Ashton Oravetz, the former Smith County Republican Party chairman, describes the state and national Republican Party leaders of today as "dysfunctional, unethical, crony capitalists."

Corporations and unions can play in politics, but complete disclosures are not required. A corporate political campaign in Texas two years ago was unusual, featuring an unknown corporation that was open about what it was doing.

The 82nd legislative session will be about halfway over by the time lawmakers on a specially appointed committee decide whether Republican Dan Neil or incumbent state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, won the disputed HD-48 seat.

Rep. Donna Howard won the HD-48 seat by four votes over Republican Dan Neil, according to state Rep. Will Hartnett, R-Dallas. Hartnett was appointed to investigate their election after Neil challenged the results.

The Democratic congressman from El Paso on what life will be like with the Republicans in control of the U.S. House, why the information released by WikiLeaks shouldn't be public, whether we should be sending troops to Mexico and why Gov. Rick Perry talks so much about spillover violence.

U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, who survived the GOP rout last November, didn’t mince words Wednesday when asked if he’d considering throwing in with the other guys.

Texas may be reddening, but Dallas County’s turning a darker shade of blue. While the GOP picked up hotly contested Dallas-area state House seats in November, the county voted for challenger Bill White over incumbent Republican Gov. Rick Perry by a margin of 12 percentage points. Straight-ticket voters also helped Democratic District Attorney Craig Watkins cling to his office in a squeaker and gave the County Commissioners Court its first Democratic majority in nearly 30 years.

Politico is reporting tonight that U.S. Rep. Solomon Ortiz, D-Corpus Christi, has finally conceded his 2010 race to his Republican challenger, Blake Farenthold, who finished nearly 800 votes ahead on Election Day.

It was a bad Election Night for residents of the largest city in McLennan County. After years of regional dominance, their congressional seat belongs to Bryan, halfway to Houston; their state senate seat is 86 miles away in Granbury; and one of their House seats has moved three counties east, to Centerville.

It appears state Rep. Donna Howard, D-Austin, will keep her seat in the Texas House. After overseas ballots were counted Monday, the final vote tally gave Howard a 16-vote victory over Republican challenger Dan Neil. 

When a party wins everything, as the GOP has in Texas this year, it gets almost everything its way. It also has everything to lose.

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.

View county-by-county thematic maps visualizing the partisan breakdown and turnout in the 2010 governor's race. 

Gov. Rick Perry's new book, Fed Up!, has 56,000 words, but "federal," "government," "people," "Washington" and "states" are the most commonly used. 

When the Legislature convenes in January, more than three-dozen new members will take their seats in the Texas House — almost all of them Republicans, and many as surprised to be there as you’ll be to see them. Here’s a freshman facebook to help you keep them straight.

His resounding defeat was only one of Election Day’s many hits to the solar plexus of the state Democratic Party. But the loss of the powerful and politically talented U.S. congressman from Waco engenders the most speculation. What's next for Chet Edwards?