Author Topic: Tea Party dominate Texas primaries. Texas moves further to the Right.  (Read 2496 times)

polychronopolous

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"Turn Texas blue"  ::)

HOUSTON, Texas—The Tea Party is alive and well and is firmly established as a dominant force in Texas Republican politics. Victories by Tea Party favorites nearly swept the statewide Republican runoff election.

Establishment candidates like State Representative Dan Branch and State Senator Bob Deuell faded quietly in defeat while strongly supported Tea Party candidates like Sen. Dan Patrick, Sen. Ken Paxton, and former State Rep. Sid Miller sailed to easy victories in their statewide races.
The trend of Tea Party victories continued down the ballot as well. In Senate District 10 (currently held by Sen. Wendy Davis), Tea Party favorite Konni Burton won her race with a 20 point margin over the more moderate Mark Shelton. In a report by Merrill Hope, Burton told Breitbart Texas, “We are so excited.  We've been working for this for a year.  Our message has resonated with the voters and we couldn't be more pleased." Burton was also supported by U.S. Senator Ted Cruz who, in 2012, proved the Tea Party and grassroots activism can overcome insurmountable odds to bring victory for conservative principles.

In spite of viscous attacks from his moderate opponent, Tea Party faithful’s stood strong beside Sen. Ken Paxton and delivered a victory that was never in doubt after early voting numbers showed a Paxton lead of 24 percent. Throughout the night, the numbers increased and Paxton won the nomination for Texas Attorney General with a 27 point margin of victory over Dan Branch.

And, of course, Sen. Dan Patrick’s victory in the race for Lt. Governor over David Dewhurst with a margin of 30 percent sent yet another strong statement of Tea Party strength. Rice University political scientist Mark Jones told the Austin American-Statesman, “Patrick’s win signals an important shift to the right within the Texas GOP, both electorally and legislatively. The Texas Senate under Patrick’s leadership will be a much more partisan and conservative institution than it has been during the past 12 years under Dewhurst.” Patrick reiterated his pledge to not appoint Democrats to half of the senate committee chairmanships during his victory speech in Houston on election night.

The Tea Party movement did not just strike state level races. In the race for U.S. Congressional District 4, the nation’s most senior Member of Congress, 91-year-old, 18-term Ralph Hall was defeated by John Ratcliffe a former U.S. Attorney. According to an email received by Breitbart Texas from Texas Election Source, Publisher Jeff Blaylock, Hall is the first incumbent Congressman to be defeated in a runoff election since 1996 when Ron Paul defeated Congressman Greg Laughlin.

The national news media has expressed a fascination with the Tea Party’s impact in Texas politics. An article by Reuters writer Marice Richter states, “The Tea Party win over established politicians boosts the stature of U.S. Senator Cruz, a possible 2016 Republican presidential contender, and returns some luster to the Tea Party movement after several candidates were defeated by mainstream Republicans in primaries in other states last week.”
International Business Times cited another Reuters article which quotes Republican strategist Bill Miller saying, "I do think the Republican Party could be eclipsed by the Tea Party here."

Not all Republicans think this shift is a good thing. Bill Hammond, a Republican who heads up the powerful Texas Association of Business told Fox News Latino, You’ve seen some very solid conservative candidates defeated in the Texas Republican primary, unfortunately,” Hammond said. “It’s absolutely a concern more and more for us.”
Also, the Tea Party endorsement is not an automatic checkmark in the victory column. The Tea Party coattails could not extend far enough down the ballot to help Railroad Commission candidate, former State Rep. Wayne Christian, overcome the energy industry business experience and qualifications of Houston area businessman and engineer Ryan Sitton. Sitton won his race over Christian by a margin of 57 to 43 percent.

The Blaylock Texas Election Source email quoted above states that Sitton now holds the record for the biggest non-judicial race come-from-behind runoff victory having come from 12 points behind after the primary to 14 points ahead after the runoff. The previous record was held by Tea Party favorite Texas Cruz who trailed Dewhurst by 10.5 percent after the first round and won the runoff by 13.6 percent.

In one of the narrower Tea Party victories, State Senator Bob Deuell was defeated by the Tea Party supported candidate Bob Hall by 300 votes. Breitbart Texas reported Sen. Deuell’s alleged attempt to censor Texas Right to Life by threatening radio stations in an attempt to get them to remove ads that spoke about his record on end of life issues. The ploy, carried out a few days before the start of early voting nearly worked. But as Breitbart Texas reported, the stations only held the add off the air for thirty-six hours.

After some of the very negative ads that have been run in the various statewide campaigns, traditional Republican groups and Tea Party groups will need to find a way to mend fences in order to effectively be able to challenge what will most likely be well organized and funded campaigns by Wendy Davis and Leticia Van de Putte.

JOHN MATRIX

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Very happy for my state right now..we are actually voting in americans instead of socialist or GOP puppets.

polychronopolous

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Very happy for my state right now..we are actually voting in americans instead of socialist or GOP puppets.

X2

Dan Patrick beating David Dewhurst by 30 points was the biggest statement of the night.

Will be interesting to see if Tea Party winner Konni Burton can claim Wendy Davis old district in a few months.

