As Nat-Wu noted in the previous post, the big news from last night’s Texas primaries is that Bill White and Gov. Rick Perry won their respectives races for their party’s gubernatorial nomination. White easily defeated all the other Democratic candidates with 76% of the vote. Gov. Perry also managed to get 51% of the vote, defeating Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and Debra Medina outright. While it would have been ideal for him to have been forced into a runoff while our candidate began his general election campaign, the outcome isn’t that surprising. Go Bill White!

Runoffs were also avoided in the other contested statewide races. Linda Chavez-Thompson won the nomination for Lt. Governor on the Democratic side. Hank Gilbert defeated Kinky Friedman in the Ag. Commissioner’s race and Hector Uribe will be the Dem’s Land Commissioner candidate. All of our endorsed candidates won except for Ronnie Earle in the Lt. Governor race.

On the Republican side, the crazy wing of the party didn’t do as well as you might have thought they would. Tea Party challengers to Republican incumbents were mostly defeated across the state, doing better in state legislative races than Congressional ones. Thomas Ratliff, a more moderate Republican, managed to beat State Board of Education member and prominent social conservative Don McLeroy – a victory for those of us who still want science to be taught to our kids. State Rep. Todd Smith, whom conservatives blame for letting the Voter ID bill die, easily defeated his challenger Jeff Cason.

Statewide Democratic Results

Statewide Republican Results