So as we know, there is a special election set for HD13 on May 5.
Cecil Webster
Governor Greg Abbott has ordered a special election for May 5, 2018, to fill the State Representative District 13 seat vacated by Leighton Schubert. District 13 includes the counties of Austin, Burleson, Colorado, Fayette, Grimes, Lavaca and Washington.
Schubert had submitted his notice of candidacy to run a third term, but withdrew three days before the filing deadline, citing a desire to be with his family and step back from politics.
“My family has made tremendous sacrifices to allow me to serve in this position and it is time for me to focus more on that role,” Schubert said.
[…]
Early voting for the May 5 election will begin Monday, April 23.
Five Republican candidates have filed for the March 6 primary, Daniel McCarthy, David Stall, Ben Leman, Jill Wolfskill and Marc Young. The winner of the Republican Primary election will face Democrat candidate, Cecil Ray Webster Sr. in the November election.
That story is from February 23. It was the only article I found directly related to the forthcoming special election in a Google news search. There’s plenty of coverage from the primaries, but it’s safe to say this special election is not on anyone’s radar at this time.
As noted in my earlier post, the three candidates who are in the special election are Webster, Leman, and Wolfskill, with the latter two being in the runoff for the Republican nomination. The winner gets a boost in seniority over the rest of the class of 2018, assuming he or she goes on to win in November.
Now as I’ve said before, this is basically a dead red district, one that voted 76.8% to 20.4% for Donald Trump. It’s also one with a recent special election history, in which Webster received 12.93% of the vote and finished third out of four, back in January of 2015.
But that was then and this is now. We’ve just come off a year in which Democratic candidates have been greatly outperforming their 2016 baselines, with many of them winning races for state legislative offices. We’ve also just witnessed a special Congressional election in which a Democrat won a mostly-rural district that Trump had carried by twenty points. It wouldn’t take that much for Webster to outperform his 21.37% tally in 2016; if he can get to 33%, he can assure himself a spot in the runoff, assuming neither Leman nor Wolfskill can top 50%. Webster by himself got more votes in 2016 (14,965) than were cast for all four candidates in that 2015 special election (9,939). He got 3,883 votes in the 2016 primary, which would have been enough to advance in that 2015 special election. It’s well within the realm of the possible that Webster can finish in the top two this May.
And while the stakes of this election are low, surely that’s worth aiming for. I don’t know about you, but I’m beyond tired of the “there was no blue wave in Texas” hot takes. Well, the best way to change that narrative is for a Democrat to overperform in a little legislative special election, especially in a rural district.
So I ask: What effort is there to support Cecil Webster in this election? Are any of the various grassroots organizations – Indivisible, Swing Left, Pantsuit Nation, Our Revolution, etc etc etc – going to make a push for him? How about the establishment groups, like the HDCC? This should be a fairly low-cost effort, and win or lose it can have the effect of giving a better measurement of Democratic engagement in 2018. But first we have to try. Who’s in?
I am willing to write Postcards on his behalf. I can donate.
I just donated. Please put me to work writing postcards.