Following yesterday's Texas Primary Election, How Steve Stockman Pioneered the Uncampaign highlights one reason why incumbent Senator John Cornyn (R-TX) isn't facing a runoff:
Heading into the primary, the only real drama was whether [Cornyn's] opponent, Rep. Steve Stockman, would even vote for himself—Stockman hasn't voted in a GOP primary election since 2004, which includes both the preliminary and runoff elections in his victorious 2012 campaign.
Yep. Stockman has been so consistent in his laziness that
[t]he closest thing to a Stockman campaign effort was a fake newspaper, sent to conservative mail boxes, which quoted Stockman's campaign literature about Cornyn verbatim, but which the Stockman campaign claimed it had nothing to do with. He filed a libel lawsuit against a pro-Cornyn PAC for alleging he had been jail and charged with a felony for drug possession, despite admitting in 1995 to these allegations in an interview. And he just cold stopped filing campaign finance reports. He raised virtually no money, nor is it clear what, if anything, his campaign spent its cash on. He didn't run any TV ads. He claimed he had been endorsed by the Tea Party Patriots, when the group had done nothing of the sort.
If anyone had been paid to run an ineffectual campaign, it's doubtful that they could have topped Stockman's non-effort, so it makes sense that he would lose by a wide margin.
A quick glance at the actual results, however, reveals why breathless headlines (I linked to Politico but refuse to link to Fox News) trumpeting "John Cornyn Crushes Steve Stockman" are quite misleading:
Name |
Party |
Votes |
Vote % |
Cornyn, John (i) |
GOP |
778,912 |
59% |
Stockman, Steve |
GOP |
250,746 |
19% |
Stovall, Dwayne |
GOP |
140,403 |
11% |
Vega, Linda |
GOP |
50,063 |
4% |
Cope, Ken |
GOP |
34,006 |
3% |
Mapp, Chris |
GOP |
23,230 |
2% |
Reasor, Reid |
GOP |
20,552 |
2% |
Cleaver, Curt |
GOP |
12,351 |
1% |
In the real world, an incumbent who wins a primary election with less than 60% of the votes hasn't actually
crushed opponents, as Stockman was quick to point out:
Unfortunately for any Democrat hoping to take that seat, though, Cornyn raised lots of money, most of which he didn't have to spend:
Cornyn geared up early and built one of the largest war chests of any incumbent. His team said the race was as much about a good candidate versus a bad candidate as any kind of referendum on the establishment.
Read more: http://www.politico.com/...
The good news for those who live in TX-36 is that Stockman's decision to abandon his House seat to run for the Senate means that he'll be out of office after this year. Good riddance.
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