Texas GOP lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick speaks to the media before his watch party in Houston Tuesday. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
An election eve poll sponsored by national Hispanic groups suggests — at least, by inference — that Republican Dan Patrick captured a towering percentage of Tuesday’s non-Hispanic vote in the race for lieutenant governor. And that Hispanics probably didn’t vote in increased numbers, as Democratic diehards hoped.
The Latino Decisions pollshowed Hispanics in Texas broke decisively in favor of Patrick’s Democratic rival, fellow state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte. She had 68 percent to his 29 percent, in the poll sponsored by the Latino Victory Project, National Council of La Raza and America’s Voice.
The poll was conducted Thursday through Monday among Hispanics who had already voted or were certain to vote. Texas was among 10 states in which pollsters interviewed a larger number of Hispanic voters, to obtain a statistically reliable sample. The margin of error was plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.
So Van de Putte’s 39-point margin among Hispanics theoretically could have been as small as 29 percent.
Meanwhile, with three quarters of precincts reporting Tuesday, Patrick was beating Van de Putte by 21 points — 59 percent to 38 percent.
Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte, Texas Senate colleagues and rivals for lieutenant governor (AP pool photo, Sept. 29 KLRU debate)
Update at 9:45 p.m.: Dan Patrick said his election reaffirms the state’s conservative tilt.
“Texas voters sent a powerful message to the rest of the country – the liberal, Washington-style agenda my opponent so proudly boasted simply has no place in Texas,” he said in a written statement. “Tonight’s decisive victory proves they picked the wrong battleground.”
Van de Putte told supporters that she called Patrick and offered “sincere congratulations on a well-disciplined campaign.” Van de Putte, who didn’t have to give up her Senate seat to run statewide, added that she assured Patrick “I would continue in my public service.”
Update at 8:28 p.m.: Van de Putte has conceded, congratulating Patrick for “running a disciplined campaign.”
In a statement, she thanked supporters and said she looks “forward to continuing to serve my community and this great state.” See note below about how she retains her Texas Senate seat.
“This campaign and my service have always been about securing the future for the next generation, para mis hijos y nietos,” Van de Putte concluded.
Update at 8:16 p.m.: AP has called the race for Patrick.
Original item at 8:08 p.m.: Republican and tea party darling Dan Patrick established a solid lead over Democrat Leticia Van de Putte in Tuesday’s tally of the early vote for lieutenant governor.
With more than 2.1 million early votes counted, Patrick is leading Van de Putte with 56 percent to her 41 percent.
Playing rope-a-dope in the fall contest, Patrick avoided gaffes and lowered his public profile. This was after he ran a highly combative campaign to capture the GOP nomination earlier this year.
But while Patrick coasted through the general election, he didn’t tone down his staunchly conservative views.
Au contraire.
Seizing full advantage of the summer’s influx of unaccompanied children from Central America, the rise of the Islamic State in the Middle East and the arrival of Ebola in Dallas, Patrick hewed to his hard line on immigration and border security.
He raised the prospect of Islamic terrorists crossing the Texas-Mexico border in his fall TV ads.
In other ads and his single televised debate with Van de Putte, he also stood firm against abortion, under any circumstance; and for school voucher-like proposals to shake up public schools.
Van de Putte, not well-known beyond her San Antonio base, didn’t raise the big money that fellow state Sen. Wendy Davis did in the governor’s race.
But as Patrick’s senior colleague in the Texas Senate, Van de Putte soon could be in an interesting position: Last year, she drew a four-year Senate term and thus did not have to give up her seat to run for lieutenant governor. If she loses to Patrick, she can sit back and watch him preside — and offer critiques, if she chooses.
Serena Simmons Connelly, center, is a major Democratic donor, despite being the daughter of the late GOP uber donor Harold Simmons. (2008 photo by Lara Solt/Staff photographer)
The late Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons may have been a Republican mega donor but his family is splitting its political bets this fall.
In checks written on the eve of the election, Simmons’ widow, Annette, gave Republican lieutenant governor hopeful Dan Patrick $25,000, while his daughter, Serena Simmons Connelly, gave Democrat Leticia Van de Putte $10,000. For the year, that brought Serena’s financial backing of Van de Putte to $17,500, according to Texas Ethics Commission records.
In this election cycle, Annette Simons has given Republican candidates $120,000, the commission’s records show. Half went to unsuccessful attorney general candidate Dan Branch of Dallas.
Since January 2013, Serena Connelly has given more than $358,000 to state Democratic causes, according to commission records. Of that, more than $120,000 went to gubernatorial nominee Wendy Davis and the Texas Victory Committee, the Davis campaign’s joint project with voter-organizing Battleground Texas; more than $90,000 to ActBlue, the Democratic internet fundraising tool; and $25,000 each to the Planned Parenthood Texas Votes PAC and the Texas Organizing Project.
Annette Simmons, shown with her late husband Harold at a Dallas ball in 2013. (Kelly Alexander)
Her sister, Lisa Simmons, also has supported Democrats, though without as many zeroes on her checks.
