Free Republic

A good night for conservatives in the GOP primary. Cornyn fended off challengers, but at only 60% up against 7 dwarves, the establishment should be put on notice. Conservative Dan Patrick leads for Lt Gov. This defies polls but tells us Dan Patrick is in a good position to win. I supported Jerry Patterson, and that support will imho go mostly to Dan Patrick. For AG, its conservative Ken Paxton up against Straus-ally Dan Branch. Encouragingly, Ken Paxton has a strong lead. Smitherman at 20% is support that should/will go to Paxton. Comptroller, similarly the leading vote-getting is Glen Hagar,...

In a shocking display of cruelty, MSNBC’s Zachary Roth attacked Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in an article under the headline: "No One Pushes Greg Abbott Around." Abbott, who is in a wheelchair, is the Republican gubernatorial candidate running against Wendy Davis. MSNBC’s Roth goes on to write, “Put simpler: It’s hard to turn a guy in a wheelchair into a villain—no matter his record.” This incident is not the first time left-of-center advocates for Wendy Davis have crossed lines in using Abbott's disability. The pro-Wendy Davis group Battleground Texas made headlines when a leader from the group was caught...

“We wish Senator Cornyn [the] best of luck in November and urge everyone to vote for, volunteer for and support the whole Texas GOP ticket,” Stockman tweeted just after The Associated Press called the race for Cornyn, with only about 2 percent of precincts reporting.

POLITICO's 2014 Texas Election Results and Live Primary Map, includes Midterm Races for Senate, House, Governor and Key Ballot Measures. Winner J. Cornyn (i) 62.2% 380,820 S. Stockman 17.4% 106,531 D. Stovall 9.7% 59,366 L. Vega 3.6% 22,170 K. Cope 2.6% 15,641 C. Mapp 1.9% 11,502 R. Reasor 1.7% 10,415 C. Cleaver 0.9% 5,726 Article Link: Texas Primary Election Results 2014: Live Senate Map by County, Midterm Races - POLITICO (http://www.politico.com/2014-election/results/map/senate/texas/#.UxaMs_ldVa9) Posted with Article Posting Assistant: (http://code-happy.bahits.com/?p=62)

AUSTIN, Texas — Texas is holding the nation's first primary election Tuesday with a political free-for-all in Republican races that could push the state further right, though Democrats are calling it the next big electoral battleground. Republican Gov. Rick Perry has decided this would be his last of a record 14 years in office, and his looming exit has set off a scramble resulting in the most open races in Texas in more than a decade. Republicans are favored to win them all come November — including Perry's seat, despite Democrat Wendy Davis building a national profile and an early...

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) - The longest shadow in Tuesday's primary election in Texas is being cast by a politician not even in the running, freshman U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, a Republican. Cruz, just two years into his first major elected office, has arguably become the most loved politician among Republicans in Texas, an incubator for national conservative policies where the party dominates the statehouse and has not lost a statewide race since 1994. A host of Republican hopefuls are trying to ride his coattails, turning campaigns into raucous affairs about how much they despise Obamacare, embrace the constitutional right to...

Texas is holding the nation's first primary election Tuesday with a political free-for-all in Republican races that could push the state further right, though Democrats are calling it the next big battleground on the electoral map. Republican Gov. Rick Perry has decided this would be his last of a record 14 years in office, and his looming exit has set off a scramble resulting in the most open races in Texas in more than a decade. Tea party conservatives claimed important gains in the last two elections in Texas, most notably Ted Cruz's defeat of Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst in...

Nearly two years after Ted Cruz's come-from-behind primary victory, Tea Party challengers are fizzling in Texas. Defeating the former Senate and House GOP campaign committee heads would be a top trophy for conservative insurgents. But with just over two weeks until Election Day, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) and Rep. Pete Sessions (R-Texas) are both heavy favorites against their primary opponents. Texas Republicans laugh that gadfly Rep. Steve Stockman's (R-Texas) challenge to Cornyn has been a comedy of errors. Tea Party leader Katrina Pierson (R) has failed to gain any real traction against Sessions as she’s struggled with fundraising and name...

First of all, I'm a native Texan and a Ronald Reagan-style Republican. Not a drop of RINO blood in me. And, I want to go on record saying I loathe John Cornyn and I've had high hopes of seeing him defeated in the GOP Primary this year. But, I have some real concerns that Cornyn could win reelection if we blow the March 4th GOP Primary. We could miss a great opportunity like Missouri did by nominating Todd Aikin, who had the IQ of a foot stool, and gave Barack Obama's girlfriend, Claire McCaskill another six years. Are my fears...

