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Primary election season isn’t quite over as there are several runoff elections that need to be decided, but there are at least a few things we can conclude from Tuesday night.
School choice matters. While voters still mostly prioritize border security, public safety, and the economy/inflation, school choice became a defining issue of contrast in many contests – especially in the ones where challengers won or pushed incumbents into runoffs. With everything going on – pandemic-related school closures, racial and gender indoctrination, inappropriate materials in libraries – perhaps it is an idea whose time has come in Texas.
School choice is one step closer to passage. Insiders say there are now a solid 74 votes for school choice in the Texas House and only a couple runoffs need to go a certain way to get to the 76 supporters need to get it passed. Friends often tell me, “if you get 76, you’ll get 86” because there are always a handful of those who don’t want to be on the losing side of an issue if they know it’s going to pass. Add to that, 80% of Republican primary voters again affirmed they support school choice. It’s a cynical take but being on the losing side and out of sync with your base can create pressure to suddenly find a reason to switch positions.
Soros failed (for now). Despite spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and targeting heavily Democratic counties with low turnout rates, the Soros-backed groups demonstrated little ability to get new voters to the polls. The idea is that if you can get people who don’t normally vote to show up in a primary, you can bank their vote for November. But that didn’t happen, so I guess we’ll just have to hear about how Texas is “non-voting state” for two more years.
While many movement conservatives cheered Tuesday’s results, no one should be giving victory speeches. We’re not at the buzzer and we’re probably not even in the fourth quarter. To some it may feel like we’re winning, but there’s still a lot of time left and the other team still gets the ball.