Dewhurst and Cruz headed for runoff in Texas Senate race

Washington Post ^ | Tuesday May 29, 2012

[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.

[mylife]

It’s looking good at this point.
Lets get this guy some decent ads and sew this thing up!

[mylife]

You are spot on.
There is a trend here.

[Texas56]

With 96% reporting, Dewhurst has 45% and Cruz has 34%.

We have two months to get more conservatives motivated.

[WOSG]

yeah, except (a) Cruz did NOT SIT on the boards of the organizations and (b) those organizations arent for amnesty.

[County Agent Hank Kimball]

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

[County Agent Hank Kimball]

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

[Skulllspitter]

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.

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.

[YCTHouston]

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. Little of both. Dewhurst had a bunch of bought and paid for endorsement slates targeting seniors and early voters. Same time, Cruz made a late TV buy. Plus, Dewhurst had a super PAC running over the top negative ads attacking Cruz nonstop, and I'd like to think there was a bit of a backlash against those.

[ConservativeDude]

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!!!

[WilliamRobert]

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.

[WilliamRobert]

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.

[ilgipper]

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.

[ctpsb]

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.

[The_Victor]

IMO Dewhurst put $money and organization into early voting.

Dewhurst outspent Cruz 5 to 1. Cruz will likely attract some serious Tea Party money for the runoff.

[deport]

Cruz did much better on Election day than he did in the Early Voting. Also there were over 44,000 less votes recorded than in the Governors race. So it remains to be seen how the turnout will be and what candidate can get his voters to the poles. Leppert's votes will also factor in the outcome.

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

[ConservativeDude]

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.

[fwdude]

Yes, motivation in the runoff will be everything. It is going to get interesting, and ugly.

[deport]

Also of interest is the Democrats have a run off in their race to have a candidate to face the Republican in Nov. Paul Sadler leads Grady Yarbrough. Texas total voter turnout in both the GOP/Democrat Primary was about 15.5%.

Texas State Election website:

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

[boxlunch]

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?

[Theodore R.]

Never does a third-place candidate wind up in a runoff. If the No. 2 candidate pulls out, there is no runoff.