February 28, 2006

England Claims Special Election Victory
in Battle for Open House Seat in Dallas

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor

The winning streak that Texas Democrats envisioned after taking back a state House seat in Austin in February never materialized as Republican Kirk England jumped out to a big lead and held on for a victory over Katy Hubener in a special election for the lower chamber in the Dallas area on Tuesday.

England, the son of a popular Grand Prairie mayor, finished with almost 53 percent of the vote compared to 46 percent for Hubener while Libertarian candidate Gene Freeman failed to reach one percent in the special race for the House District 106 seat.

Forty-six percent of the voters who took part in the decision on a replacement for Allen cast their ballots during the early voting period. England received a total of 2,788 votes - 350 more than Hubener could manage - despite coming in second among the voters who waited until Tuesday to register their preference for the post. Hubener had support from 53 percent of the voters who went to the polls on the day of the special election after receiving only 39 percent of the early votes cast.

Democrats had hoped that Donna Howard's victory in a special House election runoff in Austin on Valentine's Day would be the springboard for an electoral trend that would sweep Hubener into office while creating momentum for other Democrats on the ballot this fall. Howard wrestled away a state House seat that Republicans had controlled for three years with 58 percent of the HD 48 runoff vote, defeating Ben Bentzin with room to spare after the Republican had entered the Austin special race as the favorite to win.

But Hubener in her race against England fell one percentage point short of the share of votes she captured in November 2004 when challenging Allen in a general election contest that degenerated into a bitter feud marked by personal insinuations and insults by the time the election was held. While Hubener raised more than $100,000 and kept the fundraising competition close in her battle against England, she employed a different strategy in the HD 106 special election than Howard had used against Bentzin. While Howard pumped more than 70 percent of the contributions she'd raised into cable television advertising in her victorious House bid, Hubener opted for a more conventional game plan that relied more on direct mail and phone banks to energize Democrats in order to get out the vote. The Democratic contestant in HD 106 limited her media buys to about 10 percent of the money she had for the special campaign.

Republicans, meanwhile, appeared to learn a lesson from their experience in the special Austin House race as they mobilized an early vote that was too much for England's Democratic foe to overcome at the election day polls. Direct mail and voter contact efforts appeared to work relatively well for England in a district that still trends Republican despite appearing to be within the Democrats' reach on paper.

Hubener will get a another chance when she squares off with England in a general election rematch eight months from now - assuming that the special election winner beats Republican Edward Smith in next week's primary election. Smith didn't run in the special race for the open seat in the district that includes all of Grand Prairie and the southern part of Irving. But he will be on the GOP ballot next week.