E-Results

The election results are in. Commentary must admit being surprised by the cliffhanger of a race in the State Senate District 15 Democratic Party primary runoff election. When the early vote totals were released yesterday just after 7 pm, State Rep. Jarvis Johnson had a 364-vote lead over State Sen. Molly Cook. The Jarvis lead climbed to 513 votes late last night. Then the tide turned close to midnight when Molly pulled ahead by 24 votes.  The final count early this morning has Molly with a 74-vote lead out of 18,867 votes cast including 79 undervotes and 6 overvotes.  9,428 to 9,354, 50.2% to 49.8%.  Wow! That is super-duper close.

When the Jarvis lead got to 513, I thought Molly might be a goner.  Both campaigns put it all out there and you can only have one winner.

Closer than I expected. Congrats to Sen. Cook.

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State Rep. Shawn Theirry got clobbered 65% to 35% by Lauren Ashley Simmons.

HCC Trustee Charlene Ward Johnson won in State Rep. District 139, 52% to 48%.

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GOP Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan survived. Here is what his nemesis Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick put out after the Phelan win:

@DadePhelan protects the Democrats in Austin and they protect him in the district. If I had to rely on Democrats to win a Republican Primary, I wouldn’t run. Having to count on Democrats to win a Republican Primary is selling out the GOP, just like he does in Austin every day. Dade won the Runoff by 366 votes out of 25,260 votes cast, with over 1,400 Democrats voting for him. Dade’s actions cost 15 Republican incumbents their reelection. He threw them under the bus, but he still wants to drive. That’s not real leadership. That’s a debacle!

I would respect Speaker Phelan a tad if he would tell Patrick to f-off.

The crook GOP Texas AG Ken Paxton is now threatening GOP Texas State House members if they support Phelan’s bid for another term as Texas House Speaker.

On a related note, 15 Texas House GOP incumbents bit the dust.

Texas GOP wackiness and madness. If Texas Democrats could just figure out how to take advantage of the GOP bloody infighting.

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BTW: I just got my mail ballot for the Harris Central Appraisal District (HCAD) Board of Directors runoff election. The election is being held on Saturday, June 15.

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In case you haven’t figured it out, we have a very fragile power grid here in H-Town. Yesterday’s rainstorm knocked out power to close to 320,000 homes and businesses, including Commentary. I was out of power for just over 3 hours. A tree 4 houses down my street fell. See the featured photo. It was more because of the ground that was soaked.

We also had marble size hail that fell in my neighborhood.

I guess every time it rains hard, we must be prepared for major power outages.

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Finally. Jury deliberations begin today in Donald Trump’s trial. I think we are all ready for a verdict.

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We lost again last night in Seattle. Sigh.