November 12, 2004

New Map Could Be Ticket for GOP
Sweep in Last Texas Battleground

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

Texas Republicans converted three East Texas seats to GOP contol and eliminated a fourth district that had belonged to Democrats on the new map they used as a springboard to a majority in the state's congressional delegation. That was the meat and potatoes. Now they can smell the gravy.

One of those seats already changed hands when Dayton City Councilman John Otto blindsided Democratic State Rep. Dan Ellis of Livingston in a southeast Texas race that had been all but forgotten amid forgone conclusions on both sides that the incumbent would win. Republicans give their new redistricting plan a generous amount of the credit for Otto's surprise win - and they predict that other state House Democrats will meet the same fate as Ellis as a result of the same new map that prompted U.S. Rep. Ralph Hall of Rockwall to swtich parties while ensuring the political demise of U.S. Reps. Max Sandlin of Marshall, Nick Lampson of Beaumont and Jim Turner of Crockett

Republicans think that most if not all of the state House Democrats in East Texas will fall in two years because they no longer have the defensive cover of the gift of the votes that incumbents like Sandlin and Turner turned out with the force of their party's national money and muscle behind them. As a result, GOP strategists think the next session of the Legislature could well be the last for Democratic State Reps. Mark Homer of Paris, Jim McReynolds of Lufkin and Chuck Hopson of Jacksonville - thanks to the GOP's topographical expertise that was on display at the Texas Capitol during redistricting last year.

The 2004 elections in East Texas showed more than ever that races for the Legislature and Congress are not mutually exlusive political endeavors. At the same time that Sandlin and Lampson were losing worse than they'd expected, Homer, McReynolds and Hopson spent election night on the edge of their seats as they weathered challenges in re-election contests that turned out to be much closer than partisans from both parties dreamed they woud be. While a stronger showing by President George W. Bush in rural areas of Texas gave down-ballot candidates a more significant lift than they experienced four years ago, Republican state House candidates appeared to have enjoyed a substantial boost from the coattails of congressional contenders who scorched the competition in districts where all of the East Texas state House seats are located. Unlike previous election cycles, Democrats running for the Texas House no longer had the luxury of well-armed congressional incumbents in relatively easy races on the ballot above them as a seawall against coattails from the top of the ticket and a source of shared support from voters the congressmen turned out with the help of the national party machinery.

Republicans knocked off Ellis and gave the other East Democrats major scares as GOP challengers Louis Gohmert of Tyler and Ted Poe of Houston teamed with U.S. Rep. Kevin Brady of The Woodlands, Hall and a couple of other GOP incumbents from districts in or near Dallas to turn out sufficient numbers of Republican voters to crush their Democratic foes in districts that overlapped with the state House seats that Democrats still hold.

There were no "stoppers" such as Sandlin, who received only 38 percent of the vote against Gohmert, or Turner, who received none of the vote because he decided not to seek re-election after Republicans deleted his seat. When two out of every three East Texas voters had already voted for Bush at the top of the ticket, there was simply less chance of them splitting their tickets by the time they got to Ellis or other state House Democrats than there might have been had they already broken ranks to support a Democrat for Congress against one of the weaker opponents they'd faced in previous years.

In Ellis' case, the name of James "Jim" Wright on the ticket above him as Brady's Democratic opponent gave the Republican incumbent an incentive to spend more on turning out voters to give him a cushion in a congressional district that contains two HD 18 counties and part of another. Voters that Brady turned out were probably more likely to vote for the Republican in the state representative's race because he was on Brady's side. Brady won 59 percent of the vote in Polk County where Ellis resides, 67 percent of the Liberty County vote and 79 percent in the part of Montgomery County that CD 8 shares with HD 18. Despite generating minimal interest from his own party and raising substantially less money than other Republicans in close races, Otto appeared to have coattails from Brady to help carry him to an upset win that might not have been possible if Turner would have been polling percentages similar to Brady's like he did during Ellis' first two re-election bids. Sixty-five percent of the voters in Ellis' district also are in the congressional district represented by Brady, who was re-elected with 69 percent of the vote against the opponent with the same basic name as the Fort Worth Democrat and former U.S. House speaker by little else on which to pin hopes for an upset.

