Republicans control the Texas Senate by a 19-12 margin. The good news is that it puts Democrats only 4 seats away from flipping the chamber. The bad news is that the Democrats are making virtually no effort to pick up seats in a year when Republicans have more than twice as many seats up as Democrats. Fortunately, Republicans don’t appear to be mounting much of a challenge to Democratic seats either, although they are at least contesting all seats. There probably will not be pickups on either side.
There are 11 Republicans up for re-election. Eight of them are unopposed:
TX-01 – Kevin Eltife (R-Tyler)
TX-03 – Robert Nichols (R-Jacksonville)
TX-07 – Dan Patrick (R-Houston)
TX-08 – Florence Shapiro (R-Plano)
TX-12 – Jane Nelson (R-Flower Mound)
TX-17 – Joan Huffman (R-Southside Place)
TX-22 – Kip Averitt (R-Waco)
TX-25 – Jeff Wentworth (R-San Antonio)
Huffman is particularly tragic, as Obama took 47% of the vote in her district, and she was just elected by 12% in a 2008 special election.
The other three Republicans have classic “some dude” challengers:
TX-02 – Bob Duell (R-Greenville) will face insurance agent Kathleen Shaw in a 60-39 McCain district.
TX-05 – Steve Ogden (R-Bryan) will face substitute teacher Stephen Wyman, whom he defeated by 26% in 2006.
TX-18 – Glenn Hegar (R-Katy) will face retired teacher Pat Olney in a 63-36 McCain district.
I know Texas is tough, but we have to be able to do better than this.
Republicans, by contrast, are contesting all five Democratic seats that are up, but their challenges fortunately don’t look too serious either:
TX-13 – Rodney Ellis (D-Houston) will face Mike “Some Dude” Mauldin in an 80-20 Obama district.
TX-14 – Kirk Watson (D-Austin) will face attorney/psychologist Mary Lou “What’s Her Face?” Serafine in a 64-34 Obama district.
TX-15 – Veteran incumbent John Whitmire (D-Houston) will face self-employed salesman Bill “Who Dat?” Walker in a 61-38 Obama district.
TX-19 – In the only race that looks anywhere near interesting, Carlos Uresti (D-El Paso) will face real estate broker and 2006 candidate Dick Bowen, who held Uresti to 59% of the vote back then. The Southwest Texas district is 70% Hispanic and went for Obama 55-45.
TX-29 – Incumbent Eliot Shapleigh (D-El Paso) is retiring. Democrat Jose Rodriguez is a substantial favorite over professor and frequent candidate Dan Chavez in this El Paso district that went for Obama 65-34.
worry about this guy running against Chet Edwards in the future? TX-22 – Kip Averitt (R-Waco)? Seems like a strong challenger, afterall Edwards has only hung on mainly by maintaining his large margins in Waco.
Texas should be better for Dems this cycle than in 2006, not worse. Bill White on the ticket should drive up Dem participation across the state. I don’t expect we’ll lose any State Senate seats that we didn’t lose then, and it’s indeed quite tragic that we can’t pick up Huffman’s seat this time. (Can Dems add a candidate there by fiat now that the filing deadline’s passed?)
Actually, we’re running a strong slate across the board. Dems are in good shape for Governor (Bill White), Agriculture Commissioner (Hank Gilbert), and in the unlikely event of a Senate vacancy (John Sharp). We also have an excellent candidate for Lt. Gov. (Linda Chavez-Thompson), though she probably has zero chance of winning, as opposed to the slim chances of Gilbert and Sharp and the substantially stronger chance of White.
Additionally, probably the only House race with a chance of flipping is Chet Edwards’.
Robert Nichols is the State Senator from District 3.
It may not sound like a lot, but in relative terms (with only 31 senators), it’s huge. It’s similar to saying the Republicans only need 10 seats to flip the US Senate. They actually happen to have a reasonable shot at that but the situation now is quite unusual, overcoming a 3/5 majority normally very difficult.
In the State Senate. These races are just as expensive if not more expensive than congressional races. In Texas, State Senators represent more people than Congressmen. I would say TX-2 and TX-17 are the most competitve out of the list and even that’s a stretch. I think the Dallas County part of TX-2 is now competitive, but outside of Smith County portion, most of the other counties have gone red pretty fast. The GOP did a great job of packing the urban counties and creating suburban-rural districts they could hold for a decade.
The three districts the Dems would have a shot at are TX-16 (John Carona North Dallas and suburbs, went 53-47 McCain), TX-17 in a Presidential year, and TX-25 if Jeff Wentworth R-San Antonio ever retired.
Chris Bell would have won the special election in TX-17 back in 2008, but a renegade former Democratic state rep Ron Wilson, got a black female to run as a Democratc on the ballot, garnering enough votes to force a runoff with Bell and now Senator Huffman, which she was favored to win.
There won’t be any changes to the Senate this year. All of the action is on the Gov race and about 10-12 house races. Redistricting will be interesting. There should be a hispanic Senate district in DFW, and another in the valley, or a black senate district in Houston, but since the GOP will likely have control again, we’ll see what happens.
I doubt Sibley or Averrit will run against Edwards. He is an institution in the Cen-Tex region. They may not like the fact that a Democrat holds the seat but it would take a decade to get that kind of seniority.
Is as close as you can get for a Texas Republican to be a moderate. Same with John Carona.
Because the winner of the Republican primary dropped out, the Democratic chairs in the counties that make up the 22 district can nominate someone to run. However, I live in the district and I haven’t heard anything about someone wanting the nomination.