It’s on Saturday, to be specific.
Blake Farenthold
Voters in the 27th Congressional District are preparing to go to the polls for a third time this year on Saturday for a sleepy special election in which both parties are working to rally their fatigued troops behind a single candidate in the nine-person field to replace former U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Corpus Christi.
Farenthold abruptly resigned in April amid the fallout from sexual harassment allegations and an ethics investigation by the House Ethics Committee. He had announced four months earlier that he wouldn’t run for re-election, creating an open race to succeed him.
Saturday’s election is to determine who completes Farenthold’s current term, which ends in January, and it’s separate from the November election, the winner of which will take over the seat for a full two-year term after that.
Despite nine candidates on the ballot, Republicans are hoping their general election nominee, Michael Cloud, can win outright Saturday and avoid a runoff that would keep the seat empty for at least two more months and leave the counties with the bill for yet another election this year. Democrats, meanwhile, believe the crowded race provides an opening for their consensus candidate — Eric Holguin, also his party’s pick for the fall — to advance to a second round.
Even if Holguin makes the runoff, few are predicting the solidly red district could flip. Still, Democrats view it as an opportunity to at least build some momentum in the run-up to the November elections, and Republicans acknowledge there is an inescapable element of uncertainty in the low-turnout environment.
“I think the odds are highly favorable of [Cloud] winning the special election at least in a runoff, but the turnout’s so low, anything can happen,” said Michael Bergsma, the Republican Party chairman in Nueces County.
See here for the background. There’s more to the story, but that’s the main idea. With nine candidates it should be difficult to win a clean majority, especially since one of the lower-tier Republicans is actually spending money for the right to be a slightly longer-tenured Shelley Sekula Gibba, but it’s at least possible. Dems would love to get Eric Holguin into a runoff, and of course we’ll all be watching to see what the relative levels of turnout look like. Dems have generally overperformed by about thirteen points on average in special elections over the past year and a half, though there’s a wide range of outcomes. I’ll have the result from this one on Sunday.
And on a side note:
Texas officials are fuming over the tab for the upcoming special election to replace former Republican Rep. Blake Farenthold.
The cost of the June 30 election to replace Farenthold, who resigned in April amid reports he had used $84,000 in taxpayer money to settle a sexual harassment lawsuit, is expected to be at least $157,000 — and many of the 13 largely rural counties holding the election say they can’t afford their share of the bill.
Worse, they argue, the special election is a pointless and needlessly costly exercise since the contest is likely to go to a September runoff — meaning the eventual winner will likely serve in Washington for less than 90 days.
“We’re all not happy,” said Wharton County Elections Administrator Cynthia Richter. “It is what it is, it’s just crazy.”
After announcing the special election date, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott wrote the millionaire former congressman to request that Farenthold pay for the special election costs himself. Farenthold had originally said he would pay back the $84,000 he used to settle the harassment claim; the governor asked that he apply that money to the local counties to cover the costs of the special election.
Farenthold’s response? No.
“In my opinion, as well as many other county officials I have heard from, a special election was not warranted and should not have been called,” wrote Farenthold in a letter addressed to Abbott. “However, that was your decision based upon the advice you were given. Since I didn’t call it and don’t think it’s necessary, I shouldn’t be asked to pay for it.”
[…]
County officials say expenses associated with a special election are forcing them to reach into their contingency funds — accounts set up to cover government emergencies — or significantly downsize their operations.
“We have done everything we can to introduce cost-saving methods,” said Bastrop County Elections Administrator Bridgette Escobedo, whose county is expected to shell out $12,000 in special election expenses. “We’ve consolidated locations, reduced election workers; we’re running minimum crews for no overtime; we’re all paper and ordered minimum ballots.”
The counties aren’t alone in their frustration. The governor points his finger directly at Farenthold.
We’ve seen this before. I sympathize with the counties, who have no control over this stuff, but I supported the decision to have this election now rather than in November, and I stand by that. That said, the Governor has some discretionary funds at his disposal, in which $157K would make only a tiny dent, so it seems to me he could help these counties cover the cost of the choice he made if he wanted to. (I could be wrong about this, in the sense that I don’t know how “discretionary” these funds are. He may not be allowed to tap into them for this purpose.) He could also support an item in the next budget to make the state shoulder the cost of special elections like this. Sending an invoice to Farenthold makes for a good show. Doing something effective makes for good government. I’m just saying.