Flores' upset puts cracks in 'blue wave'
Republican win hurts Texas Dems’ hopes of blocking GOP priorities.
Casting doubt on Democratic hopes for a blue wave in Texas, Republican Pete Flores defeated Democrat Pete Gallego in Tuesday’s runoff election for a vacant seat in the state Senate — a seat that had been safely in Democratic hands for years.
With the crucial midterm elections only seven weeks away, better-organized Republicans flipped the script, boosting voter enthusiasm to propel their candidate to a special election victory despite a political climate that was expected to give an advantage to Democrats.
The result was a c onfidence-draining defeat for Texas Democrats, deflating their hopes of gaining enough Texas Senate seats in November to be able to block GOP priorities in the 2019 legislative session.
Flores’ victory leaves Republicans holding 21 of the Senate’s 31 seats, giving Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick a potentially stronger base of support heading into the midterm elections.
“For the first time in history, we’ll have 21 Republican senators. For the first time in history, we have a Hispanic Republican senator,” Patrick, his arm around Flores, told supporters at the campaign victory party in San Antonio. “Seven weeks from tonight, I have a message for the Democrats that Pete Flores and his hard work delivered here: All this talk about a blue wave? Well, the tide is out.”
Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, blamed Gov. Greg Abbott for scheduling a special election at a time guaranteed to suppress voter turnout, allowing Abbott, Patrick and others to fill the void with large infusions of campaign cash and volunteers.
“Come November, no Democrat can sit on the sidelines and no campaign can take any vote for granted. We need to make sure that every voter understands what’s at stake,” Hinojosa said.
Mark Jones, a Rice University political scientist, said Democrats failed a significant test of their ability to mobilize voters, particularly party leaders in San Antonio, the population center of a farflung district that was supposed to provide Gallego with enough support to win.
“This is a district where Hillary Clinton won by 11.5 percent back in 2016. A competent Democratic Party should have no difficulty keeping this district blue regardless of when the election is called,” Jones said.
The result also raises concerns about Democratic U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke’s ability to unseat U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, despite O’Rourke’s rising national prominence, Jones said.
“It underscores a reality that in spite of Betomania, the Texas Democratic Party is a very weak and at times feckless organization. It simply doesn’t have the ability to target and mobilize voters the same way that Texas Republicans do. And we saw that advantage (Tuesday), where Texas Republicans saw an opportunity and they took it, and Democrats failed to respond,” he said.
Grass-roots power
With Tuesday’s victory, Flores will represent Senate District 19 when the Legislature convenes in January, filling the final two years of the term vacated when former Sen. Carlos Uresti, D-San Antonio, resigned in June, shortly before he was sentenced to 12 years in prison for his role in defrauding investors in a Texas oil services company.
Flores said his 53 percent to 47 percent victory was a testament to the power of the grass roots.
“This campaign showed us what we can do united as Republicans,” he told supporters late Tuesday. “We need to continue this momentum until November. I encourage you to take this enthusiasm back home and continue this to elect our Republican conservative candidates.”
The district, which stretches from San Antonio to the Big Bend region and the New Mexico border, has traditionally favored Democrats — with Uresti defeating Flores in 2016 by almost 16 points.
Tuesday’s 22-point turnaround by Flores, the former law enforcement director for the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, began when he finished first in an eight-way special election on July 31, receiving 34.4 percent of the vote to 28.9 percent for Gallego — an unexpectedly strong showing that kindled GOP hopes for a runoff victory.
Senate implications
Tuesday’s runoff denied Gallego’s bid to return to the Texas Capitol.
Gallego spent 22 years in the Texas House representing a West Texas district and two years in the U.S. Congress, but his most recent campaign was dogged by a Republican Party lawsuit that accused him of living with his wife and son in Austin, not in District 19 as required by state law.
The election also dimmed Democratic hopes of reaching a significant threshold in the Texas Senate, where legislation needs support from 19 senators to get a floor vote.
Democrats have been targeting two Republican incumbents in November — Sens. Konni Burton of Colleyville and Don Huffines of Dallas — in hopes of reducing the GOP majority to 18, a number that would require Republicans to gain support from at least one Democrat to advance legislation.
They also have an outside hope of defeating Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston, whose district was won by President Donald Trump by a 1-point margin in 2016.
Flores’ victory means Democrats will have to defeat all three Republican incumbents in November to reduce GOP ranks below the 19-vote margin — an unlikely scenario, Jones said.
“Any Democratic hopes of winning enough seats to block Republicans were shattered last night,” Jones said Wednesday.
Patrick’s Democratic opponent, Mike Collier, said Flores’ victory raises the stakes in the race for lieutenant governor and could serve to inspire Democratic voters.
“This now makes my race against Dan Patrick quite possibly the most important race of the 2018 cycle,” Collier said. “If he’s re-elected, there will be no stopping Patrick’s dictatorial rule in the Senate. Another Patrick term means Texans should be prepared for more bathroom bills, more education funding cuts, more broken promises to retired teachers, all the while costing all of us more in property taxes.”