Lawrence Person's BattleSwarm Blog 11/12/2022
National results were a deep disappointment to Republicans expecting a red wave. What about the results in Texas? Better:
• Republicans retained all statewide races.
• Incumbent governor Greg Abbott walloped Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke by about a point less than he walloped Lupe Valdez in 2018, the year O’Rourke got within three points of Ted Cruz in the Texas senate race. 2018’s Betomania seems to have slightly raised the floor for Democrats in various down-ballot races, but not enough for them to be competitive statewide. This is O’Rourke’s third high-profile flameout in five years, and one wonders whether out-of-state contributors are getting wise to the game.
• Vote totals seem down a bit from 2018, with the governor’s race drawing about 266,000 fewer voters.
• Incumbent Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick increased the margin by which he beat Mike Collier (also his opponent in 2018) from about five points to about ten points.
• For all the talk of Ken Paxton being the most vulnerable statewide incumbent, he also won his race over Rochelle Garza by about 10 points, as opposed to a three and half point victory over Justin Nelson (a man so obscure he has no Wikipedia entry) in 2018. (Thought experiment: Could Beto have beaten Paxton this year? My gut says his money would have made it a lot closer than his race with Abbott, but I think he still would have lost by about the same margin he lost to Ted Cruz in 2018. But his lack of a law degree would have worked against him, and I doubt his ego would ever consider running in a down-ballot race like AG…)
• In the Comptroller, Land Commissioner and Agriculture Commissioner races, Republicans were up a bit around 56%, and Democrats were down a bit more. (And Dawn Buckingham replacing George P. Bush should be a big improvement.)
• Railroad Commissioner Wayne Christian had the biggest spread between him and Democratic opponent Luke Warford, 15 points (55% to 40%).
• Three Republican statewide judicial race winners (Rebeca Huddle in Supreme Court Place 5, Scott Walker in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5, and Jesse F. McClure in Court of Criminal Appeals Place 6) were the only statewide candidates to garner 4.5 million or more votes (possibly due to the absence of Libertarian candidates).
• Of three closely watched Texas majority Hispanic house seats, only Monica De La Cruz in TX15 won, while Myra Flores (TX34) and Cassy Garcia (TX28) lost.
• Though Republicans came up short in those two U.S. congressional seats, statewide they “narrowly expanded their legislative majorities in both the House and Senate.”
Much more:
https://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=53253
