Previewing the Texas House Primaries

By Scott Bland  //  May 28, 2012 | 5:44 p.m.

Texas voters head to the polls on Tuesday to choose party nominees for seats in the House of Representatives in districts ranging from urban to rural, lily-white to majority-minority, and the Gulf Coast to the borders with New Mexico and Oklahoma. Nearly every seat has one thing in common, though: It probably won't have a competitive general election.

The Lone Star State's 36 congressional districts make up one of the country's most polarized delegations. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., won at least 55 percent of the 2008 presidential vote in all 24 districts that lean solidly Republican. In the 11 solidly Democratic districts, President Obama never fell below 57 percent. Only the 23rd District, which stretches from the San Antonio suburbs through West Texas to El Paso and where Obama edged McCain 49.9 to 49.3 percent, remains truly competitive, and three Democrats are vying there for the right to oppose freshman GOP Rep. Quico Canseco in the fall.

State Rep. Pete Gallego, the favored candidate of national Democrats, and former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, whom Canseco defeated in 2010, are the main contenders. But San Antonio attorney John Bustamante, the third Democrat in the 23rd District primary, could end up drawing enough votes to force the contest into a runoff, which would take place July 31 if no candidate reaches 50 percent on Tuesday.

Rodriguez has built-in name identification - he represented about 70 percent of the new district when he was in Congress - but Gallego had outspent Rodriguez almost three-to-one by the pre-primary reporting deadline, and Gallego's superior fundraising has continued apace since then while Rodriguez has continued to lag, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

Gallego has gotten a big assist from the League of Conservation Voters, which has spent almost $200,000 on TV time and direct mail hitting Rodriguez for opposing cap and trade legislation in 2009. While fundraising observations are not perfect campaign indicators, they are unusually telling in primaries without incumbents, like this one.

Throughout the rest of the state, Democratic and Republican candidates are competing for a surer seat in Congress, and many contests have gotten nasty with that prize on the line. In El Paso, former city representative Beto O'Rourke is challenging Rep. Silvestre Reyes for the 16th District Democratic nomination, and charges about misuse of funds, corruption, and drugs and alcohol have flown back and forth for months. Reyes got an endorsement and a visit from Bill Clinton, while O'Rourke has air cover from the anti-incumbent Campaign for Primary Accountability super PAC.

Republican primary challenges have kept a lower profile, though the Campaign for Primary Accountability has also spent about $167,000 against 89-year-old GOP Rep. Ralph Hall in the 4th District, north of Dallas. Steve Clark held Hall under 60 percent of the primary vote in 2010, and he has more help this time, though Hall still outspent him and National Republican Congressional Committee chairman Pete Sessions has confidently predicted that his colleagues in Texas's Republican delegation will all win renomination. Lamar Smith (21st District) and Kenny Marchant also face minor primary challenges. The new Democratic-leaning 33rd and 35th Districts will provide different tests of minority influence in the party. In the Dallas/Ft. Worth-based 33rd, a crowded contest may come down to whether a viable Hispanic candidate can finally drive Hispanic voters to the primary polls in a new majority-Latino district. That's what Domingo Garcia is hoping, while African-American state legislator Marc Veasey will bank partly on a black population that has historically overperformed its share of the population in primaries, though a handful of other candidates cloud the picture there. In the 35th, Anglo Democratic Rep. Lloyd Doggett faces a challenge from two Latina Democrats in another new, majority-Latino district stretching from Austin to San Antonio, but Doggett has a strong claim as the candidate of choice for Hispanic Democrats after a long career of liberal advocacy in Congress. The 33rd District is one of many open seats with crowded primary fields that are likely to whittle down to runoff contests. Democrats will challenge the GOP-leaning 14th District with ex-Rep. Nick Lampson, but the real action is on the Republican side of the Gulf Coast primary, where more than 10 people saw the district's Republican lean and decided to try to succeed retiring Rep. Ron Paul. The same goes for Republicans in the 35th District, based in Liberty, and the Democrats in the 34th District, which covers the southern Gulf Coast and the eastern terminus of the border with Mexico. Look for many of these districts to enter the news again in July, when runoffs will likely decide the party nominees. Considering the partisan gulf in nearly every district, though, don't expect too much House news to emanate from Texas after then.

Read & Post Comments
Leave A Comment
The National Journal Group has the right (but not the obligation) to monitor the comments and to remove any materials it deems inappropriate.
Comments powered by Disqus
Follow National Journal
About

Staff


Reid Wilson, Editor-in-Chief
Steve Shepard, Executive Editor
Julie Sobel, Editor
Kevin Brennan, Deputy Editor


Disclaimer


On Call editors reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments. The Hotline, National Journal Group, Inc. and Atlantic Media Company are not responsible for the content of the comments that remain.