Lisa Simmons, president of the Harold Simmons Foundation, has given Davis and Battleground Texas $4,000 since May. Serena Connelly is the foundation’s executive vice president.
The sometimes surprising “left turns” of the foundation and Simmons’ daughters were chronicled last year in this piece by the Center for Public Integrity. Among them was its donation of $600,000 to Planned Parenthood and its North Texas affiliate.
Serena Connelly and Lisa Simmons together control nearly 94 percent of Dallas-based Contran Corp., a closely held company with subsidiaries producing a chemical used in house paint and rayon clothing as well as manufacturing security products and recreational marine components, according to this February story by Bloomberg BusinessWeek.
Since Oct. 25, when candidates filed their last detailed reports on contributions and expenditures, Patrick has raised about $330,000 in late money, to Van de Putte’s $211,000. That’s not out of line with their overall financial effort. Though Patrick has outraised and outspent her, Van de Putte has kept it relatively close. And while Patrick aides complain she’s received major in-kind donations from Planned Parenthood, TOP and Battleground Texas, it was a major gift from one conservative PAC, $125,000 from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, that kept Patrick ahead in the “telegram” reports on last-minute contributions.
Lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick banked nearly $300,000 in campaign donations in the last day–largely fueled by a $125,000 check from Texans for Lawsuit Reform.
Texas Lieutenant Governor hopefuls state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, left, and state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, right, shake hands following their televised debate, Monday, Sept. 29, 2014, in Austin, Texas. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, Pool)
Patrick, R-Houston, pulled in $25,000 contributions from AT&T Texas PAC, Annette Simmons, the wife of late Harold Simmons, and Robert Rowling, the Dallas billionaire who owns Omni Hotels and Resorts.
The lt. governor presides over the Senate as its president, appoints Senate committees and controls the flow of legislation in the chamber.
Patrick’s Democratic opponent Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, raised nearly $100,000 in the last day. More than $70,000 of that came from in-kind contributions for staffing and canvassing provided by Planned Parenthood.
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton campaigns for Maryland Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, during a rally Thursday at the University of Maryland. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky)
Former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Thursday endorsed the Democratic women running for Texas’ top two offices, gubernatorial aspirant Wendy Davis and lieutenant governor candidate Leticia Van de Putte.
Clinton, who is weighing a bid for the Democrats’ presidential nomination in 2016, applauded Davis for running a “tough, strong campaign” against Republican Greg Abbott.
“That’s no surprise, because Wendy has shown us time and time again that she never backs down, whether she’s fighting for Texas school children or working to create an economy that works for all Texans,” Clinton is quoted as saying in a Davis campaign graphic.
Clinton said Van de Putte, who is locked in a tough race with fellow state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, advocates for society’s most vulnerable.
“Leticia Van de Putte always demonstrates the courage to speak up for those who do not have a voice,” Clinton is quoted as saying in a Van de Putte campaign graphic. “She has bold ideas and initiatives that honor veterans, respect women, and value education. She leads with a sense of family and community.”
Sen. John Carona talks with a supporter in Dallas on primary night in March. (Kye R. Lee/Staff photographer)
Update at 3:25 p.m.: Have corrected date of Paul Reyes’ and Helen Carona’s contributions to Patrick: They gave on the same day in 2013, not this year.
Original item at 12:43 p.m.: Dallas state Sen. John Carona has continued to make peace with fellow Republican and lieutenant governor candidate Dan Patrick.
The political action committee at Carona’s business Associa Inc., which manages homeowners’ assocations across the country, gave Patrick $5,000 earlier this week, according to telegram reports to the Texas Ethics Commission.
As my colleague Terrence Stutz reported here nearly 2 1/2 years ago, Carona called Patrick a “snake oil salesman” and a “narcissist that would say anything to draw attention to himself.”
Patrick, R-Houston, said in an email to all senators that Carona had spread a false rumor that Patrick and his wife, Jan, were divorcing. Carona, R-Dallas, replied that Patrick should have first checked with him regarding the allegations before contacting their colleagues. Carona also raised the ante, mentioning rumors about Patrick’s sexual orientation as well. Patrick dismissed as “a lie” suggestions he is gay and demanded Carona apologize.
At the time, Carona didn’t. Late last year, though, the Associa PAC gave $30,000 to Patrick, even as Carona didn’t personally endorse him in the GOP lieutenant governor primary.
In March, Carona lost his Senate seat to tea party-backed Republican Don Huffines in a GOP primary. Since then, he has endorsed Patrick.
Dan Patrick and Leticia Van de Putte shake hands at their televised debate last month. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
As I reported in a story in Wednesday’s newspaper, Associa executive Paul Reyes, a former Carona Senate staff aide, contributed $20,000 to Patrick. That was on top of $5,000 Reyes gave to Patrick in August 2013 — the same day Carona’s wife, Helen, chipped in $2,500 to the Patrick cause.
It appears that Associa may have some legislative irons in the fire.
