|
Vegas Casino Interests Strike Out Again
as Wambsganss Scores OT Slot in SD 9
Capitol Inside
November 4, 2025
Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick fortified a roadblock that he's had in place on an expansion of gambling in Texas when Republican John Huffman was eliminated on Tuesday night in a special state Senate race that's headed to overtime with the chamber president's candidate and a Democrat who led the pack.
Democrat Taylor Rehmet and Republican Leigh Wambsganss advanced to a runoff in the special Senate District 9 contest while a pair of Democrats Christian Menefee and Amanda Edwards scored slots in OT in a special Congressional District 18 battle in the Houston area.
All of 17 proposed changes to the Texas Constitution on Tuesday's ballot were approved by huge margins with shares of the statewide vote that ranged from 56 percent to 81 percent. Governor Greg Abbott had campaigned across the state for the propositions that emerged from the Texas Legislature this year in regular and special sessions.
Rehmet and Wambsganss received 44 percent and 40 percent of the special vote in SD 9 respectively while Menefee finished in first in the special election to replace the late Sylvester Turner with 32 percent to land a ticket to a runoff with runner-up Amanda Edwards. A former Houston city council member, Edwards kept her campaign for CD 18 alive with 25 percent of the vote.
Democratic State Rep. Jolanda Jones placed third in a field with 16 contenders in the special congressional contest with 19 percent as the only other candidate with doubie-digit support. Seven Democrats and five Republicans were on the Tuesday ballot along with four rivals who ran as independents or third-party hopefuls in the heavily-Democratic district that's gone without representation since Turner died in March.
Menefee, the Harris County attorney, had been widely regarded as the frontrunner in CD 18 with Edwards close behind in that respect. Rehmet - the only Democrat in the special election for SD 9 - had been viewed as a probable runoff participant going into Tuesday.
But the duel between Wambsganss and Huffman for the second slot in overtime appeared to have the potential to be close before she sent him packing from the race with more than twice as much support at the ballot box as the GOP rival in the race.
Huffman's failure to qualify for the second round represented another significant blow to gambling proponents after amassing a war chest with a seven-digit sum from the Las Vegas Sands PAC that accounted for nearly 90 percent of the total take. Huffman enjoyed considerable name identification in the suburbs north of downtown Fort Worth as a former Southlake mayor.
But Huffman needed some degree of support from independents and Democrats who considered casino gambling to be a higher priority than partisan loyalty. The tentative box score in the special SD 9 contest gives the impression that the crossover support that Huffman had to have failed to materialize as Democrats stuck with their own candidate in the race.
Wambsganss will expect to run in OT as the favorite in a district where President Donald Trump garnered 58 percent of the vote in 2024. But Rehmet received 3 percent more of the Tuesday vote than Kamala Harris managed in the Tarrant Senate district last fall. Rehmet would have to attract a significant number of Huffman supporters to his side of the ring to have a realistic chance of winning.
The victors in the special congressional fight in Harris County and the Tarrant County Senate showdown will be favored to keep the seats next year with the primaries as their biggest tests.
more to come ...
| 
