May 25, 2022 | Election Night Returns
As runoff elections go, it was a pretty good night to be an incumbent, or a former incumbent. Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton (R) and Railroad Comm. Wayne Christian (R) easily turned aside their challengers to secure nominations for a third and second term, respectively. Paxton...
May 13, 2022 | Campaign Finance, Campaign News
Early voting for the May 24 runoff election begins Monday. Congressional candidates facing runoffs were required to file their pre-runoff campaign finance reportsyesterday (Thursday). These reports disclose contributions received and expenditures made between April 1...
Apr 28, 2022 | Campaign News
The Congressional Leadership Fund Super PAC reserved more than $5M in advertising in the San Antonio market for CD28 ($3.9M) and CD15 ($2.2M). The Super PAC, which is aligned with U.S. House Republican leadership, announced a total of $125M in reservations, $111M of...
Apr 24, 2022 | Campaign News
Early voting begins tomorrow (Monday) for the May 7 general, special and constitutional amendment elections. In a rarity for a May general election, all registered voters across the state will be able to cast ballots. Most municipalities and other local governments in...
Apr 17, 2022 | Campaign Finance, Campaign News
U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Laredo) is “not a target” of a federal investigation that included an FBI raid on his home and campaign headquarters earlier this year, according to his attorney. The raid occurred less than a month before early voting began for the March...
Mar 24, 2022 | Campaign News
U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Brownsville) announced he would resign early to take a position at Akin Gump. His resignation will trigger a special election to fill his unexpired term. The special election will be conducted in CD34 as it has been configured for the past...
Mar 22, 2022 | Campaign News
The Texas Supreme Court will hear oral arguments tomorrow (Wednesday) in a case challenging a portion of the Texas House map passed the last special session. In November, the Mexican American Legislative Caucus filed suit contending that the map violated the...
Mar 20, 2022 | By the Numbers
83% Winning percentage of runoff candidates who finished 10% or more ahead of their challenger in the primary election since 2002. There have been 204 “open” primary runoff elections for state, legislative and federal offices since 2002, and the candidate who finished...
Mar 16, 2022 | Campaign News
About one out of every eight absentee ballots cast in the March 1 primary election was rejected, according to a report by the Associated Press’s Paul J. Weber and Acacia Coronado. Nearly 23K absentee ballots were rejected, almost all of them because they did not meet...
Mar 10, 2022 | Campaign News
Speaker Dade Phelan (R-Beaumont) released interim charges for House committees. He tasked the Committee on Elections with four charges, none of which explicitly included the unusually high rejection rate of absentee ballots and applications for absentee ballots after...
Mar 3, 2022 | Campaign Finance
We have analyzed historical campaign finance data and election results since 2006 to see how open-seat candidates fared in significant primary races based on their relative fundraising ranks. Unsurprisingly, we found a strong correlation between fundraising rank and...
Mar 2, 2022 | Political Climate
Note: We will not have percentages for some races, including all statewide races, because of delays in counting Harris Co.’s votes (and some others including Dallas and Tarrant Cos.). Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D) cruised to their...