Texans who gave big money to Kay Bailey Hutchison to try to unseat Rick Perry for governor in 2010 haven’t gelled around a single candidate in the presidential race. In fact, the majority of them seem to still be sitting on the sidelines.

In an appearance this morning on CNN's State of the Union, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, said she's "not going to backtrack" on her criticism of Gov. Rick Perry now that he's running for president.

In an interview with the Fox Business Network last night, U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison again stopped short of endorsing Gov. Rick Perry in his bid for the White House, but she pledged to support whichever of the Republican candidates wins the nomination.

The 2010 political campaigns are over, but looking back at the fundraising and spending that financed them is now fully possible thanks to records made public by the Texas Ethics Commission after Tuesday’s filing deadline.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Complete 2010 general election results up and down the ballot, and county-by-county interactive results maps for statewide races.

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.

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.

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.

Patience is the central theme emanating from the Houston county clerk’s office as officials there are cautioning that counting the ballots in Texas’ largest county won't happen quickly.

We'll be chock full of constantly updated content beginning at 7 p.m. CDT, when most of the polls close around the state. Here's a handy guide to the barrage of interactives and information you'll find our site, plus where to watch and listen to your favorite Trib staffers make sense of it all on TV and radio.

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.

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.

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.