Wright Only Scored 31% of Total GOP Vote
in Special Election Despite Plug from Trump

Capitol Inside
May 2, 2021

The runoff in the special 6th Congressional District race has set the stage for a reunion that features Donald Trump and Rick Perry as the marquee supporters for the two Republicans who advanced to overtime in the initial election on Saturday.

The former president is backing Susan Wright - a conservative activist whose husband had been the district's representative before his death in February after coming down with COVID-19 when he'd been gravely ill with lung cancer. Perry has been touting rookie Republican State Rep. Jake Ellzey of Midlothian in his campaign for the opening that Ron Wright's tragic demise created.

Wright and Ellzey scored spots in the second round with 19 percent and 14 percent of the vote in the special election in CD 6 respectively in an original field that contained 23 candidates including nine other Republicans who were eliminated from the competition last night.

Ellzey had raised almost twice as much money for the special battle than Wright despite her status as a candidate who'd enjoy the residual effects of incumbency as the late congressman's widow who has experience in politics herself as a member of the State Republican Executive Committee.

As the longest serving governor in Texas history, Perry appeared to be an equalizing force whose endorsement would be more valuable than ever for Ellzey in light of his most recent public role as the secretary of energy in Trump's original cabinet.

But Perry was no match for Trump himself in terms of celebrity support after the ex-president threw his muscle behind Wright in the closing days of the race to replace her late spouse in a move that made her the betting favorite heading into the Saturday vote.

The special election in the U.S. House district that's anchored in Tarrant County would be the first test of Trump's sway among GOP voters in the aftermath of his turbulent presidency that culminated with the baseless election challenge and the riot that killed five people at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.

Trump was quick to give himself the credit for Wright's first-place finish in a race that the Democrats had seen as a golden opportunity to seize the early momentum on the Texas battlefield for 2022 with a takeover in a district that the former president had won by a mere 3 percentage points in November.

But Wright's husband who'd died several weeks before the general election had fared better than Trump in CD 6 last fall with a 9-point win over a Democratic challenger. The late congressman had knocked off Ellzey in a primary runoff in 2018 en route to his initial election with a victory of 8 points over Democrat Jana Lynne Sanchez.

Ellzey edged Sanchez out for the second slot in the runoff with 354 more votes than the Democrat based on the unofficial returns in a district where more than 78,000 votes were cast in the special contest. .

Ellzey spent a substantial amount of time playing defense amid attempts by some of the other Republicans to portray him as a liberal - a charge that he denied on the grounds that he'd been a lifelong member of the GOP.

While Trump's endorsement of Wright could make the challenge Ellzey faces in OT all but insurmountable, it might not be worth quite as much as anticipated based on an analysis of the first election in CD 6.

Wright only received 31 percent of the vote that the race's 11 Republicans received in round one. That might be a sign that the runoff could be closer than some expect.