The latest Bill White news from The Texas Tribune.
2010 didn't turn out like it looked a year ago. Unexpected people showed up. The political environment bloomed red instead of blue. The Tea was strong. And big shots turned into paper tigers. Here are some of the political personalities who mattered. Full Story
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If we ever hope to see the change we desire, we have to continue to support our candidates — even after a terrible loss. The alternative is to simply give up, and just as that was not acceptable for Republicans when they found themselves on the losing side, it’s not acceptable for us. Full Story
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Texas Democrats have become a political version of the Baltimore Orioles. If Ann Richards were alive, she and Earl Weaver would be comparing notes — in salty language — on what went wrong with their old teams. Full Story
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From day one, the Tribune has put a premium on events as a very vibrant, dynamically interactive form of journalism: always before an audience, always open to the public, always on the record, usually free and whenever possible resulting in recorded content that could be posted on our web site for everyone to see, not just those lucky ducks who happened to be in the room. Usually these so-called TribLive events have been conversations with high elected officials or other newsmakers, and, indeed, they've occasionally made news. But more often than not they've simply been a way to engage with people in power, to hold them accountable, to ask them questions, to get to know them better. Today we present videos of 21 of those conversations — our way of saying thanks to the men and women who've done their time in the hot seat. Full Story
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For lower-ranking Republicans who would like to be higher-ranking and Democrats who barely remember ever having a shot at winning a statewide office, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison's inscrutability about her future plans is getting to be a bit much. Full Story
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A few days ago, we noted the geographic similarities in the statewide performance of Democrats Bill White and Barack Obama in their respective (and losing) Texas campaigns. The same patterns held true in Harris County, where the former Houston mayor narrowly defeated incumbent Gov. Rick Perry, according to precinct-by-precinct maps. Full Story
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On April 15, 2009, Rick Perry positioned himself for the first time as the defender of Texas against Washington oppression — and the 2010 race for governor was decided. Full Story
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Our wall-to-wall Election Day coverage — complete results up and down the ballot and county by county, the all-hands-on-deck Trib team on the Republican tsunami, my conversation with George W. Bush's media adviser and Rick Perry's pollster about what happened on Tuesday, Stiles and Ramsey on what 194 candidates spent per vote this election cycle, Hu on how the GOP rout will affect the substance of the next legislative session, Hamilton on the Texas Democratic Trust's unhappy end, Ramshaw and Stiles profile the new arrivals at the Capitol in January, M. Smith on what's next for Chet Edwards and Ramsey and me on six matters of politics and policy we're thinking about going forward — plus Thevenot and Butrymowicz on a possible solution to the high school dropout problem: The best of our best from Nov. 1 to 5, 2010. Full Story
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View county-by-county thematic maps visualizing the partisan breakdown and turnout in the 2010 governor's race. Full Story
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For the 15th event in our TribLive series, I interviewed the former George W. Bush and John McCain media strategist and Rick Perry's pollster about what happened Tuesday night: how the Republicans took back the majority in the U.S. House and upped their number of seats in the Texas House by 30 percent, what that portends for the next two years in Austin and Washington, D.C., and whether the governor is really running for president. Full Story
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More than in any past campaign, Rick Perry showed himself to be adept at what you might call the friendly attack, striking on one level while making nice on another. He did it to the press, and he did it to the federal government. Full Story
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After it became clear that the early returns were against him, Bill White called on Democratic voters to support Gov. Rick Perry. “All our elected leaders, including our national leadership, deserve respect,” he said. Full Story
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As Gov. Rick Perry won another four years in office last night and his Democratic challenger, Bill White, conceded defeat, both men hinted at what they might do next. Ben Philpott of KUT News and the Tribune reports. Full Story
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Rick Perry won his third full term as governor of Texas on Tuesday, defeating former Houston Mayor Bill White by a convincing double-digit margin and positioning himself for a role on the national stage. And he led a Republican army that swept all statewide offices for the fourth election in a row, took out three Democratic U.S. congressmen and was on its way to a nearly two-thirds majority in the Texas House — a mark the GOP hasn't seen since the days following the Civil War. Full Story
The Tribune's crack reporting staff — in Houston, Buda and other political hotspots — will be posting the latest news and spin the minute the polls close. Check back and refresh often for updates and photos from the field. Full Story
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Over the past year, we've seen nearly $100 million worth of gubernatorial politics in Texas and millions more spent maneuvering for advantage in Congress, in the Legislature and in other statewide and local offices. Tonight, we'll finally know what's what. Full Story
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On this final day of the 2010 governor's race, we've put all of our coverage — the stories and blog posts and images and video and audio — into a timeline that tells the tale of the election, the political climate of Texas, the tactics and promises of Rick Perry and Bill White and our polling as the campaign unfolded. Full Story
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Early voting totals from the secretary of state this morning show that early voting is up big-time statewide compared to the last gubernatorial election in 2006. Full Story
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No campaign postmortem will be complete without noting the huge role played by Barack Obama in the 2010 governor's race. Full Story
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On the final weekend of the gubernatorial campaign, Gov. Rick Perry was in Midland — exactly where he was on the final weekend of the Republican primary — pushing the same anti-Washington message that has kept him comfortably ahead in the polls for most of 2010. "Make no mistake," he told the assembled crowd, "this is a national election." His Democratic challenger, Bill White, was in a leafy Houston neighborhood, knocking on doors, energizing volunteers and insisting that the pundits and promulgators of conventional wisdom are dead wrong. "We have broad support," White insisted. "We are in a position to win this race." Full Story
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