Rubber match in HD115.
Bennett Ratliff
Bennett Ratliff will run for the Dallas-area House seat he lost to state Rep. Matt Rinaldi by just 92 votes in the 2014 GOP primary, the Coppell Republican announced Monday.
“What the district has noticed is that there is a huge contrast between our records,” Ratliff, a civil engineer and longtime school board member, said in an interview. “People have noticed that their voices in Austin are silenced.”
Ratliff won a 2012 race for the district only to be ousted narrowly in 2014 by Rinaldi, a Tea Party-backed Dallas lawyer who challenged the incumbent’s conservative credentials. This will be the third primary matchup between Ratliff and Rinaldi, who also campaigned for the seat in 2012 but failed to make it to a runoff.
Bennett Ratliff announces his comeback attempt a few days after his brother Thomas announced his departure from the SBOE. There’s a certain synchronicity to that. It would be nice to boot Rinaldi, one of the ten worst legislators on LGBT issues. The primary is the better chance for that, though November is a possibility as well. Here are the numbers for the district:
Year Romney Obama Romney% Obama%
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2012 29,861 23,353 55.3% 43.2%
Year Abbott Davis Abbott% Davis%
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2014 17,602 12,511 57.5% 40.9%
I’d call that a step below “swing”, but far from hopeless. One could argue that Dems might have a better shot against the wingnuttier Rinaldi, as Republicans who aren’t rabidly anti-gay might be unwilling to vote for him. Rinaldi won 57.1 to 39.5 in 2014, so there’s no evidence for that from his first election, though perhaps he’s more notorious now. Be all that as it may, this is a seat that could be competitive under the right set of circumstances, or perhaps if the long-term decline of Republican voters in Dallas County speeds up a bit.
In the meantime, another Republican legislator will step down, this one from Harris County.
Rep. Patricia Harless
State Rep. Patricia Harless, R-Spring, announced Monday that she won’t seek reelection next year.
[…]
Harless said she has become frustrated with infighting among Republicans in the Legislature and hopes to stay involved in GOP politics and campaigns after her term ends at the end of 2016. “I’m just really disappointed in the way the Republicans act in the Texas House,” she said. “People need to know that consensus and moderation and working across the aisle is not a bad thing.
“Some Republicans cater to the four or five percent who vote in the Republican primaries,” she said. “That’s not who we represent; we represent everybody in our districts.”
Harless is one of House Speaker Joe Straus’ stalwarts and serves on three powerful House committees: Calendars, State Affairs and Transportation. She said she thought about leaving after her fourth term: “I stayed last time for Straus. I’m leaving this time for me.”
Barring something crazy, this one will be decided in the Republican primary; Mitt Romney won HD126 by a 62.1-36.7 margin in 2012. Harless was from the get-stuff-done faction of the GOP, so you know how that will play out. Dems should definitely put up and support a candidate out there, if only to help the countywide GOTV effort, but some perspective will be needed. Best wishes to Rep. Harless in the next phase of her life.