Texas Primary Showdown: Incumbents Survive Challenges

There were some competitive congressional races in yesterday's Texas primary.

Texas 28th
First there was the rematch in the Texas 28th between Democratic Rep. Henry Cuellar and former Democratic Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. The much more progressive Mr. Rodriguez wanted to take back the seat that he had lost to Mr. Cuellar in 2004 by a mere 58 votes. This time the margin was much wider as Rep. Cuellar received 53% of the vote to 41% for Mr. Rodriguez. I know progressives across the nation were pulling for Mr. Rodriguez to win but I guess it wasn't meant to be. The Texas 28th is located in southern Texas. Both candidates actually had bases of support in the district, Rep. Cuellar's being Laredo in Webb County and Mr. Rodriguez having San Antonio in Bexar County behind him. So it was truly a battle of who could bring out their base to vote and while Mr. Rodriguez came out strong with 74% in Bexar County, Rep. Cuellar pulled in 85% of the vote in Webb County. In fact, Mr. Rodriguez had lower numbers in each county in comparison to their 2004 battle. The presence of a third candidate, Victor Morales, explains much of why this happened because it looks like the 6% he received took away votes from Mr. Rodriguez. Rep. Cuellar is a moderate conservative Democrat and since he will be staying in office I hope he doesn't pull of a Phil Gramm and switch to the Republican Party.

Texas 22nd
The other major congressional race was Rep. Tom DeLay's survival against three Republican challengers in the Texas 22nd. Rep. DeLay has been greatly plagued by scandals, as it's one of the main reasons why he's no longer House Majority Leader. The fact that he only got 62% shows signs of weakness. Usually incumbents survive primary challenges with percentages ranging from 70% and higher. His lowest percentages came from Fort Bend so that's something his Democratic opponent could take advantage of in the general election. His Democratic opponent will be former Rep. Nick Lampson. I'm sure Mr. Lampson would like to win this race badly considering that Rep. DeLay helped to engineer the redistricting plan that ousted him and three other Democrats from office in 2004. Mr. Lampson is raising plenty of funds so it looks like "The Hammer", the nickname of Rep. Tom DeLay, might get hammered by Nick Lampson in the fall.

Governor
In another bit of news the Democratic nomination for governor was won by former Rep. Chris Bell. He will have an uphill battle though against the incumbent Republican governor, Rick Perry.