Tag: Henry Bonilla

SurveyUSA has poll numbers out for the runoff election in TX-23. GOP rep. Henry Bonilla leads former Democratic rep. Ciro Rodriguez by a 7 point margin, 53-46.

The district as it was sampled is 59% white, and 36% hispanic. Bonilla takes 70% of the white vote and Ciro gets 72% of the Hispanic vote. You can look at the rest of the crosstabs in the link above, but I think that one says it. The majority is composed of white rural Texans who vote mostly for the GOP, and a Hispanic GOP incumbent captures a significant portion of the Hispanic minority. As for what would change this result, the crosstab to look at is party ID. The GOP has a small advantage here (43-39), but the incumbent captures 10% of Democrats and the challenger only 5% of Republicans and wins indepents (18%) by only 3%. A competent incumbent untainted by a major scandal is likely to produce similar numbers among partisan voters, so Ciro most likely will need to close the gap by appealing to independents. In the current electoral climate, a good Democratic candidate should be able to win the independent vote by more than 3%.

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Good news out of TX-23. As of today, all of Ciro Rodriguez’s former Democratic challengers in the open primary for TX-23 have now endorsed his campaign. Third place finisher Lukin Gilliland has offered up his northside campaign headquarters and staff.

“Henry Bonilla simply hasn’t done his job to provide fresh ideas on how to protect our troops and bring an honorable peace to the war in Iraq. This runoff represents the people’s chance to make changes in our Iraq policy and bring our troops home. Bonilla continues claiming to support our troops and yet he continues to send them into harm’s way,” said Albert Uresti.

“The Republican leadership has failed, as signaled by the November elections. Uniting the Democrats behind one democrat in this Congressional election is important so that we may continue the change of direction in our country,” said Uresti.

The Urestis’ endorsement is an important lynchpin in Rodriguez’s plan to unite Democrats to defeat Republican Congressman Henry Bonilla. Senator Carlos Uresti represents a district that mirrors the boundaries of the 23rd Congressional District and Albert Uresti garnered the second most votes among Democrats in the special election contest that ended November 7, 2006.

Both brothers declare that Bonilla has not represented the concerns of the people of the 23rd Congressional District and believe Rodriguez provides an opportunity toward a new direction that puts people above the powerful special interests that have created a failed Republican government in Washington.

(I agree with Karl’s correspondent – the way to win here is to let the DCCC do it’s thing. I never like to knock a fellow Dem, but it’s clear that Ciro ran a less-than-great campaign in his primary against Cuellar. So the outside help is welcome. – promoted by DavidNYC)

Another update on this race is here.

Below is an update from a friend in the know down in San Antonio.

Here’s the lowdown as of sometime today… DCCC people were flying into town today to tell Ciro’s what’s going down.  If he liked it and was willing to play by the rules, fine.  If not, they’re gonna pack it up.  I’ll probably have more information on this meeting sometime later on this week.

From what I hear, the D-trip might just run this entire campaign as an independent expenditure.  Let Ciro try and raise some money so he can do his own thing, but run mail, field (the real field program) and any other media stuff through the d-trip. The DCCC is bringing in a top notch field person to run their show and that’ll be that.  If there is one way to win this district with Ciro at the helm, this is basically the way to do it.

Additionally, our statewide Democratic candidates are coming together to help Ciro out either way, as our state party does little. From David Van Os, former Attorney General candidate (below the fold):

All the recent statewide candidates are coming together to join Barbara Radnofsky as co-hosts of a luncheon fundraiser for Ciro Rodriguez in Houston on Monday (November 20, details to follow). We are all standing together to demonstrate our determination that the Democratic community must come together and go all out for this opportunity to get rid of Henry Bonilla and replace him with a true representative of the people, Ciro Rodriguez.

Further, tonight at the Bexar County Democratic Executive Committee meeting, John Courage publicly donated $2,000 to Ciro’s campaign.

The Texas Democratic Party, to no surprise, is dragging its feet. But we statewide candidates are plenty used to that because we all experienced the TDP’s inertia over the past year. So we are not waiting around for the TDP and I encourage all of you to join us and make Ciro’s campaign your #1 political priority for the next month. Please right now set aside the runoff election day as a day that you are going to be in the 23rd congressional district knocking on doors all day getting the Democratic vote out.

Go to Ciro’s website and contact the campaign to find out the other different ways you can help. Also please call and write the State Party Chair, Boyd Richie, and insist that the large paid staff in the party office all be sent out to the field in the 23rd to help win this election behind our candidate, Ciro Rodriguez.

In my recent race for Texas Attorney General the voters honored me by giving me majorities in some of the rural west Texas counties that are in the new district with which Ciro is not familiar. I am fortunate to enjoy some good support networks in those counties and I have offered to travel to the area with Ciro and introduce him to my supporters and ask them to exert maximum effort to get out the votes for his candidacy. Ciro’s campaign manager accepted my offer on the spot at the Bexar County CEC meeting tonight. I look forward to doing whatever I can to help pull this one out. I believe that other recent statewide candidates are going to do so also. Several of us will be with Ciro Monday at the Houston fundraiser and will be discussing plans with him and his campaign manager for campaigning for him.

The parts of southwest and west Texas that are in the reconfigured 23rd are Democratic country. Henry Bonilla has been lying his way into people’s votes for much too long. Ya basta!

(From the diaries. If Ciro can’t do it this year, this seat is clearly a ripe pick-up opporunity in 2008. – promoted by James L.)

Of the 10 US House seats still not called, 2 of them are because they are actual run-off elections. Of the two, one is between 2 Democrats. The other, here in Texas, is between former Netroots candidate Ciro Rodriguez and Rep. Henry Bonilla, who is soon to lose his seat because of court ordered redistricting changes.

On November 7th, the Republican vote total was 48%. The combined Democratic total was 49% though only 20% was Ciro’s. The seat is ready to be taken but some ask why there has been a wait.

A couple things. Right now I can tell you that there have been talks between the DCCC and folks in San Antonio. Someone has been asked to draw up a mail/TV/field budget for a one month long run-off campaign.  They have asked around in the district to see if there is someone to run a field program, one possibility being a friend of mine who just spent the last year helping to elect a Democratic state Senator and then hold his open state House seat last Tuesday.

In a couple days, I have been made aware that new online tools will become available for Democrats across Texas (and beyond) to call Democrats in TX-23 in a system very much like MoveOn’s call for change. They were built by former state Rep. Glen Maxey who nearly took over the chairmanship of the Texas Democratic Party this June and just got done successfully running the Austin area coordinated campaign that picked up 1 state house seat, 1 Justice of the Peace, and 1 3rd Court of Appeals seat.  These are www.TrueBlueAction.com and www.OnlinePhoneBanking.com.

Netroots candidate John Courage, who just wrapped up his campaign this afternoon is in the process of transferring his San Antonio volunteers and staff to help out Ciro in any way they can. Former TX-23 candidate Lukin Gilliland has apparently offered up his campaign staff and team (whom I’m familiar with and are good folks) to help out Ciro as well.

Of course, the district won’t be won without a lot of money and volunteer investment. As of now, that major commitment hasn’t been declared yet. But I wanted to let folks know, that things are in the works.