Texas primaries: Unpacking the results from key races

AUSTIN, Texas - From a closely watched race for district attorney in Travis County, to a hotly contested U.S. Senate primary, to the effects of political retribution in the Texas legislature, the results of the recent Texas primary were anything but boring.

FOX 7 Austin's John Krinjak spoke with Scott Braddock, editor of QuorumReport.com, to unpack the results.

JOHN KRINJAK: So here in Travis County, the sitting Democratic DA Jose Garza, a progressive, easily defeated the more moderate Democrat Jeremy Silverstein. A lot of people have complained about crime in Austin, violent crime, on the rise over the last four years or so, and a lot of money went into this campaign against Garza. But why do you think that didn't translate into more votes?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: I mean, look at a Democratic primary in Travis County. You always have to give the edge to the more progressive candidate. And of course, in this case, the DA, the sitting DA certainly, is that. It's no secret in Austin that the challenger was getting some money from Republicans, and his challenger was counting on some Republicans switching over and voting in that race. But I think in the estimation of Austin voters, it just was not the case that folks were, you know, just losing their minds about rising crime levels in the city.

JOHN KRINJAK: Let's talk about the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. Sitting Congressman Colin Allred easily prevailing in a field of several candidates that included State Sen. Roland Gutierrez, who obviously represents Uvalde. He made gun violence his big issue. So what do you make of Allred's decisive win here over quite a few candidates?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: Look, there were not many people voting in the Democratic primary statewide. And in this year's U.S. Senate race, the only candidate who had the resources to reach the people across the state who were voting is Congressman Allred, and no one, Gutierrez included, nobody else in the field had any sort of resources like that to be able to compete with him. He's already pretty well known as somebody who was able to beat a Republican previously, that was Congressman Pete Sessions, and now he's hoping to do the same thing again and taking on Republican Sen. Ted Cruz.

JOHN KRINJAK: And to that point, how equipped do you think Allred is? Do you think essentially Democrats picked the right guy to take on Cruz in November?

SCOTT BRADDOCK: It'll be a very different race from what we saw the last time that Sen. Cruz was up for reelection back in 2018, when Beto O'Rourke was the challenger. I would say that O'Rourke and Congressman Allred are very different candidates. I would say that O'Rourke is more of an undisciplined candidate. You know, he's the guy who's, you know, riding a skateboard in the Whataburger parking lot, you know, maybe doing a shot and dropping F-bombs, things like that. You're not going to see Congressman Allred do that. He's what I would call a very disciplined candidate. And look, in the 2018 race, there were basically three things that kind of came together to make that a really competitive race. That was President Trump in office at the time. There's backlash to Sen. Cruz, even among some Republicans. And then, of course, you had Beto O'Rourke kind of come out of nowhere and set the political world on fire. This time around, two of those things are still true. You've got Trump in the mix, and Sen. Cruz, and now you have a very different kind of candidate running as the Democrat. And we'll see if it works. 

JOHN KRINJAK: I want to turn to the Texas Legislature, a lot going on there this week. We talked about that theme of political retribution and Gov. Abbott endorsing primary opponents of Republicans who didn't support his school choice voucher plan, Ken Paxton doing a similar thing, trying to get rid of GOP members who voted for his impeachment. Big picture: to what degree did that all work? 

SCOTT BRADDOCK: I think for the governor, he did move the needle significantly in his direction. I do think that some of the headlines this week that said that, basically, that school vouchers are now going to pass in Texas, I think that that's folks getting ahead of themselves. There's a long way to go on this. I think, for some of the candidates that Paxton endorsed, that actually worked against them in a lot of cases, because the central issue there is Ken Paxton's legal and personal problems, which, of course, you know, he still has to deal with. He's got a criminal trial coming up in Houston. And as the Speaker of the House Dade Phelan said just the other day in Beaumont, where he's from, he said, look, the attorney general may have more than one criminal trial coming up.

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JOHN KRINJAK: And speaking of Dade Phelan, perhaps the House member that Ken Paxton likes the least, he is now headed for a runoff after a close race on Tuesday, Phelan facing that Paxton backed candidate, David Covey. So, what do you think of the chances that Phelan is able to hold on to his seat? 

SCOTT BRADDOCK: Look, the real factor there isn't Paxton, it's Donald Trump. That's the elephant in the room. The fact that the former president has weighed in not just on Phelan's race, but some of these other Texas House races. That's unprecedented to have a former president do that. I do think that Speaker Phelan has held up pretty well. You know, there have been some folks who said that it's a sign of weakness, that he's now in a runoff. But I think the fact that, you know, in a three-way race, Phelan was able to get 44 percent of the vote when he's got the former president of the United States, Donald Trump, the attorney general, Ken Paxton, the lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, and others in the Republican Party, big players in the Republican Party, against him. I think it's a sign of strength. Now, that doesn't mean it's going to be easy for him to win that runoff. And he could well lose. But he's in the fight of his political life, and he's treating it that way.