Tag Archives: Texas runoff election

political news

Here’s your dismal voter turnout

You want ridiculous voter turnouts? I’ve got it for you right here.

Potter County Republicans today had to decide three key judgeships in runoff contests. The runoff election attracted a “whopping” 6.8 percent of registered voters. Pam Sirmon was elected to the 320th State District Court bench, while Walt Weaver and Matt Hand were elected to the county’s two Court at Law benches.

Important? Yes! But not so much that it would attract more than a tiny sliver of the GOP voters who cast ballots this past March in the party primary.

Hey, it gets worse!

In neighboring Randall County, a grand total of 1 percent of the voters took part in the runoff election. Why only 1 percent? Well, there were no local runoffs.

But, hey, the county’s few Democrats got to vote for their party’s nominee for governor. Randall County Democrats “poured” out, with just 474 ballots cast. I addressed this issue already in an earlier blog post. I didn’t vote in the Randall County runoff because the one GOP race that interested me — the Texas Senate District 31 contest — was decided in the primary. I couldn’t vote in the Democratic runoff for governor because I didn’t vote in the Democratic primary in March.

So I understand why the turnout in Randall County was so pitiful.

Still, with just 474 votes cast in the entire county that has more than 85,000 registered voters, I am left to ask: Is this the best we can do?

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Texas right wing at war with itself

If you think the conservative wing of the Texas Republican Party — which is pretty conservative from top to bottom as it is — is locking arms in a unified battle … think again.

Some mail I received yesterday and today suggests a serious civil war within the party. Now I will explain.

Four campaign fliers have come to our house in the past two days. They involve Ryan Sitton and Wayne Christian, two men running for the GOP nomination for Texas railroad commissioner.

Sitton and Christian both proclaim themselves to be proud conservatives, one of whom will be nominated next Tuesday when the statewide runoff election occurs.

They both feature themselves standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the current conservative pooh bah of Texas political officeholders, Sen. Ted Cruz. Sitton’s material implies a Cruz endorsement. But wait. Christian’s card today implied more or less the same thing. “Wayne Christian stood with Ted Cruz when others would not,” Christian’s campaign card declares right over a picture with Christian and Cruz standing closely together while grinning for the camera.

Another flier today came from the Young Conservatives of Texas, which listed its preferred candidates for the May 27 GOP runoff. Who’s name is listed under railroad commissioner? Wayne Christian.

OK, that settles it. Right? Wrong.

Another flier also arrived today from … Conservative Republicans of Texas.

That group, based out of Houston, says Christian is “wrong on energy and wrong for Texas.” The flier also notes that Christian is “under fire for pushing green energy mandates and Solyndra-like subsidies.” The text on the flier says that “Christian’s mandate effort received support from liberal tree huggers.”

Green energy mandates? Oh … my … goodness. We can’t have that. We simply cannot have a railroad commissioner advocating for environmentally friendly energy sources to, um, protect the planet.

Whatever.

Christian still is buddies with Ted Cruz. So is Sitton.

Both of these candidates proclaim themselves ready to out-conservative the other guy.

Hurry up and get here, Runoff Election Day. I’m ready for some real knock-downs between actual conservatives and actual liberals.