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| Ted Cruz (photo: Gage Skidmore) |
ABC News:
Ted Cruz Wins In Texas GOP Senate Runoff:
The AP projects that Tea Party star Ted Cruz will win the Texas Republican Senate primary, defeating “establishment” candidate and longtime Lieutenant Gov. David Dewhurst.
In the past several weeks victory for Cruz, the former solicitor general, had begun to look increasingly likely, with polls showing him ahead of Dewhurst, and major national Tea Party stars like Sarah Palin and Sen. Jim DeMint turning out to campaign for him in the final days leading up to the runoff. However, for the bulk of the race Cruz had been the underdog, lacking in the wealth and name recognition enjoyed by Dewhurst, who has been the lieutenant governor under Rick Perry since 2003.
This is a huge victory for conservatives. The Cruz team is celebrating with
Chick-fil-A at their victory party.
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2 comments:
The Republican Senate primary is August 7. Three candidates are in a tight race:
1) Congressman Todd Akin, the DC establishment candidate
2) Former State Treasurer Sarah Steelman, backed by Sarah Palin
3) Independent Businessman John Brunner running as "The Citizen Senator"
Recent polls showed Brunner in the lead but the race is quickly tightening.
http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/mccaskill-trails-all-three-gop-candidates-in-senate-race/article_7dc3f2e4-d84e-11e1-a6e2-001a4bcf6878.html
The same polls shows McCaskill trailing all three, but she is well within the margin of error with Akin. McCaskill has now has taken sides and is essentially running favorable ads across the state for Akin:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0712/78737.html
There is more at stake than a senate seat in this race. With Ted Cruz and Dick Mourdock winning their primaries against REPUBLICAN establishment candidates in Texas and Indiana respectively, the Missouri race COULD determine whether there is a change of Republican leadership in the Senate, irrespective of whether there ends up being a Republican majority. If DC establishment candidate Todd Akin wins, Mitch McConnell will probably retain his seat of power given Akin's recent propensity to defer recent voting decisions to his House "leader", John Boehner. Akin seems to enjoy wallowing in the pomp and circumstance of being in Congress and nowhere is it thicker and heavier than in the Senate; so once elected, Akin would likely tend to vote to "preserve the institution", including the leadership, a la John McCain. On the other hand, if either of the other two win, the majority in the Republican caucus may well swing to the DeMint conservative camp and a new leader other than the stale McConnell could likely emerge.
Jim,
The problem with that PD poll is how it contrasts with Brunner's end of June poll. At that time, Brunner claimed to lead his opponents by 20 points (40 for him and 20 for each of them). His lead is now 33% in the PD poll. Why did that happen? Is Brunner's polling methodology suspect? Was he blowing smoke in June? Or, did his support really collapse that much in just one month?
Furthermore, Brunner has an annoying tendency to shift blame. In an interview with Charlie Brennan at KMOX, Brunner started by saying the buck stops here and four minutes later was blaming his campaign for the negative ads against Steelman and Akin as if *his* campaign is somehow separate from himself.
The top three candidates are all disappointing, that's why I will be voting for a proven leader: Hector Maldonado.
And, never, never forget: those top three candidates have campaign cash--unlike Maldonado. Media outlets ignore guys like Maldonado because the media's "news" departments are simply loss leaders for their ad sales. They want someone with a war chest to win so that they can sell more ads for more money.
Take a look at Hector--he'd make a great Senator.
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