%)
Total cast - 1,186,876
ELECTION DAY (my calculation)
Cruz 187,653 (35.9%)
Dewhurst 217,210 (41.5%)
Total election day cast 523,253
SO, either the Dewhurst voters for some reason self-selected to vote early OR there was a definite trend toward Cruz as the election approached.
The latter seems more plausible to me. That’s just a 5.6% spread. With 2 months to give the conservative base a chance to rally strong - with the help of guys like Mark Levin, Andrew Wilkow, etc...I think Cruz has a great shot at this.
OR am I misreading it?
Hank
Yay! Our family financially supported Cruz and voted for him. Plan to do so again.
It’s looking good at this point.
Lets get this guy some decent ads and sew this thing up!
You are spot on.
There is a trend here.
With 96% reporting, Dewhurst has 45% and Cruz has 34%.
We have two months to get more conservatives motivated.
yeah, except (a) Cruz did NOT SIT on the boards of the organizations and (b) those organizations arent for amnesty.
Thanks....looks that way to me. Here are the updated numbers with 86% of the precincts in. The Election Day spread is down to 4.7%!
Early Total Election Day
Cruz 200077 433885 233808
Dewhurst 319024 581709 262685
TOTAL 665268 1291444 626176
Early Total Election Day
Cruz 30.1% 33.6% 37.3%
Dewhurst 48.0% 45.0% 42.0%
Hank
I’m in East Texas. We had a pretty hotly contested rematch contest for State Representative between a Tea Party type (David Simpson) who unseated a real RINO (Tommy Merritt) in 2010. Happy to report, Simpson won handily (60-40).
There were yard signs ALL OVER the place for both Simpson and Merritt. Also for judges, railroad commissioner, you name it. I’m not exaggerating by saying there must be 5000 signs scatterd around longview.
HUNDREDS of them were Cruz signs. I did not see a single Dewhurst sign. Not one. I looked hard, figuring he must have some supporters out here. Not a single one....it was really pretty remarkable.
Hank
IMO Dewhurst put $money and organization into early voting.
Cruz will benefit from the 1-on-1 race, but Dewhurst is a more natural home for Leppert voters. Cruz will benefit from a more conservative electorate in the runoff, but Dewhurst still likely has the organizational advantage.
I think in the final days Dewhurst went negative against Leppert...maybe that will de-motivate Leppert himself and maybe even some of his voters for jumping onto the Dewhurst bandwagon.
Maybe....
I think all things considered, I’d rather be the insurgent here...especially with Palin, Club for Growth, and Jim DeMint. Cruz might just well take this!!!
In the precinct I work as Judge in north Houston Cruz beat Do-Hurst two to one. This bodes well for Cruz because it will be hard to get all the steeple to return for the run off. If this holds true and the base comes out Cruz can make up the ten points.
In the precinct I work as Judge in north Houston Cruz beat Do-Hurst two to one. This bodes well for Cruz because it will be hard to get all the steeple to return for the run off. If this holds true and the base comes out Cruz can make up the ten points.
One would have to assume the runoff will pull less voters than this primary, so we have to hope Cruz voters are more motivated and that dewhersts base of support does not show up in the same numbers. Tis is going to be a very interesting race.
I agree with others Cruz needs some really good media to pull in the peppers voters and demoralize support for dewherst. It amazes me that Texas has such a hands time voting in solid conservatives in primaries. I suppose it is the domination of big media markets and a strong state party that is heavily RINO.
I agree. It seems for as Republican as Texas is we really don’t vote in strong movement conservatives. As we’ve seen in this and many other statewide races you are correct that the establishment is very strong here.
Dewhurst outspent Cruz 5 to 1. Cruz will likely attract some serious Tea Party money for the runoff.
