Tag Archives: Club for Growth

TX-6: Double R Runoff

By Jim Ellis

Susan Wright

May 4, 2021 — Republicans are guaranteed to hold Texas’ vacant 6th Congressional District in the succeeding runoff election as two GOP candidates advanced from the 23-person jungle primary election on Saturday night. Susan Wright, widow of late Congressman Ron Wright (R-Arlington), finished first, as expected, with just over 19 percent of the vote.

Accompanying Wright into the runoff contest is freshman state Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-Waxahachie). He scored a vote percentage of 13.9 in slipping past the top Democrat, 2018 congressional nominee Jana Lynne Sanchez, who finished just 354 votes behind in third place.

Ellzey was elected to the legislature in November, but immediately jumped into the congressional race when Rep. Wright passed away. In 2018, Ellzey ran for the 6th District open seat when veteran Rep. Joe Barton (R) retired, finishing second and forcing Rep. Wright, then the Tarrant County Tax Assessor, into a runoff election. Rep. Wright won the runoff 52-48 percent, which was a much closer finish than initially anticipated.

The Saturday night primary proved big for Republicans. Combined, their candidates received 61.9 percent of the 78,374 votes cast according to the initial final count. Democrats finished well below expectations with only a combined 37.3 percent split among their 10 candidates.

These totals are quite different than Rep. Wright’s victory margins in both 2020 and 2018, when he recorded almost identical splits of 53-44 percent and 53-45 percent, respectively. Former President Donald Trump carried the district with a 51-48 percent spread in November but a much stronger 54-42 percent in 2016.

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TX-6 Primary Saturday

By Jim Ellis

May 3, 2021 — The special jungle primary to begin the process of replacing the late Texas Rep. Ron Wright (R-Arlington) began Saturday as 11 Republicans, 10 Democrats, a Libertarian, and an Independent scratched and clawed to obtain one of the two available runoff positions.

With 23 candidates on the ballot and nobody even reaching 30 percent in published polling, there was virtually no chance any of these contenders win outright with a majority vote. Therefore, a secondary election between the top two finishers will be called as soon as the vote totals are made official. Gov. Greg Abbott (R) then will schedule the special runoff election for what appears to be a period in late June.

The candidate attracting the most attention is the late congressman’s wife, Susan Wright (R). She scored a major endorsement last week as former President Donald Trump announced his support for her candidacy. The Trump move was a major blow to candidate Brian Harrison (R), who is a former official in the Trump Administration’s Health and Human Services Department and an ex-White House aide to then-President George W. Bush.

Wright garnered 19.2 percent of the vote Saturday, which was enough to give her a first-place finish.

Aside from Wright and Harrison, who finished a distant fourth with 10.8 percent of the vote, the other significant Republican candidate is freshman state Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-Waxahachie). He ran for the congressional seat in 2018 when Rep. Wright was first elected, forcing him into a runoff and losing just 52-48 percent to the eventual general election winner.

Just as he did then, Ellzey finished second, with 13.8 percent of the vote. Wright and Ellzey both will advance to the runoff, likely in late June.

Recently, both the Club for Growth and Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) have come out opposing Ellzey’s candidacy, with the former launching an opposition independent expenditure.

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Assessing Arizona

By Jim Ellis

Sen. Mark Kelly (D) won the special election in November to fill the balance of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) final term in office. He again comes before the voters in this election cycle to stand for a full six-year term.

April 13, 2021 — The Club for Growth released the results of their new Arizona Republican primary poll on Friday, and it draws attention to a race that should become a top-tier 2022 campaign.

As you will remember, Sen. Mark Kelly (D) won the special election in November to fill the balance of the late Sen. John McCain’s (R) final term in office. Therefore, he again comes before the voters in this election cycle to stand for a full six-year term. Kelly, a retired astronaut and husband of former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), defeated appointed Sen. Martha McSally (R), 51-49 percent, in a result much closer than the polling predicted.

WPA Intelligence conducted the Club for Growth 2022 poll during the April 5-6 period of 505 likely Republican primary voters via live interview. They tested Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Gilbert) against Gov. Doug Ducey. The results found the congressman holding a 46-45 percent lead over the governor and, in what seems to be a clear indication that base Republican voters still follow ex-President Donald Trump’s lead, the margin swells to 59-32 percent if the latter man endorses Rep. Biggs.

