You might note that runoffs are not required in special elections in Texas for National office - Congress and the US Senate. If so we would never have elected John Tower or KBH.
Not quite Curmudgeon, Tower ran first in the 1961 special election and was forced into a runoff to get his 51 percent over William Blakely, who was said to be "more conservative" than Tower, who thereafter gradually drifted to the left. But I think Hutchison may have run second to Krueger in the 1993 special election, or she may have been in first place from the start -- can't recall without lookiong it up. Ironically, it was Krueger who nearly retired Tower in 1978. Tower wound up splitting the GOP because of his pro-abortion stance -- the same stance as his old mentor Goldwater.