State Rep. Kenneth Sheets, R-Dallas, has become the first GOP lawmaker to openly disparage other elected officials for collecting a state pension while receiving a government salary for their elected position.

In a new ad, Mark Shelton's campaign depicts his SD-10 opponent, Fort Worth Sen. Wendy Davis, as a "lifelong tax liberal" who takes money from the pockets of seniors. Cue the vacuums. 

Defending incumbent U.S. Rep. Francisco "Quico" Canseco, R-San Antonio, the National Republican Congressional Committee is running an ad slamming state Rep. Pete Gallego, D-Alpine, for his support from "radical environmentalists in Washington."

In a new commercial, a rape victim credits state Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, with legislation that put her attacker in jail, and says Davis' challenger, state Rep. Mark Shelton, R-Fort Worth, was one of eight lawmakers who voted against it.

State Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth, opened her television campaign for re-election with a biographical spot that also promotes her position on education. Davis faces state Rep. Mark Shelton, R-Fort Worth, in the competitive SD-10 race.

For this week's nonscientific survey of politics and government insiders, we asked for predictions of the November outcomes in nine House races in swing districts across the state. 

For a race that encapsulates Texas’ raging health care debate, look no further than Senate District 10 in Fort Worth — the matchup between incumbent Democrat Wendy Davis and her challenger, Republican state Rep. Mark Shelton.

Full video of my TribLive conversation with state Reps. and Texas Senate hopefuls Kelly Hancock, R-Fort Worth, Ken Paxton, R-McKinney, and Larry Taylor, R-Friendswood.

The story through the primaries and runoffs? It's over for most of the races — only a few remain competitive. Turnover, as you would expect in the election after a redistricting, is high.

Two-thirds of the candidates for Texas House don’t face major opposition in November. Only about a dozen races are truly competitive, in the sense that either party might win.

San Antonio Republicans who wanted a new state senator got what they asked for — but they didn't really mean to move the seat's home base from San Antonio north to New Braunfels.

With the primaries and the runoffs out of the way, it's time to look ahead to the general election. There will be a full ballot in November, of course, but only a relative handful of races remain competive in a state where redistricting made most congressional and legislative districts uncompetitive in the general election.

Most of the state's political races are over, but there are still a number of face-offs to be decided in November's general election. And the presidential election year is poised to drive up turnout in the fall.

Today, at long last, the state's voters will settle the remaining 37 races in the Republican and Democratic primaries, choosing the nominees who will be on the ballot in November's general election. 

In years when both parties had statewide primary runoffs, turnout in the second round of voting averaged almost half of turnout in the first round. On average, the runoff got a vote for every two in the primary. In elections with a statewide runoff, the average Republican runoff turnout was 27.3 percent of the party's average primary turnout. For Democrats, the corresponding number was 34.9 percent.

Voter turnout for the July 31 runoff is likely to fall well short of 1993, when 1.8 million voters cast ballots in the special runoff for a U.S. Senate seat, which Kay Bailey Hutchison won. 

For this week's nonscientific survey of government and political insiders, we asked about a dozen open House races on the July 31 ballot and found the insiders mostly in agreement, wrong or right.

With about three weeks left before the July 31 runoff, state Sen. Jeff Wentworth, R-San Antonio, and his GOP challenger, Donna Campbell, have each released new television ads.