The Dem runoff for AG is not fully settled

First place in the Democratic primary for Attorney General went to Rochelle Garza. Second place is still somewhat of a question.

Rochelle Garza

Two days after election day in the March primary, the Democratic race for attorney general is still not settled.

By Tuesday night, it was clear that Rochelle Garza, a former American Civil Liberties Union lawyer from Brownsville, was the clear front-runner in the race, but she did not garner enough support to avoid a May runoff. Joe Jaworski, an attorney and former Galveston mayor, was in a tight battle with civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt for second place, with Jaworski in the lead but only a few thousand votes separating the two.

Early Wednesday morning, Garza celebrated her showing, thanking voters for their support. She did not mention the runoff and instead turned her sights to Republican incumbent Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is headed into his own runoff against Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

“I got in this race to fight for Texas families, protect voting & reproductive rights and hold corporations and bad actors to account when they take advantage of Texans,” Garza said in a statement. “Indicted Ken Paxton is the most corrupt Attorney General in the country and our campaign is ready to defeat him this November.”

Merritt said Wednesday afternoon that the “race is not over” and was waiting for all the votes to be counted. He said the delayed results showed “flaws in our election system” that led to mistrust, confusion and people being discouraged from voting.

“Our campaign is eagerly watching and waiting along with the rest of the state and the country to see the results of this election,” he said in a statement.

By Thursday, the secretary of state’s website said all polling locations in the state had reported. But some mail-in ballots and provisional ballots can still be tabulated. Jaworski still held a slim lead over Merritt.

On Thursday, Jaworski tweeted cheerily that he was still in second place and was “exhibiting Olympian patience” in waiting for final results.

“Let’s get another cup of coffee while we wait,” he said. “Onward!”

Meanwhile, Mike Fields, who placed a distant fourth, congratulated Garza and said she was “the preferred choice of the majority of Democratic primary voters,” garnering more than twice the votes of her nearest competitor. He then asked Jaworski and Merritt to forgo a runoff and allow Garza to focus her attention on winning the general election in November.

First, Garza received 432,212 votes out of just over one million cast. Jaworski is second with 196,463, while Merritt has 195,045. That’s a difference of 1,418 votes, and 0.14 percentage points. It’s a small margin, but I think it’s highly unlikely that any combination of provisional ballots, overseas ballots, and mail ballots that can still be corrected for incorrect voter ID information could put Merritt ahead. There may not be enough votes left in play for it to be mathematically possible, and even if there is he’d have to win such an overwhelming number of them that it’s virtually impossible. This is why so few elections are truly in doubt once the Election Day votes are counted. There just isn’t enough slack for the difference to be made up.

As for Fields’ suggestion that Jaworski and Merritt drop out so Garza can begin her general election campaign, there is an argument for that. She needs to raise a bunch of money, and it would be better to have most of it for November. Of course, money spent on organizing and voter outreach now, for the runoff, is still a good investment. One could also argue that she’ll get more attention over the next two months as the frontrunner in the runoff than she would as the nominee, especially with Paxton himself in a runoff. I’m agnostic on the question, but it doesn’t really matter since neither Jaworski nor Merritt seems inclined to take that advice.

But as noted, one can make a reasonable case for Garza’s path to be cleared. This is much more of a stretch.

State Rep. Michelle Beckley forced a runoff in the Democratic race for lieutenant governor — and now she’s calling on her opponent, Houston accountant Mike Collier, to end his campaign.

“He doesn’t inspire the base,” Beckley, of Carrollton, said in an interview Thursday. “He should drop out.”

Collier was the 2018 Democratic nominee for the post and came within 5 points of unseating Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick that year. He earned about 42 percent of the vote in Tuesday night’s election, followed by Beckley at 30 percent.

A third candidate, Houston educator Carla Brailey, came in just behind at 28 percent, according to unofficial results. Patrick, who is seeking his third term in Texas’ No. 2 spot, sailed to victory in the Republican primary.

Collier says he has no intention of dropping out, and the two will face off in a May runoff election.

“Our campaign is building a diverse coalition around the issues that matter to Texans — protecting our individual rights, fully funding our public education system, fixing the damn grid, expanding Medicaid — and working together to defeat Dan Patrick,” Collier said.

[…]

Collier has two statewide elections under his belt: the lieutenant governor’s race four years ago and a bid for state comptroller before that. His campaign has a massive funding advantage, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars in the lead-up to the primary.

As of Feb. 22, his campaign had about $120,000 on hand to Beckley’s $9,000. Collier has raised nearly $2 million since announcing his run last year, though his campaign is bogged down by about $450,000 in outstanding loans — a holdover from the 2018 race that he’d given to himself.

For Collier, the lead-up to the May runoff will focus on digital campaigns and travel across the state, starting with a visit to North Texas on Monday. His campaign also announced a number of new endorsements on Thursday, including three members of Congress — Reps. Veronica Escobar, Lizzie Fletcher and Lloyd Doggett — and a slate of Houston-area politicians who had previously endorsed Brailey.

Seems a bit presumptuous to me. Collier is reasonably well known among Dems, he did quite respectably well in 2018, he’s done decently in fundraising, and well, he got the most votes this past Tuesday. Maybe he’s not “inspiring”, whatever that may mean, but if so I’d say it’s on Beckley to demonstrate that she’s more so than he is. That’s what the runoff is for.

Related Posts:

• Republican incumbents are probably going to win their primaries
• A roundup of runoffs
• DMN/UT-Tyler: Abbott 45, Beto 38