Excellent Candidate Wins Texas Democratic Senate Primary. Now Let’s Flip The Seat In November.
Our headline would have been the same either way.
Last night, at 9:07 Most-Of-Texas Time, 10:07 Eastern, Dave Wasserman, the Cook Political Report guy who ends the suspense when he says he has seen enough, had seen enough:
Much later, around 1:50 Texas time, the AP called it:
And there you have it.
It took quite a while for the majors to start making calls in that race last night, because fuckery had been afoot. Just not enough fuckery to actually affect the result.
It was all caused by Republicans, of course, and their newfound passion for enforcing a 40-year-old law. Let us explain! let us explain as succinctly as possible.
You see, the parties did not run their elections together in Dallas County like they usually do. Usually, they do it jointly, which means they agree to the same rules, etc. This led to a lot of confusion, because a 40-year-old law technically says that if the parties don’t hold them together, then instead of being able to vote at big county-wide voting centers, regardless of precinct, voters have to show up at their exact precinct. And THAT caused even more confusion, because A) that’s not what literally any Dallas voters are used to and B) because Texas Republicans rammed through mid-cycle redistricting in December to try to fuck Democrats electorally, which means many people’s home precinct locations changed at the last minute.
And when they went to look up on state websites to see where they were supposed to vote, surprise, they hadn’t been updated! Ha ha!
So after mayhem ensued and tons of voters were turned away in Dallas County — home of Jasmine Crockett — a judge ruled that polling places should stay open late to accommodate people. And they did stay open, until Texas AG/Republican Senate candidate/all-around creep Ken Paxton ran to the Texas Supreme Court to beg them to stop the extended voting.
Which the court did, like 10 minutes before the end of the extended voting time, which threw into question whether votes cast between the original closing time and the extended voting time would be counted. The answer to that question is still up in the air.
That is what kind of fuckery was afoot. Crockett laid the blame where it belonged as the chaos was unfolding last night:
Later last night, when Crockett left her watch party, she said she didn’t think there would be any real results that evening. She was still very clear about who was causing this chaos that was threatening to send Texas voters to bed without a clear winner in the Democatic Senate primary. She said this is unfortunately just what Republicans like to do. Sow confusion, sow distrust, fuck the democratic process, and so forth.
But there was indeed a winner. It just took a bit longer for that to become clear.
You could tell if you were paying attention, though. It just started looking more and more like whatever happened in Dallas (and one other county where voting was similarly delayed, Williamson), it just might not be enough for Crockett to close the gap. It just seemed like Talarico was just overperforming his marks in too many places, by too many points.
He didn’t declare victory last night. He was more leaderly than that. He emphasized that every vote must be counted, and, like his opponent, put the blame squarely on Republicans for voter suppression that happened on Crockett’s home turf and on his.
We have high hopes we’ll be seeing these two excellent candidates together very soon, continuing the fight against those motherfuckers to elect Texas’s next senator James Talarico. And we are absolutely certain we have not seen the last of the powerhouse that is Jasmine Crockett. (She conceded this morning: "With the primary behind us, Democrats must rally around our nominee. I'm committed to doing my part and will continue working to elect Democrats up and down the ballot.")
On the Republican side, invasive species Ken Paxton didn’t do all that well last night in his own race. He was supposed to beat John Cornyn fair and square, according to some politics-watchers. Instead Cornyn is up by just shy of two points. But because there was a spoiler in the race named Wesley Hunt, therefore nobody hit 50 percent, Cornyn and Paxton — who absolutely loathe each other — will have to bloody each other to death for 12 more weeks until a runoff. Meanwhile, James Talarico gets to hit the ground running toward November.
“I refuse to allow a flawed, self-centered and shameless candidate like Ken Paxton risk everything we’ve worked so hard to build over these many years,” said Cornyn last night. Here he is saying all of that, and that “judgment day is coming” for Paxton.
Wheeeeee, Texas Republicans are nailing it. And it seems like last night was a great night for democracy, despite all the Republican fuckery and dirty tricks.
Republicans want last night’s results to tear Democrats apart, though, they want it bad. We are sure their buddies the Russians are kicking into gear deploying their bots across Facebook, Threads, Twitter, and all other places where stupid people gather. Speaking of Facebook, look at MAGA pissboy Todd Starnes, who last night posted a blatantly deceptively edited video of Crockett speaking — yes, the same video we included above, alongside Colin Allred — and lied to his followers that she was accusing Texas Democrats of cheating, and then snidely added, “She’s getting beat in the Senate primary by a white dude.”
Sorry, MAGA pissboy. That ain’t what happened. But keep fucking that mason jar full of piss, though!
So that’s briefly what happened with the Texas Senate primaries. We had two excellent candidates on the Democratic side. One of them won. The Republicans are still busy stepping on their dicks.
In other highlights from last night:
Texas GOP Rep. Dan Crenshaw lost his primary by almost 20 points, ha ha, hate him! Of course, he lost to a much more MAGA Freedom Caucus fucker guy, but fuck Dan Crenshaw anyway, he’s a piece of shit. Ha ha!
Former North Carolina Democratic Governor Roy Cooper easily won his primary to replace outgoing Republican Thom Tillis in the US Senate. Know who knows a thing about winning statewide elections in North Carolina? Roy Cooper, since he’s never lost one.
Here’s another North Carolina thing that seems fuckin’ cool:
And here are some more results from last night, also pretty cool, including a big Democratic flip in Arkansas:
And here’s one more final thought about Talarico in Texas:
That could be a Senate that might help save America from the fuckin’ Nazis.
Oh one more thing! Did y’all realize NBC News got Steve Kornacki in the divorce? If you were watching MS NOW and saw poor Ali Velshi trying to be Kornacki that was why.
So that’s fucked up, just like Ken Paxton is fucked up.
Oh well, let’s go win some shit in November.
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OT: New college got my transcripts from my first attempt at college. They're connecting the classes now to see what I still have to take. I'm a bit nervous, but I'm glad at the same time that I'll be doing something with myself.
OT: I had to put my main girl, and generally crazy dog down. I've been super upset and a general crybaby. I told myself that fate/karma/God/the force would bring me another animal who would need me like my dog did.
My husband insisted on a trip to the store on Sunday. Sundays are awful and generally we don't do it. I questioned him, why Sunday. He didn't want to wait for another day. So we went.
On the way home, I saw a sign at the edge of a curb. It said free gerbils, right next to a shit plastic cage. I thought it was a joke. Nope. There were two gerbils in the tiny filthy cage.
So I have two curb gerbils now. I spent a small fortune getting them into a proper enclosure but they're significantly less stressed and living good now.