Editor Wakes Up to Report Final Numbers
What happened? Where am I? Mom?
Apparently, a nearly 40-year-old editor can hit “refresh” on the county elections website only so many times before he passes out. While I was asleep, the totals were posted.
In Texas House District 108, Morgan Meyer captured 47 percent of the 12,291 votes cast. Chart Westcott earned 30 percent, and Court Alley finished with 23 percent.
That means Meyer and Westcott will continue on the campaign trail until a May 27 runoff. In a twisted version of Groundhog Day, the district’s voters will be subjected to 12 more weeks of mailers and robo-calls.
But, hey, at least you won’t be getting any more of those outrageous mailers for the Texas Senate race. Highland Park resident Don Huffines’ strategy of going negative paid off, as he won 50.6 percent of the 49,637 votes cast in District 16, meaning the 2015 edition of the Legislature will be the first since 1989 that won’t include John Carona.
We were keeping an eye on two other races involving Park Cities people:
University Park resident Dan Branch — who vacated the District 108 seat, thereby introducing us all to Alley, Meyer, and Westcott — is headed for a runoff with state Sen. Ken Paxton as they compete for the Republican nomination for attorney general. Branch got 33.5 percent statewide to Paxton’s 44.4 percent.
And Mary Brown of University Park cruised to victory in the five-person Democratic primary for the vacancy in the 301st Family District Court. She earned 64 percent of the 56,149 ballots casts across the county.
After spending more than half his adult life as a member of the Legislature, it’s probably time Mr. Carona allowed someone else a turn.
If my math is correct, young Chart spent over $150 per vote. Sad what we’ve come to.
I haven’t taken a math class since I left the tutelage of Dr. Olene Brame at Booker T. Washington High School in 1992. But my records show that Chart Westcott spent $1,199,989.90 in this campaign and received 3,709 votes. That comes out to $323.53 per vote.
Morgan Meyer spent $63.47 per vote, and Court Alley spent $28.31 per vote.
I was using the $500K expenditure number that I recently read.
Chart could have won the primary outright with a simple: “I pledge $1M to Mad for Plaid if elected”. No mailers, no robo-calls, no debates.
While I was averaging two to four mailers per day, at least I never got any robo calls for the Meyer/Westcott/Alley race. Got way too many for the Huffines/Carona race, so I’m really glad that’s over. Robocalls are 100 times worse and 100x more annoying than mailers.