Sep 13, 2020 | House Race Analyses
We conclude our analysis of potentially competitive Texas House districts with a discussion of South and West Texas. To skip to the punchline, we do not expect any of the seats discussed here to flip. What’s more interesting here is the potential long-term shifts in...
Dec 9, 2019 | Campaign News
Today (Monday) was the filing deadline for most candidates seeking partisan office in 2020. At least 53 were “new” candidates for federal, state or legislative office in the sense that we were not tracking them, had not reported on them this cycle and did not have...
Nov 13, 2019 | Campaign News
Filing for the 2020 election is underway. Our Crib Sheets have up-to-date filing status of the candidates we are tracking. At least 160 candidates have already filed. Motor Voter: The Fifth Court of Appeals overturned an April 2018 lower court ruling requiring the...
Jul 16, 2019 | Campaign News
Our analysis of July semiannual campaign finance reports can be found here. Our Crib Sheets have been fully updated with the latest results. HD10 open: Texans for Lawsuit Reform PAC endorsed Jake Ellzey (R). HD37: Cameron Co. Democratic Party chair Amber...
Jul 7, 2019 | Campaign News
In a reversal, the Trump Administration is once again pursuing the inclusion of a citizenship question on the Census form sent to all households, even as printing of those forms without the question continues. A new team of attorneys from the U.S. Justice Department...
Nov 28, 2017 | Campaign News
Filing for a place on the 2018 continues until 6 p.m. local time on December 11. Please see our Crib Sheets for candidates’ filing status. SD30: Nocona church restorer Craig Carter established a campaign committee for a potential challenge of Sen. Craig Estes...
Nov 3, 2017 | Campaign News
Early voting in person concluded today. Turnout in the state’s 15 most populous counties creeped past 2% by the end of yesterday. Through the first 11 days of early voting, less than 200K people voted in those counties out of 9.8M registered voters. This is less than...
Oct 11, 2017 | Campaign News
HD6: Former Rep. Ted Kamel (R-Tyler) has re-established his campaign committee, which has not been active since 1998, for a potential challenge of Rep. Matt Schaefer (R-Tyler). Kamel served four terms before losing the 1998 Republican primary to Leo Berman (R-Tyler),...
Sep 13, 2017 | Campaign News
HD4: Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Terrell) confirmed he would seek re-election. Gooden has two announced primary challengers: Forney pastor Marty Reid and former Rep. Stuart Spitzer (R-Kaufman), who has faced Gooden in every Republican primary for the seat since 2012. Gooden...
Aug 25, 2017 | Campaign News
GOV: Plano entrepreneur and music executive Byron Bradford established a campaign committee for a potential challenge of Gov. Greg Abbott (R) as an independent. SD8: The Phillip Huffines campaign announced the endorsement of 39 Republican precinct chairs. Meanwhile,...
Jun 29, 2017 | Campaign News
AG: District Judge Robert Johnson did not a set a date for Attorney General Ken Paxton’s criminal securities fraud trial during a preliminary hearing today in Houston. Prosecutors asked Johnson to put the case on hold until a decision is made in a separate lawsuit...
Feb 23, 2016 | Campaign Finance
State and legislative candidates were required to file 8-day-out campaign finance reports yesterday. The full reports are not yet available online, but we’re able to report summary totals for most candidates this morning. In this post, we summarize some of the hottest...