From the Texas Election website:
| RACE | NAME | PARTY | EARLY VOTES | PERCENT | TOTAL VOTES | PERCENT | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U. S. Senator | ||||||||
| Glenn Addison | REP | 11,413 | 1.70% | 22,808 | 1.63% | |||
| Joe Agris | REP | 2,166 | 0.32% | 4,544 | 0.32% | |||
| Curt Cleaver | REP | 3,183 | 0.47% | 6,623 | 0.47% | |||
| Ted Cruz | REP | 200,888 | 30.03% | 477,428 | 34.23% | |||
| David Dewhurst | REP | 320,995 | 47.98% | 621,850 | 44.59% | |||
| Ben Gambini | REP | 3,440 | 0.51% | 7,175 | 0.51% | |||
| Craig James | REP | 25,322 | 3.78% | 50,081 | 3.59% | |||
| Tom Leppert | REP | 92,500 | 13.82% | 185,934 | 13.33% | |||
| Lela Pittenger | REP | 9,016 | 1.34% | 17,940 | 1.28% | |||
| ----------- | ----------- | |||||||
| Race Total | 668,923 | 1,394,383 | ||||||
| Early Provisional Ballots Reported | 345 | |||||||
| Total Provisional Ballots Reported | 1,775 | |||||||
| Precincts Reported | 8,746 | of | 8,779 Precincts | 99.62% | ||||
| Statewide Turnout | 10.67% | 13,065,425 Registered Voters | ||||||
Cruz did much better on Election day than he did in the Early Voting.”
IF that represents late momentum (due to Dewhurst’s deceptive ads, perhaps...), and IF that momentum holds...
Then Cruz will win.
Yes, motivation in the runoff will be everything. It is going to get interesting, and ugly.
| RACE | NAME | PARTY | EARLY VOTES | PERCENT | TOTAL VOTES | PERCENT | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U. S. Senator | ||||||||
| Addie Dainell Allen | DEM | 59,405 | 23.56% | 113,161 | 22.92% | |||
| Sean Hubbard | DEM | 39,327 | 15.60% | 79,604 | 16.12% | |||
| Paul Sadler | DEM | 86,585 | 34.35% | 173,352 | 35.12% | |||
| Grady Yarbrough | DEM | 66,728 | 26.47% | 127,460 | 25.82% | |||
| ----------- | ----------- | |||||||
| Race Total | 252,045 | 493,577 | ||||||
| Early Provisional Ballots Reported | 487 | |||||||
| Total Provisional Ballots Reported | 1,229 | |||||||
| Precincts Reported | 8,782 | of | 8,813 Precincts | 99.65% | ||||
| Statewide Turnout | 3.77% | 13,065,425 Registered Voters | ||||||
What are the rules for making it into a runoff for lower tier candidates (like Texas House representative)? Does the winner have to make over 50%? If not, do they take the top two or do others down the list (like the 3rd place winner if he is very close) get a shot at the runoff?
Never does a third-place candidate wind up in a runoff. If the No. 2 candidate pulls out, there is no runoff.
When is the election?
When is the face-off? Conservatives need to work their tails off for Cruz between now and then.
From the posted article above....
I just donated to Cruz.
Final: only ten point separation.
Dew: 44%
Cruz: 34%
end of July
With a 10.6 point separation between the two the question becomes what will the runoff turnout be and how will the voters for the other 7 candidates break. The turnout will be lower so it becomes which candidate can produce the best GOTV.
Mark Levin says Cruz is the “real deal”.
Dewhurst: 44.60%
Cruz: 34.23%
Other: 21.17%
If 85% of Cruz voters turn out for the runoff, 75% of Dewhurst voters turn out, and 65% of Other voters turn out, and Cruz wins 2/3 of the Other vote that turns out, he will squeak out a victory.
Cruz needs money. If you can send him $$$, that will help him beat the Dewhurst (sic?) lying ads. Dewhurst has tons of $$$.
Let's surge and send Cruz $$$, whatever state you live in!
Levin says Cruz is the “real deal”. If nothing else, Levin's opinion goes a long way with me.
“Time for a Levin Surge for Cruz.” (my post)
Only Levin can call for a “Levin Surge”.
I just got overwhelmed with thinking Cruz can win and that Levinites would take Cruz over the top!
I can't call for a Levin Surge; but I can call for a hummingbird surge!
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