Posted on 11/03/2004 8:40:01 PM PST by SwinneySwitch
McALLEN — Democratic voters in South Texas had a message this election for U.S. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay — it’s going to take more than a new congressional map in Texas to get rid of 10-year veteran Lloyd Doggett.
Doggett, an Austin Democrat who had to jump out of the new Republican-leaning District 10 in order to run in the new District 25, beat Republican challenger and former Public Utility Chair Becky Armendariz Klein of Austin.
DeLay, a Republican from Sugar Land, baptized and then pushed congressional redistricting legislation through the Texas Legislature in October 2003, succeeding only after months of special sessions and blocking maneuvers by Democrats.
The new map moved U.S. House district lines that had been in place just two years — instead of allowing the lines to stay put for a decade, as is the norm — in order to give Republicans an edge in this year’s election. The strategy succeeded in some parts of the state, with veteran Texas Democrats Martin Frost and Charlie Stenholm beaten by Republicans. But Doggett won his new district handily.
Sounding more relaxed Tuesday night than he has in the last 10 months, Doggett said he was pleased with the early vote results, which rewarded him with the votes of six of the district’s nine counties.
"I’ve just sat down for the first time in a long time today," Doggett said with a laugh.
"I’m really encouraged and appreciative of the people who just got to know me really well over the last year," Doggett said. "They gave me their vote of confidence and I will do all that I can to merit their confidence."
Doggett said he planned to return to Hidalgo County next week to celebrate Veterans’ Day here.
"I also plan to get the preliminary work done to get my (congressional) office open, so we can be up and running in January," Doggett said.
Klein was not ready to concede right away, as the early vote numbers came in with Doggett in the lead, and said the early vote would bode well for her.
"Austin is significantly harder," Klein said. "What we’re hoping for is 34 percent — if we can get that in Austin and with 43 percent in Hidalgo County — we’re definitely in the game.
"I think that this is just corresponding with our intuition, our anecdotal experience and our statistics, and we hope the stars continue to align throughout the night," Klein said.
Hidalgo County, considered one of Texas’ last Democratic strongholds, has never elected a Republican to local office since its incorporation in 1852. A majority of county voters have occasionally voted for a Republican president, although that did not happen Tuesday.
Klein had hoped to make history here by becoming the first Republican elected by Hidalgo County voters to represent them.
But as the night wore on, and it became apparent that Klein would be unable to overtake Doggett. She admitted defeat upon arriving in McAllen late Tuesday night.
"I’ve attempted to contact Doggett, to wish him the very best," Klein said. "I’ve been unable to get through to him, but I hope he acknowledges my phone call — after all, I’m one of his constituents now."
And while the defeat wasn’t easy to accept, Klein said she was proud of the headway made by her campaign.
"I still feel happy and ecstatic because we have made history here," Klein said. "We pulled in votes like no Republican ever has and I feel really proud of the work my team and I were able to do."
Klein said she had no immediate plans, except for getting some much-needed rest today. "After that, I don’t know," Klein said. "I’ll be in Washington next Tuesday, my husband and I own a home there, and I will figure out what it is I want to do and what my options are."
Klein’s husband, Dale Klein, is a former vice chancellor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is now a presidential appointee at the Department of Defense.
Congressional redistricting, easily one of the bloodiest battles in the history of the Texas Legislature, took three special sessions at a cost of more than $5 million to complete.
Democratic legislators twice left the state in order to break quorum in the Texas House and Senate and prevent a vote on the remap bill which would help increase the number of Republicans in the state’s congressional delegation.
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Alma Walzer handles special assignments, investigative reporting and politics for The Monitor. You can reach her at (956) 683-4422.
The election is over and although it may not have gone my way this time, I have a lot to be thankful about. I am truly grateful to all of the great people who supported me throughout this campaign. As I traveled throughout District 25 over the last nine months, I met so many nice people and I will always remember their generosity and enthusiasm as I set out my plan for the district. I am also grateful to the many volunteers throughout the district who worked tirelessly to get my message out. And mostly, I am so thankful for my loving family who stood by me all the way.
I truly enjoyed this long journey, and I wish the people of District 25 all of the best of luck now and in the years ahead.
Becky Armendariz Klein
Becky Texas Ping!
Doggett poached a district drawn by Delay for an Hispanic. Other than that, Doggett did nothing to deflect Delay's "evil" plan.
This sucks. Doggett is a commie piece of crap.
Have you seen the vote results for Travis County? Bush carried it 47%-42% in 2000, but Kerry carried it 56%-42% in 2004. Boy, they've really gotten to hate W. in Austin since he left the Governor's Mansion! With numbers like that, its no wonder that Doggett won so easily.
I've always called him Lloyd Dogsh*t. Fits him to a T.
Austin, Boston, and Madison. Birds of a feather.
Austin (Travis County) isn't known as the Berkley on the Colorado for nothing.
Have you seen the vote results for Travis County? Bush carried it 47%-42% in 2000, but Kerry carried it 56%-42% in 2004. Boy, they've really gotten to hate W. in Austin since he left the Governor's Mansion! With numbers like that, its no wonder that Doggett won so easily."
Yes, I saw that number, and frankly I am disappointed ... in my own precinct (50-50!!), in the county, in TCRP. I just compared with 2002 numbers against statewides, and we had Perry at 46% ,Dewhurst at 38%, our county judge at 40% ... about 82,000 GOP voters in 2002. This year about 147,000 Bush republican voters, but 196,000 Democrat Kerry voters.
We are down a bit from 2002, and down from 2000 as well.
Wrong direction! A county-wide Judge race was 59% to 40%.
We lost every countywide election, and practically every race at the countywide. That is different from before, when we would win some GOP races, eg, judicial races.
The current gap is not narrowing - 20 points!
I attribute it to a very fired up Democratic turnout-the-base effort and lots of W-hatred among the kool aid drinkers.
Something needs to be fixed in Travis.
Some of that is the drain of the Austin metro area into the adjacent county (Williams I think, but I could be wrong as to the name), which is hyper GOP. It is a mistake to look at individual counties, rather than metro areas as a whole.
You're not alone.
At least he's further away from my property line. I'm right on the border with Lamar Smith but I get the newbie, Michael McCaul, the Bushbot.
We'll nail him NEXT time!
Don't think he has anything left of his $2,000,000 rats nest!
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