The most interesting run-off for the Democrats is in the race for Agriculture Commissioner, where the two candidates who will face off in a run-off election finished in pretty much a dead heat on election night. Entertainer and political maverick Kinky Friedman got 38% of the vote, while virtual unknown Jim Hogan got 39% of the vote. This race could still go either way, depending on whose supporters show up at the polls. I give Hogan a slight edge, since run-off elections are participated in mostly by party regulars (and many of them are upset that Kinky tends to think for himself instead of toeing the party line) -- but I hope I'm wrong.
The other run-off for Democrats is in the U.S. Senate race. This will be between rich "blue dog" David Alameel (who got 47% on election night) and nutty LaRouche-supporter Kesha Rogers (who wound up with 22%). I expect Alameel will easily win the run-off, but will do nothing to bring voters to the Democratic ticket in November.
I won't comment on the Republican run-offs, except to say that there is very little difference between the candidates. Whoever wins will be a far-right-winger, because that is the state of that party right now in Texas. I saw an interesting article in the New York Times yesterday that said establishment Republicans had beaten back teabagger challengers in Texas. While I respect the New York Times, this just shows they don't really understand the political landscape in Texas.
There are no "establishment" Republicans in Texas holding elective office. The teabaggers have won in Texas, and have a stranglehold on the party -- with all GOP elected officials following the teabagger lead. Just because a few insane teabaggers ran against some far-right teabaggers in the primary doesn't change this fact (and doesn't mean any of the current office-holders are "moderate" or "establishment").
I don't know yet what effect the new (and unnecessary) Voter ID law had statewide, but in my own heavily Republican precinct it worked against the GOP. I worked the polls, and we only had two people show up without a picture ID. Both were Republicans. They were allowed to cast a "provisional" -- which will probably not be counted since they only have six days to show picture ID to the county elections administrator.
And finally, election day showed I may actually live in the reddest precinct in the country. My precinct had a combined election with the Republicans (to save money). Each voter, after being verified, was asked to choose which primary (Republican or Democratic) they wished to vote in. Out of about 451 votes cast, only 38 were cast in the Democratic primary (about 8.4% of the total precinct votes).
I don't like having the Dems and the Reps combined because, especially in TX, there is bound to be heavy peer-pressure to claim you are voting in the Rep primary (unless you are claiming that so you can vote for the weakest GOP candidate to run against the Dem candidate...naw, we wouldn't do that, would we). I have had to declare my preference in front of the election officials in a VERY red precinct and although I declared Democrat, I know several of my left leaning neighbors went with the peer pressure group.
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