The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, Jeff Singer, Stephen Wolf, and Carolyn Fiddler, with additional contributions from David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Daniel Donner, James Lambert, David Beard, and Arjun Jaikumar.
●Texas: The Lone Star State held its primaries Tuesday. You can find the results here. We'll have a comprehensive rundown in our next Digest.
Leading Off
●TX-16, TX-29: Texas has never elected a Latina to Congress, but that's going to change this year. On Tuesday, former El Paso County Judge Veronica Escobar claimed the Democratic nomination for the 16th District in the El Paso area. In the 29th District in Houston, state Sen. Sylvia Garcia also won Team Blue's primary decisively. The 16th backed Clinton 68-27 and the 29th supported her 71-25, so there's no doubt that Escobar and Garcia are headed to the House.
Campaign ActionBoth women pulled off clear victories in very expensive contests. Escobar had the support of Rep. Beto O'Rourke, who is leaving to run for the Senate, as well as a number of progressive organizations, including Daily Kos. Escobar's main primary foe was former El Paso school board president Dori Fenenbock, who narrowly outspent her in the lead up to the primary.
Escobar had plenty of name recognition as county judge, a post that is akin to both a county executive and legislator. But Fenenbock, who only voted in a Democratic primary for the first time last year, received help from both GOP donors and a super PAC run by a longtime Republican operative named Carlos Sierra, who most recently worked for Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson. But while Sierra's group aired ads against Escobar, it didn't move the needle enough. With about half of precincts reporting and plenty of early votes tabulated, Escobar led Fenenbock 61-22, and the Associated Press has called the contest for her.
Over in Houston, Garcia was also outspent. Last year, after longtime Rep. Gene Green announced he would retire, Garcia quickly emerged as the frontrunner to succeed him. Garcia had run against Green for an open seat all the way back in 1992 and lost, but she backed him in his tough 1994 primary fight. Garcia was also a prominent Green supporter when he faced a credible opponent for renomination in 2016, and he joined much of the Houston Democratic establishment in supporting her this year.
Garcia scared off most prominent Democrats, but wealthy healthcare executive Tahir Javed, a longtime party donor, decided to run anyway. Javed used his wealth to flood the airwaves, and he outspent Garcia by a giant $805,000 to $208,000 in the pre-primary period. Javed also picked up an endorsement from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, which inflamed Garcia's allies.
However, Garcia always looked like the frontrunner. Garcia's state Senate district contains about 90 percent of this congressional seat, providing her with both name recognition and a pre-existing base of support. By contrast, Javed only moved to the district in December from Beaumont, which is well to the east of this Houston-based seat. Demographics likely aided Garcia, as well. This seat is almost 75 percent Hispanic, and Garcia would be the first Hispanic House member from the Houston area. (Javed, who immigrated to the United States from Pakistan, would have been the state's first Asian-American representative.) In the end, with about 70 percent of precincts in and many early votes, Garcia led Javed 65-20; the AP has also called this race.