One special election begets another.
Rep. Lois Kolkhorst
State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst won a promotion to the Texas Senate on Saturday, leveraging her 14-year incumbency and high-profile endorsements to fend off a fellow Republican opponent who spent nearly $2 million of his own money portraying Kolkhorst as soft on the border.
Kolkhorst eclipsed the 50 percent mark needed to avoid a runoff with Fort Bend businessman Gary Gates in Senate District 18, which stretches from Katy and Rosenberg to near Corpus Christi and Austin. Kolkhorst won 55 percent of the vote, 20 percentage points higher than Gates earned.
“We have an opportunity to have the most conservative session in recent history, responding to the demand of the voters of Texas,” Kolkhorst said. “I’m truly humbled by the results.”
Though the three-week sprint only officially began when Glenn Hegar announced his intention to resign after winning statewide office last month, the leading candidates have treated the seat as vacant since Hegar won the GOP primary for comptroller in the spring. Hegar officially resigned Friday.
Kolkhorst and Gates have spent that time looking to outflank one another on perhaps the most resonant issue in this largely rural district along U.S. 59: border security. Gates has hammered the seven-term state representative for a vote granting in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants a decade ago, which Kolkhorst now says she regrets.
Strictly speaking, of course, this applied to people who were brought to this country as children. Because we once thought it was a good idea to encourage college-ready students to go to college. Now Republicans want to deport such children, which is as compassionate as it is sensible. I don’t even know what to say any more.
Kolkhorst’s elevation creates yet another vacancy in Austin: A special election will now be held for her old seat, House District 13. Just as Kolkhorst ran for Hegar’s seat, candidates are already running for hers.
There are currently vacancies in HDs 13 and 17, with one to come in HD123 and later on in SD26; the special election in SD26 will likely create another vacancy in either HD116 or HD124. And you thought the 2014 election season was over.
Full election results are here. Turnout was 39,200 votes, or maybe less than percent overall. The dollars per vote total was pretty high in this race. The Trib has more.