Greg Abbott, Beto O'Rourke secure nominations for governor's race in Texas primary election

[BumRushDaShow]

Last edited Tue Mar 1, 2022, 10:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: Austin American-Statesman

Gov. Greg Abbott won the Republican party nomination in his campaign for a third term in office on Tuesday, fending off two challengers who sought to push the governor further to the right on key issues in the race.

Abbott will face Beto O'Rourke in the November general election, after the El Paso Democrat cruised to victory in the Democratic primary contest with more than 90% of the vote, according to initial results. The Associated Press called the race for both candidates based on initial results from early voting statewide.

Abbott faced seven challengers in his reelection bid: Chad Prather, Don Huffines, Allen West, Danny Harrison, Kandy Kaye Horn, Paul Belew and Rick Perry (not the former Texas governor). Huffines, a former state senator from Dallas who ran to Abbott's right, said in a statement that he would not challenge the outcome of Tuesday's election, acknowledging Abbott's victory.

"Though I will not be contesting the outcome of this election, I will not be going away," Huffines said in a statement. "I will always fight to defend the God-given rights and liberties of Texans." O'Rourke, a former congressman from El Paso, declared victory in Tuesday's primary at an event in Fort Worth. "It looks like, from the early returns, I will be your nominee for governor for the state of Texas," he said.

Read more: https://www.statesman.com/story/news/politics/state/2022/03/02/texas-governor-primary-election-day-results-greg-abbott-beto-orourke/6785929001/

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Original headline and article -

Live updates: Democrats nominate O'Rourke for Texas governor


EL PASO — Democrats have officially made Beto O’Rourke their nominee for Texas governor and latest hope of ending decades of losses in the nation’s biggest red state.

O’Rourke had no serious primary competition and has spent the early months of his campaign trying to regain his footing in Texas after his run for president in 2020 soured some of his supporters back home. No Democrat has won statewide office in Texas in nearly 30 years. O’Rourke came close in 2018 when his narrow loss for a U.S. Senate seat made him a party phenomenon.

But that energy didn’t last after joining a crowded field of Democrats vying the White House. So far, O’Rourke has shown he can still quickly raise millions of dollars and draw a crowd. But he has also been pressed on liberal positions he took during his run for president, none more famous than his “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15.”

Last month, O’Rourke said during a campaign stop in East Texas that he “wasn’t interested in taking anything away from anyone” but has continued to say assault weapons shouldn’t be on the streets.

[FalloutShelter]

1. Yay...

Go Beto!

[BlueWavePsych]

2. Beto, Beto, Beto

[dalton99a]

11. +1. End the Republican reign of terror

[onetexan]

18. +1 -K&R

[SergeStorms]

3. Let's go Beto! 🌪🌪🌪🌪

Like the Texas Tornado he is, Beto is going to WIN!

[monkeyman1]

4. I heard they are going to deport Abbott to Russia to replace Putin ?

don't know if it's true or not ?

[Skittles]

7. last I heard they were gonna put Abbott in charge of the Russian electrical grid

yes INDEED

[monkeyman1]

15. he'd fit right in !!

[SouthBayDem]

5. NINETY percent. Commanding!

Meanwhile, head-to-head polling has Abbott leading O'Rourke with an average lead of 8.8 points in recent polling.

[SpankMe]

6. It's time to flood Beto with cash

Everyone on DU should throw him a few dollars for the general election. Getting out the vote and nullifying the voter suppression in TX should be a priority.

Do it through ActBlue, or through his own website. I just donated $50 through ActBlue just now.

[SouthernDem4ever]

8. I had to laugh at the beginning of the article

"Gov. Greg Abbott won the Republican party nomination in his campaign for a third term in office on Tuesday, fending off two challengers who sought to push the governor further to the right on key issues in the race."

How much further into crazyville can he go? LOL

[BumRushDaShow]

9. With them

there is no bottom nor lunatic extreme that they can't plumb the depths to reach.

[onetexan]

19. Abbott's bent on the 2024 POTUS race

He w use the 3rd run as that spring board, hellbent on turning this country into a lutanic theocracy.

[2naSalit]

10. Cool!

the El Paso Democrat cruised to victory in the Democratic primary contest with more than 90% of the vote, according to initial results.

When's the last time that happened in any election?

[BumRushDaShow]

12. He blew away the others in the primary by a significant amount

https://ballotpedia.org/Beto_O'Rourke

Candidate | % | Votes

✔ Beto O'Rourke | 91.3 | 846,966

Joy Diaz | 3.2 | 29,810

Michael Cooper | 3.0 | 27,825

Inocencio Barrientez | 1.3 | 11,740

Rich Wakeland | 1.3 | 11,606

[2naSalit]

13. Thanks...

I would have been disappointed if it had turned out any other way. I hope he wins in the general.

[BumRushDaShow]

14. Have to really get the turnout up big time!

[Tree Lady]

16. What's sad is total votes of republicans

Is 1.5 million. Like him but he has a lot of voters to change.

[BumRushDaShow]

17. Primaries tend to have fewer voters

And you also have this mess that just happened in TX related to this primary (and Democrats have tended to use this form of voting) -

Counties reject up to 40 percent of Texas mail ballots amid confusion over new elections law

Taylor Goldenstein, Austin Bureau
Feb. 11, 2022
Updated: Feb. 11, 2022 1:35 p.m.



Nearly 4 in 10 Harris County mail ballots are being rejected because of a missing ID number, a new requirement of the Republican-backed voting bill passed last year that is causing confusion among voters. This is just the latest problem to arise over the new rules. The ID provision, which Republican lawmakers said was meant to reduce voter fraud, has already led to unprecedented levels of denials of applications for mail ballots across the state.

Election officials in Harris County on Thursday said about 40 percent, or 1,430 out of 3,579 mail-in ballots received, had been rejected and sent back to voters to correct because they did not contain an ID number. It’s yet to be seen how many will have to be corrected because of the use of an ID number that varies from what is in a voter’s file. Those nearly 4,000 ballots received so far only comprise 10 percent of the more than 27,000 sent out by the county. The deadline to request a mail-in ballot is Feb. 18, so that number could still grow.

Other counties have also reported high rejection rates, such as Hays and Williamson counties in the Austin metropolitan area, which will each need to send back about 30 percent of ballots for correction, the Texas Tribune reported. Statewide numbers are not available from the Secretary of State, which did not respond to a request for comment.

Voters whose ballots were rejected will have an opportunity to correct their ballot by mail, or, if the deadline is coming up too soon, officials will call or email voters. They would need to then go to their local elections office in person. Another option would be to use the state’s new online ballot tracker to correct any mistakes. Completed ballots have to be postmarked by 7 p.m. on March 1. They can also be delivered in person on election day.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/election/2022/article/texas-mail-ballot-rejections-missing-ids-16905208.php

Harris County is the largest (by population) county in TX IIRC (with Houston), so this fiasco is a dry run and a warning to get outreach ramped up, and make sure that mail voters are educated on what is required to get their ballots accepted. I expect there would be a low "correction" rate once a ballot was rejected, especially for a primary. So the potential electorate votes might obviously be much more than what is being reflected in the current tally.

I know here in PA (and Philly), we had that picayune issue come up with rejections of mail-in ballots that were unsigned and/or undated, and/or didn't have an address filled out (all required on the outside envelope).

But what really made the (national) news during the 2020 primary and general elections, was that there were ballots that were not placed and sealed inside a smaller inner envelope, that would then be placed inside the larger outer envelope used for mailing the ballot. I.e., the so-called (ridiculous term, IMHO) "naked ballots".