Most of Ellis' constituents had been represented in Congress by Turner, who was never held to less than 58 percent in two re-election bids and ran unopposed in another. When teamed up with Turner in the race right above, Ellis received between 51 percent and 53 percent in his first three House races. With Wright taking Turner's place as the Democrats' U.S. House nominee, Ellis finished with less than 46 percent of the vote last week.

Republicans now think they have Hopson, Homer and McReynolds in similar traps that the Democrats will find hard to escape as GOP leaders use the evidence of last week's results to help recruit cream-of-the-crop challengers who will have well-stocked war chests to unload against the Democratic incumbents who are now on their own without help from Sandlin, Turner or other quality candidates for Congress who will likely think twice before running in districts where tested incumbents who raised large sums of money couldn't even come close on the new map this year.

Almost 60 percent of the voters in McReynolds' district reside in Angelina County, which was represented by Turner on the old map before Republicans shuffled it into a new district where Gohmert beat Sandlin with 61 percent of the vote last week. Gohmert received 57 percent of the vote in Angelina County. In other counties that McReynolds shared with Turner until this year, Brady won between 53 percent and 60 percent of the vote. With Turner and McReynolds sharing the same voters, the Lufkin House Democrat averaged 62 percent of the vote in two re-election bids and ran unopposed in a third after unseating his predecessor, Billy Clemons, after he'd switched parties in 1996. Clemons almost pulled off an upset when he won 49 percent of the vote in a rematch with McReynolds and fell 1,017 votes short of reclaiming the seat.

Homer faces a similar dilemma in a district with counties that Hall represents as a Republican in Congress as a result of his decision to switch to the GOP at the start of the year. The veteran congressman carried the three largest counties in HD 3 with percentages of support that ranged from 56 percent in Titus County to 67 percent in Hopkins County. Sandlin had represented the counties in Homer's district on the old U.S. House map - and he worked hard to turn out his base vote against Republican opponents like the late Noble Willingham - an actor who'd had more interest from directors casting small parts in movies and television shows than he could muster from the GOP powers that be for a race against Sandlin four years ago. Sandlin, who'd won the Congressional District 1 seat in 1996, won 56 percent of the vote against Willingham and polled that same amount against another outmanned foe in 2002. It's probably safe to assume that the majority of voters who backed Sandlin would have voted for Homer if he would have had opposition in his first two re-election bids after winning his initial race with 57 percent in 1998. The presence of a strong congressional incumbent on the ballot above might help explain the GOP's reluctance to challenge Homer for the state House seat. But with a substantial majority of voters in the state House district checking Bush and Gohmert in the first two races on this year's ballot, Homer barely survived with a 187-vote victory over Kirby Hollingsworth of Mt. Vernon in another race that was much closer than most Democrats and quite a few Republicans had ever imagined it would be.

Most Democrats and Republicans had also written off the GOP's chances of capturing the seat held by Hopson. Hopson's district had been split between the districts represented by Democrats Turner and Sandlin on the old congressional map. But this year HD 11 was split among congressional districts that Gohmert and Republican U.S. Reps. Joe Barton of Ennis and Jeb Hensarling of Dallas won easily. After being unopposed in 2002, Hopson received less than 53 percent of the vote last week against a Republican opponent who'd appeared hopelessly outmatched and underfunded and was all but ignored by the state GOP. Hopson and the other East Texas House Democrats can expect full-fledged challenges in 2006 if they choose to seek re-election.

The GOP can be expected to make a serious run at Northeast Texas' newest lawmaker, State Rep.-elect Stephen Frost, in 2006. With Hall on the ballot above him in the largest counties in HD 1, Frost prevailed over his Republican opponent with 53 percent of last week's vote. Republicans, however, will note that the outgoing Democratic incumbent, State Rep. Barry Telford, hadn't received less than 62 percent of the HD 1 vote in more than a decade with Sandlin and a Democratic predecessor winning congressional races as a member of the same team on the ballot above.