Austin Civil Rights attorney Mike Siegel has been working hard to replace the richest Republican in Congress, reactionary Trumpist Michael McCaul, for nearly 4 years. He held McCaul down to a 51.1% win in 2018, McCaul's closest call ever. In a tough primary on March 3rd Siegel led the two "moderates" with Big Money backing who opposed his progressive platform:
• Mike Siegel- 35,450 (44.0%)• Pritesh Gandhi- 26,683 (33.1%)• Shannon Hutcheson- 18,506 (22.9%)
After voting closed in yesterday's primary runoff, Siegel, elated after the record turnout told me that "When I take office in January 2021, I'll be bringing the voices of an amazing diverse community to the halls of Congress. I'll be fighting for a progressive agenda that meets the scale of the crises we are facing: universal healthcare to address the COVID-19 pandemic; a national jobs program to address rampant unemployment; dismantling the architecture of white supremacy in our government institutions, to re-envision law enforcement, public safety and community priorities. Most of all, for the first time in 16 years, the people of TX-10 will have an open, accessible, accountable representative, someone who understands the pain of rural hospital closures and high speed Internet deserts; someone who will hold polluters accountable; who will speak out against the legacy of Jim Crow and use their congressional office to advance social change. Our path after tonight is to keep building this massive, unprecedented coalition that unites youth and seniors, environmentalists and labor, Yellow Dog Democrats and Bernie enthusiasts, and unite us all into an unstoppable force come November. We've already broken down so many barriers: turning a "safe" Republican seat into a national battleground; raising $1 million from an army of grassroots supporters; winning the Democratic nomination while talking about a Green New Deal and Medicare for All in a swing district in the heart of Texas. Now let's finish the job!"Returns from last night show Siegel leading decisively against Gandhi, who is basically a go-slow, no-can-do Democrat who would have made no substantive difference in Congress whatsoever. Mike beat him 54.2% to 45.8%, with a very heavy turnout. It's worth noting that Gandhi spent $1,130,588 compared to Mike's 665,611 and directed a sleazy scam SuperPAC, 314 Action, to spend another $661,220 smearing Mike. But the grassroots won-- and big! Today is the day to redouble our efforts to flip TX-10 by contributing to Mike's campaign and help give him the resources he needs to retire McCaul to his family estate. That's what this "Turning Texas Blue" thermometer is for. Let's take this opportunity to go all the way-- from Austin to the Harris County suburbs northwest of Houston.I admit, I don't pay a lot of attention to Republican primaries, let alone Republican primary runoffs. If there were actual moderates running against extremists, I might... by the modern day Republican Party is about each candidate vying to show he or she is more extreme and more devoted to Señor Trumpanzee. Yesterday's Alabama primary was a bit of an outlier.Senator Doug Jones, an accidental Democratic senator who filled Jeff Sessions seat when Sessions was appointed Attorney General by Trump, is viewed as the only vulnerable Democrat up for reelection this cycle. Defeating him is essential to the GOP if they are to have any hope whatsoever of holding onto their majority. The most recent polling shows that either candidate would beat Jones but that Sessions would have an easier time of it because a significant number of Sessions voters-- as much as 10%-- will not vote for Tuberville in the general.On March 3, in a 7-way primary that included establishment favorite Rep. Bradley Byrne and walking freak-show Judge Roy Moore, sessions and Tuberville, a football coach and scandal-ridden hedge fund crook and scam artist led the pack and were scheduled for a runoff at the end of tehmonth-- a runoff that's postponed by COVID until yesterday. The March 3rd results:
• Tommy Tuberville- 237,821 (33.4%)• Jeff Sessions- 224,985 (31.6%)• Bradley Byrnes- 177,217 (24.9%)• Roy Moore- 51,008 (7.2%)• Ruth Nelson- 7,131 (1.0%)• Arnold Mooney- 7,088 (1.0%)• Stanley Adair- 6,559 (0.9%)
Trump has been all in on Tuberville, including this last-minute robocall to likely Republican primary voters. Trump, in fact, has been downright apoplectic about Sessions, the first senator to endorse him for president when Trump was still just a fringe vanity candidate paying out-of-work actors to sit in the audience of his appearances and cheer his racist remarks. Here's an ad Tuberville ran after the primary with Trump's permission:Tuberville has refused to talk to the media and refused to debate Sessions, who painted him as a weal coward. But yesterday, in the midst of a horrific statewide coronavirus explosion, Alabama Republicans, as expected, gave Trump what he wanted:
• Tommy Tuberville- 333,890 (60.7%)• Jeff Sessions- 215,831 (39.3%)
Turnout was abysmal. Alabamans just couldn't pick between these two awful candidates so-- despite Trump's carryings on against Sessions and despite his case for a clownish crook like Tuberville-- few people voted. One Republican Party strategist: "The story here is that Trump cannot turn out votes in the reddest state in the country. That should worry him." Good sign for Jones? Very possible.Meanwhile, on Monday, Alabama reported 1,958 and yesterday another 1,673 new cases, bringing the state's total cases to 57,218-- a truly horrific 11,670 cases per million Alabamans. Gov. Kay Ivey (R) has screwed up the state's pandemic response in a major way, but GOP voters... have refused to connect the dots yet and look reality in the eyes... except maybe the ones who didn't come out to vote or bother mailing in absentee ballots.