Posted on 07/29/2021 5:27:47 AM PDT by lasereye
Tuesday was election day in a special race to select a successor to Rep. Ron Wright in Texas’ Sixth Congressional District. Wright died from the Wuhan coronavirus.
The candidates were Wright’s widow, Susan Wright, and Texas state Rep. Jake Ellzey. Both are conservative Republicans.
Susan Wright was the favorite and the leader in polls. She won the most votes in the primary, in which Ellzey barely finished second, just 354 votes ahead of the leading Democrat. In addition, Wright had the endorsement of former president Trump.
But Ellzey won the race by a margin of 53-47.
How did he do it? It must have helped that Ellzey had the backing of key Texas Republicans. Among them were former Gov. Rick Perry, Rep. Dan Crenshaw, and Joe Barton who represented the district in Washington until a sex scandal forced him out. However, Sen. Ted Cruz endorsed Wright.
Ellzey is a graduate of the Naval Academy, He served as a fighter pilot, doing tours in both Afghanistan and Iraq. From 2012 to 2018, he was a commissioner of the Texas Veterans Commission. He was elected to the state legislature last year. In 2018, he ran a close race against Ron Wright for the same House seat he won this time around.
Although Trump endorsed his opponent, Ellzey did not run as an anti-Trump candidate. Even so, the fact that he pulled off an upset victory over the Trump-endorsed candidate can be viewed as evidence that the ex-president’s influence among Republicans is waning, at least in this particular Texas district.
Trump’s team doesn’t see it that way. It blames the Club for Growth for inducing Trump to back a low-energy candidate against a proven vote-getter.
I should also note that there was no Democrat in the runoff race. Many Democrats simply stayed home — turnout for this election half of what it was for the primary. However, some Dems voted, and it’s likely that Ellzey fared better than Wright with this cohort.
But Mark Davis, a conservative talk show host in Dallas said:
The Trump base in District 6 paid little attention to the fact that Susan got his endorsement. They know that Trump had no familiarity with her and no familiarity with this race.
When, for whatever reason, the Trump base pays little attention to a Trump endorsement, that’s evidence of a loss of influence.
The Sixth District includes suburbs of Dallas/Fort Worth. Trump’s endorsements probably carry greater value in more rural districts. But any sign of waning Trump influence among Republican voters has some significance and, from my perspective, is good news.
i’m guessin this: “... some Dems voted, and it’s likely that Ellzey fared better than Wright with this cohort.”
Maybe if you live in Austin. But, not if you live in Fort Worth.
C’mon man, doesn’t the “widow” always win?
I stopped reading Powerline except for the “Week in Pictures” to escape the odious Never Trumper, Paul. Now he appears on FR. Giving wider exposure to people like Paul encourages them when they should be abandoned in their echo chambers.
The better headline was “GOP gains seat in U.S. House”. By my math its now 220 Dems and 212 Republican. So if the minority has party discipline, they only need to have four Dems vote present to block legislation. We can expect party loyalty from the GOP, right?
I am going to quote Steve Bannon after the May 1 primary in CD6. “The widow only got 19%. The rest of the Republicans together way out polled her. (15,000 for Wright 28,000 cumulative for the other GOP candidates) Sometimes he gets bad advice.” Bannon knew these numbers were trouble for her. Also all but one of the candidates were Trump supporters.
It was about the candidate herself. In the general Wright got 18k and Ellzey 20k. So the voters from the May 1 primary split their votes with the 10k going to Ellzey vs. 3k for Wright. In other words they didn’t vote for her the first time for a reason and didn’t choose her the second. The Club for Growth attacks on Ellzey didn’t help either. The Dem TDS votes might have given him a few hundred votes but not enough to swing the election.
When there is more than one Trump candidate in a primary Trump needs to stay neutral. In the May primary there were three former members of his Administration! Wright was not one of them!
Stealing is now a staple
How much fraud went undiscovered in that election?
And the problem is?
Neither of them beats the liberal.
They already did. The Dem was beaten in the primary. This was between two conservative Republicans and one of them won.
They need to check for vote fraud. Why aren’t they?
In your dreams.
All politics are local.
A congressman’s wife is not necessarily the best qualified person.
I don’t know the race, so I can’t opine on the wife, but as a general rule sharing a marital bed does not give you some kind of hereditary title to the job. There are a lot of republicans who seem to secretly wish we had royalty.
Thanks for posting the numbers! The article was long on narrative and short on the hard facts.
Flame away, but Trump has a bigger record of picking and hiring losers than he has picking winners..
Be fair, Trump doesn’t have much to work with.
Good, successful people for the most part don’t want anything to do with politics these days, and frankly, who could blame them?
Paul is a piece of work at this juncture, given that he is a die hard democrat trying to act like he can frame certain events in a positive democrat narrative. Paul just needs to walk away. I “left” the RNC back when McCain backstabbed America on the Illegal’s vote in 2014.
The idea that Trump has and had 100% endorsement success is a lie in it’s self!
Bannon’s a loose cannon but he often has good judgement. Maybe Trump should reconnect with him
Why don’t people understand? The Demonrats can steal any election they want! There is no point to voting in a federal election anymore. This country is past the rule of law. The Constitution is no longer in force. We need to transition to a new strategy.
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