Texas Republicans will long remember the 2nd of November.
A fire in August that destroyed thousands of electronic voting machines in Houston prolonged the release of Harris County voting totals. Despite the delay, election officials expect to decide close races early Wednesday morning. But the outcome of one hotly contested race is known: Bill White defeated Rick Perry in his home county by a margin of less than 2 percent.
You may be wondering what happened to The Texas Tribune on Election Night. *You're* what happened: We had a truly unprecedented (for us) surge of traffic that crashed our servers.
While Democrats across the state have been falling all night, District Attorney Craig Watkins survived a re-election battle against Republican Danny Clancy in Dallas County.
House Speaker Joe Straus says he's got 122 votes for another term as speaker — in spite of the fact that at least a dozen of his past supporters were defeated in Tuesday's election.
There weren't any surprises in the races for the highest courts: All Republican incumbents won.
With 672 of 737 precincts in Dallas County reporting, the race for district attorney remains close. Incumbent District Attorney Craig Watkins, a Democrat, is leading challenger Danny Clancy, a Republican defense lawyer, by less than 1 percentage point, 50.45 percent to 49.55 percent.
“To those who supported me, please recognize that every governor of our state deserves respect," Bill White told the ballroom crowd at the Hilton Americas in Houston.
State Rep. Jim Dunnam of Waco, a Democratic leader and a difficult target for Republicans, was handily defeated by political novice Marva Beck of Centerville.
Rick Perry and the other statewide Republicans are on their way to easy wins over their challengers and opponents. Republican judicial candidates for statewide positions are winning easily.
Four Democrats in the Texas congressional delegation are either behind or have been defeated: Chet Edwards (who conceded earlier this evening to Bill Flores), Ciro Rodriguez, Solomon Ortiz, and Lloyd Doggett.
In incomplete returns, there are 22 Democratic incumbents running behind in Texas House races: Stephen Frost, Mark Homer, Jim McReynolds, Solomon Ortiz Jr., Abel Herrero, Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles, Patrick Rose, Donna Howard, Diana Maldonado, Jim Dunnam, Joe Moody, Joe Heflin, Paula Pierson, Chris Turner, Robert Miklos, Carol Kent, Kirk England, Allen Vaught, David McQuade Leibowitz, Kristi Thibaut, Ellen Cohen, and Hubert Vo.
The GOP's high-water mark (post-Reconstruction) was 88 members in the Texas House. The GOP would have to pick up 12 seats tonight to match that. They've already got one — David Farabee, D-Wichita Falls, didn't seek reelection and former Mayor Lanham Lyne is running away with that race.
And maybe this tells you more about the night than anything else: No incumbent Republicans in state office are currently running behind.
Republicans are well ahead in the results for six of seven races for the State Board of Education. The contests are closely watched due to the board's controversial efforts to amend the content allowed in school textbooks earlier this year.
In one of the most-watched races, in the Austin area, Republican Marsha Farney leads her Democratic opponent, Judy Jennings, by 59 percent to 28 percent with 30 percent of the vote counted. In a second closely watched race, in the San Antonio area, the Republican incumbent Ken Mercer leads Democratic challenger Rebecca Bell-Metereau 61 percent to 35 percent with 27 percent of the vote counted. In District 1, the Democratic incumbent Rene Nuñez trails Republican challenger Carlos Garza by 42 percent to 58 percent, with 33 percent of the vote counted.
In what's becoming an increasingly obvious Republican sweep in the Texas House, 22 Democratic incumbents are behind in their races.
If he had won tonight, it would have cemented his reputation as a political miracle worker. Instead, U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards lost the Central Texas seat he's held for more than two decades to Republican Bill Flores of Bryan by a wide margin.
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