Nov 9, 2021 | Campaign News
U.S. Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Tyler) announced he had formed an exploratory committee for a primary challenge of Atty. Gen. Ken Paxton (R). Gohmert said he needed to raise $1M in the next 10 days to enter the race for AG (Lean R). To put that in perspective, he has...
Sep 30, 2021 | Campaign News
The draft map redrawing House districts was introduced today and scheduled for a public hearing on Monday. House Bill 1 by Rep. Todd Hunter (R-Corpus Christi) is the first step in the legislative process and is less likely to be a final product than the other...
Nov 8, 2020 | General Elections, House Race Analyses
This is the first in a series of periodic analyses of the 2020 general election. The signs pointed to further Democratic gains in the Texas House of Representatives. Entering Election Day, there were 83 Republican-held seats and 67 Democrat-held seats. Two years...
Nov 1, 2020 | House Race Analyses, Political Climate
Yesterday (Saturday), we posed two fundamental questions that will be answered Tuesday, or shortly thereafter. We gave our best guess on the first question, whether Joe Biden will become the first Democratic presidential nominee to carry Texas since 1976 (No, but...
Oct 27, 2020 | breaking-news, Campaign Finance
The battle for the Texas House got expensive. Candidates in competitive seats collectively raised $39.3M during the past month, much of through in-kind contributions from a handful of sources. Republicans, bolstered by huge spending by Texans for Lawsuit Reform...
Oct 18, 2020 | Political Climate
Our latest model run moves the presidential race in Texas to Toss Up and projects a narrow Democratic majority in the Texas House when the Legislature convenes in January. Another four Republican-held House seats are within 2 percentage points of potentially adding to...
Oct 13, 2020 | Campaign News
Early voting has begun across Texas for the November 3 general election and continues through October 30. By most accounts, turnout is off to a torrid start. The Harris Co. Clerk’s office tweeted that 128K people voted in person today, plus 41K absentee ballots...
Oct 11, 2020 | Political Climate
With three weeks to go before the general election, the state of play up and down the ballot remains remarkably stable across Texas. However, as races remain close, that stability could mask a lot of volatility within polls’ margins of errors and assumptions about who...
Oct 6, 2020 | Campaign Finance
Statewide and legislative candidates facing general election opposition reported raising nearly $27M since July 1. Democrats accounted for $12.4M of that figure, and Republican candidates raised $14.6M. Sixteen challengers out-raised their incumbent opponents for the...
Sep 7, 2020 | House Race Analyses
We continue our analysis of potentially competitive Texas House districts with an exploration of Brazos, Brazoria and Fort Bend Counties (We admit we are stretching the definition of Southeastern Texas to include Brazos Co.). Brazos County HD14 (Lean Republican) sits...
Jul 15, 2020 | Campaign News, Runoff Elections
Voters filled most of the remaining spots on the general election ballot, but a handful of races remained too close to call. Four legislative incumbents out of six fell: Lorraine Birabil (D-Dallas) lost to Jasmine Crockett, 50.5%-49.5%, after the challenger won...
Jul 10, 2020 | Campaign News
Note: This report has been updated to correct an erroneous reference to 2014 turnout. Early voting in person ended today (Friday) for the July 14 primary runoff and special elections. Through yesterday (Thursday), 532K people have voted in the Democratic runoff...