It is important to note, however, that Gov. Ducey has already announced that he is not running for the Senate. National Republican leaders are attempting to convince the governor to reverse his decision, but his entrance in the Senate race, at least for now, appears highly unlikely. Rep. Biggs has not given a firm public indication if he will become a statewide candidate.

Currently, the only Republican to announce for the Senate is software engineer Rob Paveza. While the pace of this eventual competitive contest is slow in the early going when compared to states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, and North Carolina, a full year remains before candidate filing closes in Arizona, a state that hosts an August primary.

Those mentioned as possible candidates aside from Rep. Biggs include Attorney General Mark Brnovich, State Treasurer Kimberly Yee, state Republican Party chair and former Senate candidate Kelli Ward, ex-US representative and 2002 gubernatorial nominee Matt Salmon, State Adjutant General Michael McGuire, and solar energy company executive Jim Lamon, all according to the Politics1 blog.

Sen. Kelly was one of the top fundraisers of the 2020 election cycle, obtaining more than $101,000,000 for his campaign committee. Only Georgia Sens. Jon Ossoff (D) and Raphael Warnock (D), who both were forced to compete in general election runoff campaigns, and South Carolina’s Jaime Harrison, the current Democratic National Committee chairman, raised more. Already for 2022, Sen. Kelly announced that he pulled in $4.4 million during the first quarter of this year.

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OK-5: Bice Wins Runoff

By Jim Ellis

State Sen. Stephanie Bice (R-Oklahoma City) scored a mild upset victory last night in the OK-5 Republican runoff election.

Aug. 26, 2020 — State Sen. Stephanie Bice (R-Oklahoma City) scored a mild upset victory last night over former lieutenant governor nominee and businesswoman Terry Neese with a 53-47 percent OK-5 Republican runoff victory. She wins the right to oppose freshman Rep. Kendra Horn (D-Oklahoma City) in the November election from a district that voted 53-40 percent for President Trump in 2016.

Sen. Bice withstood strong opposition from a Club for Growth independent expenditure totaling just under $1 million, almost all of which was spent on negative media and digital ads, with the goal of denying her the congressional nomination. This, on top of the seven-figure resources that Neese expended for her own campaign.

In the June 30 primary, Neese placed first in a field of nine candidates with 36.5 percent of the vote, while Sen. Bice secured the second runoff position with 25.4 percent more than six percentage points ahead of the third-place finisher. In the primary, 68,032 GOP votes were cast.

Last night, it was the district’s predominant county, Oklahoma, which houses the Oklahoma City metropolitan area, that carried the day for Bice. She scored a 55-45 percent majority of the Republican votes cast in the county, while Neese recorded 57 percent in the district’s two other counties, Pottawatomie and Seminole. Both of those counties, however, are small and accounted for just over 13 percent of the aggregate Republican vote.

At this point in the counting process, and there will likely be votes added to the final total, 51,762 individuals returned for the run-off election, meaning a retention rate of at least 76 percent when compared to the late June primary.

The OK-5 general election now becomes a top-tier Republican challenger race, joining at least 13 other such contests from around the country. Each of these district political battles is of clear importance to any chance the Republicans have of re-gaining the House majority. Realistically, the party must win all of them to even be in position to challenge for the majority, and that also assumes the GOP holds its own defensive toss-up districts.

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The Wild Kansas Senate Race

By Jim Ellis

July 21, 2020 — As we approach the Aug. 4 primaries, it’s clear that the Kansas Senate Republican primary will be the top attraction of that election day. An intra-party nomination clash in what should be a relatively safe open-seat campaign has devolved into a mixed-message political brawl.

Embattled Kansas Senate Republican candidate Kris Kobach

Just in the past month we’ve seen Democratic money coming into the Sunflower State in an attempt to influence the Republican primary, and national Republican money making an appearance trying to destroy the former GOP gubernatorial nominee. Furthermore, a well-healed third Republican candidate was being described as a multi-million dollar plumber who contributes more to Democrats. And, yesterday we saw a new ad with a candidate saying that it’s really “a badge of honor” that the Democrats are now attacking him because they’re afraid to face him in the general election.

When veteran Sen. Pat Roberts (R) announced his retirement last year, 2018 gubernatorial nominee Kris Kobach, fresh from running the disastrous Presidential Commission on Election Integrity that yielded no results before being disbanded, jumped into the Senate race. Because Kobach ran such a poor gubernatorial campaign and virtually handed the office to then-Democratic state senator Laura Kelly two years ago, Republican leaders were fearful of him becoming the Senate nominee. Democrats were also seeing early polling numbers indicating that they could beat Kobach while other Republicans were faring much better in general election ballot test pairings.

