{"id":882,"date":"2012-08-01T01:01:48","date_gmt":"2012-08-01T05:01:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/?p=882"},"modified":"2012-08-01T01:01:48","modified_gmt":"2012-08-01T05:01:48","slug":"cruz-defeats-dewhurst-will-face-sadler-in-fall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/2012\/08\/01\/cruz-defeats-dewhurst-will-face-sadler-in-fall\/","title":{"rendered":"Cruz Defeats Dewhurst, Will Face Sadler in Fall"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Aman Batheja<\/a><\/p>\n

Defying all early expectations and upending long-standing conventional wisdom in Texas Republican politics, former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0handily won the Republican runoff for an open U.S. Senate seat Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

He moves on to the general election against former state Rep. Paul Sadler<\/a>, who defeated retired educator Grady Yarbrough<\/a> in the Democratic runoff.<\/p>\n

Cruz defeated Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0after a lengthy, contentious political battle in which Cruz painted a longtime statewide elected official backed by Gov. Rick Perry<\/a> as a moderate.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tonight is a victory for the grass roots,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Cruz said Tuesday night. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It is a testament to Republican women, to Tea Party leaders and to grass-roots conservatives.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In a short concession speech, Dewhurst said he was proud of the race he had run.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We got beat up a little bit, but we never gave up,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Dewhurst said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153And we stand tall in knowing that we never compromised any of our values.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In a statement, Sadler made clear that he will fight for Dewhurst\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s supporters ahead of the Nov. 6 general election.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Tonight, I stand alone as the only nominee of a major political party in Texas because the Texas Republican Party has been hijacked by the Tea Party,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Sadler said in a statement.<\/p>\n

The fight for the GOP nomination to replace U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison<\/a> drew strong national interest and more than $45 million in spending, making it the nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most expensive nonpresidential race<\/a> of the election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.<\/p>\n

From the start, the race appeared to be Dewhurst\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s to lose, as he had held statewide office for more than a decade and had millions of dollars in personal wealth at his disposal to outspend any opponents. But many\u00c2\u00a0influential activists aligned with the Tea Party\u00c2\u00a0were unimpressed with Dewhurst\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s record and could not shake the feeling that he would crumble to pressure from moderates once in Congress.<\/p>\n

Cruz also benefited from protracted legal fighting over last year’s congressional and legislative redistricting maps that pushed the Texas primary from March to May and the subsequent runoff to July. The longer primary gave Cruz more time to introduce himself to the state’s Republican voters.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though Dewhurst and Cruz agreed on practically every major issue, the race still managed to draw passions on both sides as the race turned largely on the candidates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 temperaments and records.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Cruz, a Cuban-American, Harvard-educated lawyer who worked on George W. Bush\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 2000 presidential campaign and later for the Bush administration, centered his Senate campaign on his five-plus years as Texas Solicitor General<\/a> under Attorney General Greg Abbott<\/a>. In fiery speeches, he cited his work on cases dealing with states\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 rights, gun control and religious freedom as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153proven record\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153fighting for the U.S. Constitution.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0Conservative stars including former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and U.S. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., endorsed Cruz’s campaign.<\/p>\n

Dewhurst, who has served as lieutenant governor since 2003, pointed to a long list of conservative legislation passed under his watch, as well as his experience as a businessman and service in the Air Force and CIA.<\/p>\n

Cruz relentlessly criticized Dewhurst as “timid” and a “moderate,” accusing him of raising state spending and blaming him for conservative measures not becoming law.<\/p>\n

Texas Republican leaders including Perry\u00c2\u00a0and more than half of the Texas Senate endorsed Dewhurst and accused Cruz of distorting Dewhurst\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s legislative record and, simultaneously, their own records as well.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

Dewhurst attacked Cruz for some of the clients he has taken on as a private lawyer and painting him as a “Wasington insider.” He described millions spent by\u00c2\u00a0the Club for Growth and other anti-tax groups to boost Cruz’s campaign as out-of-state meddling from people who didn’t care about Texas. None of the attacks seemed to blunt momentum for Cruz.<\/p>\n

On the Democratic side, Sadler adopted some of Dewhurst’s criticism of Cruz on Tuesday night, describing the Republican nominee\u00c2\u00a0as \u00c2\u00a0“untested, untried and unknown to the vast majority of Texans.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

Yarbrough, who has never held elected office, said he would support Sadler in November. The perennial candidate surprised many by making it into the Democratic runoff. Though he invested much of his personal savings into his campaign, he said he didn’t regret entering the race.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I enjoyed it quite a bit, tremendously,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Yarbrough said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You never know how elections are going to go. Sometimes they go the way you think they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re going to go and sometimes they don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

via The Texas Tribune: Main Feed http:\/\/www.texastribune.org\/texas-politics\/2012-elections\/cruz-defeats-dewhurst-will-face-sadler-in-fall\/?utm_source=texastribune.org&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Tribune%20Feed:%20Main%20Feed<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Aman Batheja Defying all early expectations and upending long-standing conventional wisdom in Texas Republican politics, former Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz\u00c2\u00a0handily won the Republican runoff for an open U.S. Senate seat Tuesday night. He moves on to the general election against former state Rep. Paul Sadler, who defeated retired educator Grady Yarbrough in the … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Cruz Defeats Dewhurst, Will Face Sadler in Fall”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[409,6,295],"class_list":["post-882","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-google-reader","tag-aman-batheja","tag-ifttt","tag-the-texas-tribune-main-feed"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2skW4-ee","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/882\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=882"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=882"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/gabrielsnyder.com\/notes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}