We have updated our Crib Sheets to remove Republican and Democratic candidates who did not file by the deadline. We have left in place a couple of candidates who are challenging administrative determinations that they are ineligible to seek the office for which they filed. We still do not have any official information from the Libertarian and Green Parties about their filed candidates, and we have not yet received a list of independent candidates who filed their declarations of intent with the Secretary of State. We apologize that our candidate listings remain incomplete three weeks after the filing deadline, but election and party officials’ attention appears to be focused solely on primary candidates.
Campaign finance: Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the last day for the current campaign finance periods for federal, state and local (where required) candidates. State and local (where required) candidates must file their January semiannual reports by January 15. These will disclose contributions received and expenditures made between July 1 (or the date the committee was established) and December 31. Federal candidates must file their year-end reports by January 31. Those cover the fourth quarter of 2019.
Upcoming campaign finance deadlines:
- January 21 – runoff reports for candidates in the HD28, HD100 and HD148 runoffs, covering January 1-21
- February 3 – 30-day-out reports for state and local candidates with primary opponents, covering January 1-23 (January 22-23 for candidates in the legislative runoffs)
- February 20 – pre-primary reports for federal candidates, covering January 1-February 12 (assumes FEC follows same timeline as in 2018).
- February 24 – 8-day-out reports for state and local candidates with primary opponents, covering January 24-February 22
We will update our Crib Sheets as those reports and totals become available online.
HD28 special: The Eliz Markowitz (D) campaign released an internal poll showing her tied with Gary Gates (R), 42%-42%, prior to “hearing a short bio” of Markowitz, whose name ID was polled at 61%. The HIT Strategies poll of 500 “likely runoff voters” was in the field December 10-16 and has a stated margin of error of ±4.4%.
House Speaker: The House General Investigating Committee adopted the report produced by its outside counsel before Christmas and advised all members that it is up to the House to “determine what, if any, further action should be taken” against Speaker Dennis Bonnen (R-Angleton) and Rep. Dustin Burrows (R-Lubbock). Former Reps. Patricia Gray (D-Galveston) and Will Hartnett (R-Dallas) and former Supreme Court Chief Justice Thomas Phillips concluded in their report that Bonnen’s conduct during a meeting with Empower Texans CEO Michael Quinn Sullivan “likely violated” Sec. 572.051, Government Code and House Rule 5. The attorneys concluded that the facts did not support a prosecution under the Election Code. The attorneys wrote that “key elements of the statute are not sufficiently clear, and the case authorities are too few, to conclude with any degree of confidence that prosecution” against either Bonnen or Burrows “would be warranted under the Bribery Statute or Gift Statute.”
Houston: Dist. H council member Karla Cisneros won re-election by 16 votes over challenger Isabel Longoria after final provisional votes were tallied. Longoria congratulated Cisneros via tweet shortly after the final results were announced.
San Antonio: Former council member Greg Brockhouse announced he would run for mayor in 2021. Mayor Ron Nirenberg narrowly won re-election over Brockhouse, 51%-49%, in the 2019 runoff.
Redistricting: Texas is poised to gain three additional congressional seats in 2021, according to a new analysis of Census Bureau data by Election Data Services. The state’s population was estimated to be just below 29 million as of July 1, an increase of 1.3% over the 2018 estimate and 15.3% over the 2010 Census.
©2019 Texas Election Source LLC
