Pretty common for this kind of special election.
Rep. Ron Wright
The race to replace the late U.S. Rep. Ron Wright, R-Arlington, has already attracted a crowd of candidates — and more are expected in the coming days.
Even before Gov. Greg Abbott announced Tuesday that the special election would be May 1, Democrats and Republicans were lining up for the seat, and as of Wednesday, at least 10 contenders had entered the contest. They range from the obscure to well-known, most notably including Wright’s widow, Susan Wright, who made her bid official Wednesday morning.
The filing deadline is a week away — 5 p.m. March 3.
The district has been trending Democratic in statewide results, though Ron Wright won his races comfortably, and national Democrats are now faced with the decision of how hard to push to flip the district in the special election. Last year, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee targeted 10 GOP-held districts in Texas — including Ron Wright’s — and captured none of them.
Still, some Democrats see opportunity.
The district “fundamentally changed as the Republican Party has changed,” said one of the Democrats running, Jana Lynne Sanchez, the 2018 nominee for the seat.
For Republicans, the race could turn into a referendum on the direction of their party after the presidency of Donald Trump, who has connections to at least two potential contenders. So far, though, much of the discussion on the GOP side of the contest has centered on the candidacy of Susan Wright, who starts off as the most formidable-looking candidate and was already collecting endorsements Wednesday.
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On the Democratic side, the first to declare was Sanchez, who faced Ron Wright for the congressional seat when it was open three years ago and lost by 8 points. When Sanchez announced her special election campaign on Feb. 16, she said she had already collected $100,000 for the race.
“I am the only candidate who will be able to raise the money that’s necessary,” she said in an interview.
Sanchez was followed by fellow Democrats Shawn Lassiter, an eduction nonprofit leader in Fort Worth, and then Lydia Bean, the Democratic nominee last year against state Rep. Matt Krause, R-Fort Worth. Lassiter, who was previously running for the Fort Worth City Council, released a launch video Wednesday morning in which she speaks directly to the camera, inside a powerless home, about the leadership failures that led to the Texas winter weather crisis last week.
A fourth Democratic candidate, Matthew Hinterlong of Dallas, filed FEC papers for the seat later Wednesday.
See here for the background. The Republican side includes Susan Wright, Jake Ellzey, Sery Kim, and the two guys you’ve never heard of, Mike Egan and John Anthony Castro. Multiple others may join in, such as Katrina Pierson, Brian Harrison, Arlington Mayor Jeff Williams, and Manny Ramirez, president of the Fort Worth Police Officers Association. Having that many Republicans in the race eases my fear somewhat about multiple Dems splitting the vote too finely for any of them to make it to a runoff, but it does not alleviate it altogether. As to whether the DCCC or other national groups get involved, I’d be hard pressed to imagine them sitting it out in a D-versus-R runoff, but they may very well keep their powder dry until then. We’ll see how big this field gets.
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