Tag Archives: Governor

SCOTx lets Robert Roberson get another execution date

Posted on November 17, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

But thank God that separation of powers was preserved. The Texas Supreme Court on Friday ruled a House committee overstepped its authority when it effectively stalled Robert Roberson’s execution by issuing an eleventh-hour subpoena. The ruling clears the way for … Continue reading →

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Is this the year Tarrant County finally goes blue?

Posted on November 1, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Maybe. “Tarrant County is the 15th-largest county in the country, so it should get a lot of attention. And it’s the third-largest county in Texas, so it makes sense that there would be a lot of focus there,” said Mark … Continue reading →

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Ken Paxton also doesn’t care if we execute an innocent man

Posted on October 26, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

Shocking, I know, from such a moral paragon. A week after death row inmate Robert Roberson was set to die, the extraordinary quest to save his life has morphed into a deepening political battle between Texas House lawmakers and the … Continue reading →

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Greg Abbott cares more about his own power than about human life

Posted on October 22, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

What else can one say about this? Gov. Greg Abbott’s office condemned the actions of a bipartisan group of Texas legislators Monday, effectively breaking his silence in the pending execution of Robert Roberson. In an amicus brief filed by James … Continue reading →

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RIP, Kinky Friedman

Posted on June 28, 2024 by Charles Kuffner

I usually put obituaries in the Sunday linkdump, but I thought this one merited its own post. Richard “Kinky” Friedman — the provocative and flamboyant Texas satirist who mounted a spirited campaign for governor in 2006 — has died. He … Continue reading →

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SCOTx declines to revive oligarch nuisance lawsuit against Beto

Posted on December 18, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Good. The Texas Supreme Court said Friday it would not consider Republican megadonor Kelcy Warren’s defamation lawsuit against former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke after a state appeals court dismissed it earlier this year. The all-GOP court denied Warren’s petition … Continue reading →

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2023 election results: National

Posted on November 8, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Tuesday evening started with some good news. Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear will lead Kentucky for another four years after defeating his Republican opponent, state Attorney General Daniel Cameron, in Tuesday’s election. Beshear’s margin stood at 53-47 with approximately 80% of … Continue reading →

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“Stuck with H-GAC”?

Posted on October 21, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Sure seems a bit late in the game to be raising this possibility. This November, Houstonians will decide whether the city should stay in a regional planning body that does not offer it proportional voting power. But City Attorney Arturo … Continue reading →

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Federal judge rules for third parties in petition access lawsuit

Posted on July 3, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

We’ll see how much difference this makes. A federal judge in Austin has blocked Texas from enforcing a more than century-old state law that requires third-party candidates to collect petition signatures on paper to qualify for a place on the … Continue reading →

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Talarico Time

Posted on June 29, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

I have mixed feelings about this. The representative and aspiring preacher hadn’t planned to deliver a sermon when he went to work at the state capitol that morning. Sitting in a drab committee room last month, Texas Rep. James Talarico, … Continue reading →

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Oligarch nuisance lawsuit against Beto finally tossed

Posted on June 14, 2023 by Charles Kuffner

Sure took long enough. A state appeals court dismissed Republican megadonor Kelcy Warren’s defamation lawsuit against Beto O’Rourke, ruling Friday that statements by the 2022 Democratic nominee for governor were protected by the First Amendment. The Austin-based 3rd Court of … Continue reading →

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Precinct analysis: The better statewide races

Posted on December 30, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY Beto versus Abbott Beto versus the spread Hidalgo versus Mealer As noted before, Greg Abbott got 490K votes in Harris County, far less than the 559K he received in 2018 running against Lupe Valdez. Of the other six races … Continue reading →

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Precinct analysis: Hidalgo versus Mealer

Posted on December 29, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY Beto versus Abbott Beto versus the spread We’ve looked at the Governor’s race, in which Beto was the top Democratic performer. Now we’ll look at the next highest profile race, in which the result was a surprise to some … Continue reading →

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Precinct analysis: Beto versus the spread

Posted on December 19, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

PREVIOUSLY Beto versus Abbott So last time we saw the numbers for the 2022 Governor’s race. But what numbers need in order to be meaningful is context, and that means other numbers to compare them to. We’re going to do … Continue reading →

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Precinct analysis: Beto versus Abbott

Posted on December 14, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

All right, I have the full landscape data for Harris County and the November 2022 election, and I’ll be doing my usual thing with it. There’s a lot of data and a lot of ways to explore it, some of … Continue reading →

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State and county election result relationships: Tarrant County

Posted on December 12, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

In years past, Tarrant County was a pretty close bellwether for election results in the state of Texas. From 2004 through 2016, the closeness of their Presidential numbers with the statewide numbers was eerie. But since 2018 the talk has … Continue reading →

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Beto tries again to get ridiculous defamation lawsuit dismissed