Sen. Rand Paul, who represents Kentucky, said his home state of Texas could easily switch from a Republican stronghold to a Democratic voting block if the GOP doesn’t open its arms and take in more working class and more minorities. “Texas will be a Democratic state within 10 years if you don’t change,” he said at a Houston dinner with Sen. John Cornyn, CNN reported. “That doesn’t mean we give up on what we believe in, but it means we have to be a more welcoming party. We have to welcome people of all races. We need to welcome people...

Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul asked for some advice from Texas GOP rising star George P. Bush on how to reach out to Hispanic voters — and got a simple recommendation: Show up, Politico reported. “Really I wanted to get advice from him, as much as anything, about how the party grows in Texas and states with large Hispanic populations,” Paul, who's considered a possible GOP candidate for president in 2016, said after stumping for a state senate candidate in Dallas. Bush, whose mother is from Mexico, has pushed for expanding the GOP reach to Hispanics. Paul said Bush recommended...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., delivered a stark demographic warning to his party on Saturday, predicting that Texas – a sizable electoral prize that Republicans cannot afford to lose in national elections – may tilt Democratic within 10 years if the GOP doesn’t broaden its appeal. “What I do believe is Texas is going to be a Democrat state within 10 years if we don’t change,” Paul told the Harris County Republican Party on Saturday, according to Politico. “That means we evolve, it doesn’t mean we give up on what we believe in, but it means we have to be a...

Start from the premise that Wendy Davis probably was going to lose the election against Greg Abbott no matter what. But probably wasn’t a sure thing. Abbott never was in Edwin Edwards territory: “The only way I can lose this election is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy.” It didn’t help that Davis’s narrative of being a struggling teenage single mom who brought herself up by her bootstraps all the way to Harvard Law School fell apart. Davis always had the base, and maybe if she got lucky, if Republican turnout was...

Texas Democrats have fiercely defended their gubernatorial candidate, Wendy Davis, through a scandal in which the state senator was caught lying about her status as a single mother and about paying for her own education. However, now that Davis is supporting open carry laws, Democrats and gun control groups are shying away.

AUSTIN, Texas — George Prescott Bush stood among the ladies at the Concho Valley Republican Women’s meeting in San Angelo as they spoke about how attractive the contender for the Texas General Land Office commissioner was. A Hispanic woman joked in Spanish to him that the boyish man of 37 with a broad smile looked better in person than on TV. George P. Bush is the nephew of former President George W. Bush and the son of Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida. At the meeting in late September he had already been campaigning for 11 months, having delivered...

TYLER, TX (KLTV) - George P. Bush made a stop in Tyler on Tuesday morning, part of a fundraising tour through Texas. Bush, a Fort Worth native, is running for Texas Land Commissioner and spoke with KLTV at a fundraiser event at Willow Brook Country Club.

Want to know why Wendy Davis will have trouble winning higher office in Texas or anywhere else in America? It’s not because she stretched the truth in her “from mobile-home-living single mom to Harvard Law grad” campaign biography, nor because her husband paid for her education, nor even because she placed a lot of value on her career. Nope: It’s because Davis, the Lone Star State senator who became famous for her filibuster of an abortion-limiting bill in Texas, lost custody of her children to her ex-husband. +++++ A few years ago, one of my guy friends was dating a...

An odd thing happened on the way to Wendy Davis’ personal and campaign narratives. I’m so old, I remember when feminists believed women didn’t need a man to be happy or to raise a family, and liberals argued that the American Dream was not restricted to tony subdivisions of McMansions. And then we have the Wendy Davis campaign, which has captured the heart of progressive America by supporting unfettered access to late-term abortions. But along that road to ending viable life, the Wendy Davis campaign picked up on a campaign theme that treats single moms as hopelessly failed. Davis said...

Taken from the Texas Tribune Candidate page: Follow @WendyDavisTexas Last summer, you had my back and said #StandWithWendy. Today, I need you to do the same. Add your name: http://t.co/DxC4PMHxbG - 5 minutes ago No false attack can take away my story. And no sleazy political trick will stop me from giving voice to yours. http://t.co/WmURHnVgp3 - a day ago The only thing Abbott & his allies have proven with these desperate attacks is that they don’t understand these Texas stories of struggle. - a day ago Our stories, fighting to give our children a better future across Texas, are...

John Cornyn and many other Republican incumbents face significant primary challenges. They may have gotten away with symbolic conservatism for years, but today voters are looking for positive change in he Republican Party and for a more authentic and consistent conservatism, as exemplified by Rand Paul, Mike Lee and Ted Cruz in the Senate. It is not that John Cornyn is not conservative. He is just not the right kind of conservative for the post-Bush Republican Party. There was a time when it was enough to be pro-life and pro-gun. That standard has fallen by the wayside for something much...