JOHN MATRIX

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What still worries me is the border...every single border county and all the counties close to them are DEEP BLUE, all of south texas is deep blue, and every major city in texas has a democrat mayor (except maybe ft worth). These areas and these 'types' of voters seem to be expanding at an incredible pace, while the current majority red areas are not increasing in population.

polychronopolous

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What still worries me is the border...every single border county and all the counties close to them are DEEP BLUE, all of south texas is deep blue, and every major city in texas has a democrat mayor (except maybe ft worth). These areas and these 'types' of voters seem to be expanding at an incredible pace, while the current majority red areas are not increasing in population.

South Texas is pretty irrelevant in the big picture and I think people tend to put too much stock in that area. There's a very small handful of counties down there that are deep blue but you have to realize there are over 250 counties in Texas. And how many of THOSE counties are deep red? 10 or 20 times more.

Many of those "types" of voters generally only come out every 4 years for the big National election so there is that to figure in as well.

This move signals a definite move to the right and likely with social media will remain so for 10 or 20 years. Probably more.


JOHN MATRIX

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Hopefully you're right. These primaries were a great sign in any case

Straw Man

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No one mentioned that the Tea Baggers got trounced in many primaries two weeks ago

JOHN MATRIX

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No one mentioned that the Tea Baggers got trounced in many primaries two weeks ago


the Tea party is as strong as ever in texas, as evidenced by at least 2 huge wins yesterday for legitimate Tea party candidates(paxton and patrick) defeating establishment rivals. The media has been pretty quiet about this, not surprisingly.

Straw Man

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the Tea party is as strong as ever in texas, as evidenced by at least 2 huge wins yesterday for legitimate Tea party candidates(paxton and patrick) defeating establishment rivals. The media has been pretty quiet about this, not surprisingly.

so no comment on how the Tea Baggers got their asses handed to them in every other state a few weeks ago?

headhuntersix

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I think the tea party candidates aren't as well financed but the tea party movement as a subset of the republican brand has pushed the whole party more right. How many dems don't fall in lock step with Obama and his bullshit...not one.
L

Straw Man

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I think the tea party candidates aren't as well financed but the tea party movement as a subset of the republican brand has pushed the whole party more right. How many dems don't fall in lock step with Obama and his bullshit...not one.

yep, and that's why they are harming the parties chance to win on a national stage

the country is moving to the center yet the Republicans are moving to the right


Roger Bacon

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Cool, I'm definitely happy for Texas!!

headhuntersix

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We're getting ready to take Congress. The country is split....even if we're moving more to center center..the dems have been pulled very left.  That shit plays well with the urban poor and east coasters but middle America isn't all that taken with everything that comes with leftwing wackjobism. Take the current and sure to grow union fights with obamacare. We haven't even seen the worst of this yet.
L

JOHN MATRIX

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I think the tea party candidates aren't as well financed but the tea party movement as a subset of the republican brand has pushed the whole party more right. How many dems don't fall in lock step with Obama and his bullshit...not one.

Exactly

Dos Equis

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The only two issues where I think we've seen a massive shift over a short period of time are immigration and homosexual marriage.  Immigration has seen a sharp tilt left. 

The marriage issue was bipartisan until just a few years ago, so I'm not sure that qualifies as a shift to "left," when most of them supported traditional marriage.  But now it's clearly a partisan issue. 

Other than that, I don't think we have seen a major movement towards things like higher taxes, bigger government, expansion of entitlements, abortion, etc. and other things liberals hold dear.     

headhuntersix

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The push for marriage was a all to get votes....and all done by judges. The will of the people has been usurped at every turn.  However because people by and large just wish gay would just shut the fuck up and go away they tend not to care as much...I don't think you'll see that with immigration.
L

Dos Equis

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The push for marriage was a all to get votes....and all done by judges. The will of the people has been usurped at every turn.  However because people by and large just wish gay would just shut the fuck up and go away they tend not to care as much...I don't think you'll see that with immigration.

Agree about the marriage issue.  It was judges and in some instances (like here) the legislatures.  But public opinion has shifted dramatically too. 

Don't really agree about immigration, because that's all about pandering for votes too.  We're going to see a "path to citizenship" language used by both parties in 2014 and especially in 2016. 

240 is Back

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Very happy for my state right now..we are actually voting in americans instead of socialist or GOP puppets.

ted cruz 2016, baby.   none of this amnesty 'act of love' stuff.

whork

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Very happy for my state right now..we are actually voting in americans instead of socialist or GOP puppets.

So dem and rep are not americans ???

polychronopolous

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We're getting ready to take Congress. The country is split....even if we're moving more to center center..the dems have been pulled very left.  That shit plays well with the urban poor and east coasters but middle America isn't all that taken with everything that comes with leftwing wackjobism. Take the current and sure to grow union fights with obamacare. We haven't even seen the worst of this yet.

Has there been anyone worse for the Democratic Party in the past 30 years than Barack Obama?

He has likely set the Democratic Party back a generation.


whork

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Has there been anyone worse for the Democratic Party in the past 30 years than Barack Obama?

He has likely set the Democratic Party back a generation.



A 2 time elected president is bad for the dem.

Please explain.

Straw Man

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Has there been anyone worse for the Democratic Party in the past 30 years than Barack Obama?

He has likely set the Democratic Party back a generation.

brutal projection of what Bush actually did to the Republican party