My Picks For Mike Hailey’s Poll
If you don’t make checking Mike Hailey’s Capitol Inside an everyday occurrence, you should. Besides the well thought out pieces he puts together on his own, Capitol Inside also offers news clippings from around the state, and from time to time some interesting polls for readers to weigh in on. The latest poll really caught my eye, Which House Candidate Has The Best Chance To Win In November.
As fate would have it, our five candidates - Chris Turner, Todd Hunter, Joe Moody, Greg Meyers, and Tim Kleinschmidt - all happen to be challenging the incumbent party. Since it’s been too long since I offered some election commentary on this site, lets quickly go through these one at a time as I rank them from most likely to win on down.
Tim Kleinschmidt
For me, putting Mr. K (much easier to type) at the top was an easy decision to reach for a variety of reasons. As a challenger to a likable incumbent in 2006, Mr. K got dangerously close to pulling it out despite being caught up in the worst election year for Texas Republicans in modern history. This time around, Mr. K doesn’t have to challenge a popular incumbent democrat in a district that gave Hutchison, Dewhurst, Abbott and Combs 63% or more.
Mr. K also holds the early fundraising lead in this race, and I suspect more money will soon be pouring in. But perhaps the biggest reason I place Mr. K so high is the buzz on his race. I’ve heard it said more than once that democrats are going to have to pick up 6 seats to take the House, to make up for Robby Cook’s seat flipping.
Chris Turner
Every time I hear Bill Zedler’s name, the immediate thought that runs through my head is…Dead Man Walking. I think Chris Turner has the upper hand in this race for various reasons, all of which I have previously documented here. I won’t bore you by re-listing them. But suffice to say that Chris Turner runs a very close second on this particular challenger ranking.
Todd Hunter
Judging by the amount of money that Mr. Hunter has been able to raise, I’m not the only one who expects him to be very competitive in November. Despite his fundraising success, I suspect that Mr. Hunter will be outspent this November, but that is due to another advantage that Mr. Hunter holds…the incumbent democrat is running for re-election in a solidly Republican district.
Lets be honest for a moment, Juan Garcia didn’t beat Gene Seamen…Gene Seamen beat Gene Seamen. Last time at the polls, HD 32 gave Hutchison better than 65 percent. It put Perry north of 41 despite being a five-way field, and every other statewide Republican enjoyed a very comfortable margin as well.
Mr. Hunter has represented this district before, yet another advantage that will help cut into Juan Garcia’s power of incumbency. And the early polling numbers have the Garcia camp losing focus and frantically pulling their hair out.
Greg Meyers
These last two really were a toss up for me, but a decision has to be made so I put Mr. Meyers at number 4. His fundraising numbers from the last period were impressive, but at the same time they also left room for improvement. We all know that incumbent Hubert Vo hasn’t done himself many favors in the press lately, but I’m not sure if that alone sinks him.
Again, this is a district where the Rs do noticeably better than the ds, but I think the real key in this race is if Mr. Meyers can use his school board experience from the district’s largest school district to reach out to the education community and combat the district’s foreign born community that Mr. Vo has pulled so well from in elections past.
Joe Moody
The son of a local Judge, Mr. Moody certainly has name ID where most challengers don’t. And as I have said before, we’re talking about El Paso here, which means that all bets are off.
Mr. Moody also benefits from not having to challenge a longtime incumbent, and he has shown the ability to fundraise but he still trails a rather wide margin in the cash on hand race. However, here is why I put Mr. Moody as least likely on this list to have Representative in-front of his name come January…this district is still Republican. During his Senate run, Dee Margo took 54 percent in HD 78 in 2006 despite the bad year for his party. Heck, HD 78 even gave Perry 42.5%.
I expect this race to be close. But I could see the voter mood in Texas being much better than the nationwide voter mood as the edge that allows Republicans to hang on to the seat for at least two more years.
Conclusion
An interesting five that Mr. Hailey gave us to ponder. If I had to guess, I would say we have three flips here. Now we will have to wait and see if Mr. Hailey gives us another challengers poll to think on. Because we still haven’t talked about Keffer, Castro, Maldanado and a few others.