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Mark Jones chairs the political science department at Rice University. He says the GOP primaries for lieutenant governor, comptroller, attorney general, agriculture commissioner, and railroad commissioner are all essentially guaranteed to be settled in a May 27th runoff.
“The only real certainties we have are that Greg Abbott will get his ticket punched today for the governor’s race, and George P. Bush will win in the land commissioner race. And, odds are, John Cornyn’s going to get by without a runoff in the U.S. Senate race.”
On the Democratic side, most of the statewide races have only one candidate, and only one possible outcome. Jones expects state Senator Wendy Davis to easily fend off a tepid challenge from Ray Madrigal. Jones says the party has had trouble attracting strong candidates in some races, so it has spent more time telling its base who to vote against, rather than for.
“Democrats have been sending the message that they do not want Kesha Rogers to be their candidate for U.S. Senate. And they do not want Kinky Friedman to be their candidate for agriculture commissioner.”
Rogers has earned criticism after calling for the impeachment of President Obama. Friedman, meanwhile, has been dismissed as being “a comedian” by the chair of the Texas Democratic Party.