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Alabama Runoff Today

By Jim Ellis

Former US attorney general and Alabama senator, Jeff Sessions (R), faces off today against retired Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville.

July 14, 2020 — The long-awaited Alabama US Senate Republican runoff between retired Auburn University head football coach Tommy Tuberville and former US attorney general and ex-Alabama senator Jeff Sessions will be decided today, and polls are suggesting we will see a clear winner relatively early tonight.

The primary election was held way back on March 3 with the original runoff scheduled for March 31. Shortly after the primary, Gov. Kay Ivey (R) postponed the runoff in response to COVID-19 suggested precautions. The primary election ended with Sessions trailing Tuberville, 33.4 – 31.6 percent, a spread of 12,528 votes from over 717,000 ballots cast.

Originally, it appeared the four-month voting delay might be a break for Sessions, giving him time to rebound from a rather poor performance in the primary election. It doesn’t appear he has been able to turn the tide. Since the primary, nine polls have been conducted and released from six different pollsters. Eight of the surveys post Tuberville to a lead, while one showed the race a tie.

The latest survey, conducted over the July 2-9 period from Auburn University at Montgomery, finds Tuberville expanding his lead to 47-31 percent. The polling methodology poses questions, however. The Auburn pollsters list 558 respondents, but this is their general election sample. They do not indicate how many people comprised the Republican runoff likely voter cell, so it is difficult to judge reliability.

It is possible, however, that Tuberville holds such a large lead heading into the election because he is averaging a 12.3 percent advantage in the eight other polls conducted during the post-primary period. In two of the polls, both taken in May by independent pollsters, the Tuberville advantage expanded to 22 and 23 points, respectively.

Sessions’ political problems took hold when he resigned as attorney general under a barrage of criticism from President Trump. Tuberville capitalized with a wave of advertising featuring a commercial that began with a NBC interview clip between Trump and Chuck Todd where the president said his biggest regret since taking office was appointing Jeff Sessions as attorney general.

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Tomorrow’s Primaries Preview

By Jim Ellis

June 29, 2020 — Three more state primaries are on tap for tomorrow, those in Colorado, Oklahoma, and Utah. The day will be highlighted with the Colorado Senate Democratic primary where former governor John Hickenlooper battles ex-state House wpeaker Andrew Romanoff, and the Utah Republican gubernatorial primary that features four candidates vying for the right to replace retiring Gov. Gary Herbert (R).

Two of these three states, Colorado and Utah, use an all-mail voting process meaning we could again be waiting several days for final returns.

COLORADO

Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper

Democrats believe that the Centennial State is one of their best conversion opportunities in the country, and early polling confirms their analyses. Sen. Cory Gardner (R) stands for a second term but in a state that has significantly changed since he was elected in 2014. As the state continues to move closer to the Democrats, the tougher the re-election outlook for Sen. Gardner. He may well be the best campaigner in his party’s national stable, but is attaining statewide office now out of touch for any Republican? This election may definitively answer that question.

The House delegation looks set to continue with four Democrats and three Republicans. All will face general election opponents, but none appear competitive. All seven incumbents are clear favorites for re-election, and only Western Slope Congressman Scott Tipton (R-Cortez) has a nomination opponent tomorrow. Surprisingly, Rep. Doug Lamborn (R-Colorado Springs), who always seems to draw competitive intra-party opponents, is unopposed in this year’s Republican primary.

OKLAHOMA

Veteran Sen. Jim Inhofe, at 85 years of age, is seeking a fifth full term and is certainly the prohibitive favorite tomorrow night against only minimal opposition. For the Democrats, former television news reporter Abby Broyles should have little trouble in securing her party’s nomination. Already raising over $535,000 through the June 10 pre-primary report, only she and Sen. Inhofe have substantial resources among the eight major party candidates on the ballot.

The big race of the night comes in Oklahoma City’s 5th Congressional District, where a total of nine Republicans are competing for the opportunity of challenging freshman Rep. Kendra Horn (D-Oklahoma City) who unseated two-term Rep. Steve Russell (R) in 2018. This will be one of the Republicans’ top national targets since the seat has a conservative history and the Horn victory two years ago was unexpected. With nine candidates adorning the GOP ballot tomorrow, advancing to an Aug. 25 runoff election is a certainty.
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