Posted on December 8, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Hope he has better luck here. The gubernatorial election is over, but Kelcy Warren’s defamation lawsuit against Beto O’Rourke lives on. Warren, the Dallas pipeline tycoon, sued O’Rourke in February over accusations he made on the campaign trail that Warren … Continue reading →

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Precinct analysis: Specifically, my precincts

Posted on December 4, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

I’m still waiting for the full landscape canvass data from Harris County – things are a bit up in the air right now because of the lawsuit filed by the local GOP, but I expect to get that data soon, … Continue reading →

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Precinct analysis: Early voting versus Election Day

Posted on November 21, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

In his pre-election analyses of the early vote, Republican consultant Derek Ryan (whose numbers I have used in the past) suggested that there was still a significant number of regular Republican voters who had not voted yet, which could make … Continue reading →

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On comparing counties from 2018 to 2022

Posted on November 19, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

I started with this. Voters in counties across Texas chose GOP leaders over Democrats at a higher rate than they did four years ago, a Dallas Morning News analysis shows. The findings, based on data as of noon on Wednesday, … Continue reading →

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Christopher Busby: The Case for Texas Democratic Optimism

Posted on November 17, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

(Note: The following is a guest post that was submitted to me. I occasionally solicit guest posts, and also occasionally accept them from people I trust.) The election came and went with a similar story. Texas Democrats just started to … Continue reading →

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State and county election result relationships, part 4: What happened in 2022

Posted on November 15, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Now that the final totals are in, let’s go back and do the same exercise in comparing overall results for statewide candidates to the results they got in Harris County, and then from there … Continue reading →

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Some opening thoughts on the 2022 election

Posted on November 10, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Done in the traditional bullet-point style. There may or may not be a part 2 to this, depending on the usual factors. – Obviously the overall result was disappointing. It was harder to see a Beto victory this year from … Continue reading →

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Omnibus 2022 election results post

Posted on November 9, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

It’s already midnight as I start writing this. I’m just going to do the highlights with the best information I have at this time. – Nationally, Dems are doing pretty well, all things considered. As of this writing, Dems had … Continue reading →

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DMN\UT-Tyler: Abbott 50, Beto 44 (LV) – Abbott 47, Beto 44 (RV)

Posted on November 1, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Pick your preference. Republican Gov. Greg Abbott holds a 6 percentage point lead over Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke as the race to the Nov. 8 election grinds toward the finish line, a poll released Sunday by the University of Texas … Continue reading →

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Univision: Abbott 46, Beto 42

Posted on October 27, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Another registered voters poll, with a supersample of Latino respondents. Republican Governor Greg Abbott leads Beto O’Rourke in the Texas governors’ race by more than four points, even though the Democrat has more support among Latinos and Blacks. The increase … Continue reading →

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Beacon Research: Abbott 48, Beto 45

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

A different poll result from what we had been seeing. A poll affiliated with the Democratic Policy Institute has Beto O’Rourke tailing Gov. Greg Abbott by 3 points in the race for Texas governor, a margin narrower than other recent … Continue reading →

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UH/Hobby poll: Mealer 47, Hidalgo 45

Posted on October 25, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

They’re the only outfit that has polled Harris County so far, so at least there’s a basis for comparison. A new poll of Harris County voters shows that Alexandra del Moral Mealer and Lina Hidalgo are neck and neck in … Continue reading →

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UT/Texas Politics Project: Abbott 54, Beto 43

Posted on October 22, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Not great. With in-person early voting set to begin in Texas on October 24, the latest University of Texas/Texas Politics Project poll finds Gov. Greg Abbott leading Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke in the gubernatorial race, 54%-43%, among Texans likely to … Continue reading →

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State and county election result relationships, part 3: Other county races

Posted on October 21, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Part One Part Two Last time we looked at judicial races, which for all of the complaints about not knowing the candidates and just going by partisan labels have produced a consistent range of outcomes over the years. Some people … Continue reading →

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State and county election result relationships, part 2: Judicial races

Posted on October 20, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

In Part One of this series, we looked at the relationship between statewide results and Harris County results for statewide candidates. In the last three elections, statewide Democratic candidates have done on average more than nine points better in Harris … Continue reading →

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Endorsement watch: It’s Beto, and very much not Abbott

Posted on October 20, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

The Chron endorses Beto O’Rourke for Governor by taking Greg Abbott to the woodshed. Not many years ago, a newly elected Texas governor told cheering supporters, “You voted for hope over fear, for unity over division, for the majesty of … Continue reading →

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State and county election result relationships, part 1: How Harris compares

Posted on October 18, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationship between how statewide Democratic candidates do in Harris County versus how they do overall, and what that might tell us about the state of play in Harris County. Since I started … Continue reading →

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More big money in the Governor’s race

Posted on October 14, 2022 by Charles Kuffner

Thirty day reports are in. Gov. Greg Abbott and Beto O’Rourke continue to shatter fundraising records in Texas with over $200 million that is funding a statewide ad war as the state’s most competitive governor’s race in decades heads into … Continue reading →

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