Meanwhile, Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, Patrick’s Democratic colleague and opponent for lieutenant governor, reported more than three times as many late contributions as did Patrick.
This week, she took in more than $82,000, to about $23,500 for Patrick.
Just more than half of the contributions on Van de Putte’s telegram reports came from groups supporting abortion rights. Planned Parenthood’s PACs in New York City and Austin donated nearly $30,000 of staff time, phone calls and postage. Annie’s List gave the San Antonio lawmaker a $13,000 check.
As I noted in Wednesday’s story, Patrick strategist Allen Blakemore belittled Van de Putte’s matching Patrick’s fundraising haul of $2 million between Sept. 26 and Saturday. Blakemore noted that one-third of her money was in-kind donations from Planned Parenthood, the liberal group Texas Organizing Project and voter-organizing Battleground Texas.
On Thursday morning, Logan Spence, a long-time Patrick aide, seized on the late assists from Planned Parenthood PACs as a sign Van de Putte would try to lead the Senate in a very different direction on abortion than Patrick would. But then we knew that, didn’t we?
Lieutenant governor rivals Dan Patrick, left, and Leticia Van de Putte shake hands last month at their only televised debate (AP Photo/Eric Gay)
Update at 12:48 p.m.: I have inserted the two campaigns’ reactions.
Original item at 11:27 a.m.: Democrat Leticia Van de Putte raised more money — barely — than her GOP rival for lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, in the latest reporting period, according to reports posted Tuesday on the Texas Ethics Commission website.
Van de Putte banked $2.086 million in contributions, compared with $2.052 million pocketed by Patrick, the reports showed. So her edge was about $34,000.
“This is what an upset looks like,” Van de Putte campaign finance director Nikki Bizzarri said in a statement. More than 5,200 different donors gave to Van de Putte during the reporting period, which was Sept. 26 through Saturday.
Patrick, though, outspent her by nearly $1 million and enjoyed a better than $1.3 million cash advantage at the period’s close.
“We’re running hard, all the way to the finish line,” Patrick said in a statement. It said nearly 1,000 individuals gave money to him during the period.
Patrick entered the period with nearly $4.3 million, to Van de Putte’s $2.2 million. He spent $3.1 million and had just over $2.8 million in the bank as of Saturday.
She spent $2.2 million during the period and wound up with just less than $1.5 million in cash.
Patrick’s campaign still owes him more than $2 million. Van de Putte hasn’t borrowed for her campaign.
Both candidates are state senators — Van de Putte, from San Antonio; and Patrick, from Houston. They are competing to succeed Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, whom Patrick ousted in a hard-fought Republican primary.
Leticia Van de Putte, at San Antonio rally last week (Robert T. Garrett)
Democratic lieutenant governor hopeful Leticia Van de Putte had a shaky launch to her 6,000-mile, 30-city bus tour last week: Last Thursday, on the first full day of the tour, the bus broke down, just south of Falfurrias.
It didn’t faze the candidate, though. Van de Putte, a 24-year veteran state legislator who comes from a large family, is very comfortable amid frenzied activity by her aides, crowds small and large, and the zero privacy that attends traveling with documentary filmmakers and reporters on your bus. For background on her family, and a 1945 act of religious piety by her great-grandmother, which she says motivates her, see this story I had in Sunday’s paper. It ran as a sidebar to this overview of the race, by colleague Terrence Stutz and me.
Also, here are some photos I took in my two days with her last week. If Republican rival Dan Patrick, whose spokesman last week said he has no plans for a bus tour, changes his mind, we’ll try to hop aboard. Patrick, though, doesn’t share his schedule with the news media, so don’t hold your breath.
Top row, left: On stage in San Antonio, looking over her shoulder; right, the spot where the bus broke down. 2nd row, left, rope line in Edinburg, with actress Eva Longoria in sunglasses; in Corpus Christi, with sister Rosanne "Sonny" Valenzuela on her left and two Wesley Reed supporters. 3rd row, left, San Antonio rope line, with mother Belle San Miguel shown just above candidate's head, and Longoria to right; speaking at UT Pan American, with Tejano music star "Little Joe" Hernandez in black T shirt that says, "I Just Look Illegal." Bottom row, left, biting her tongue in Edinburg; right, along rope line in San Antonio, greeting two little girls. (Robert T. Garrett)
Democratic lieutenant governor hopeful Leticia Van de Putte (AP Photo/The Daily Texan, Ethan Oblak)
Lieutenant governor aspirant Leticia Van de Putte pooh-poohs assertions that gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis has campaigned poorly, depressing the hopes of down-ballot Democrats such as herself.
“Absolutely not,” Van de Putte said in an interview aboard her campaign bus early Friday.
She said Davis, a fellow state senator, has inspired legions of Texas women to roll up their sleeves and canvass their communities.
“It’s going to benefit all of us,” she said, referring to Democrats running statewide.
The Washington Postreported that some state Democrats are complaining Davis “has become a drag” on candidates such as Van de Putte, whom it described as “a Hispanic lawmaker who is popular with the business community.”
Her GOP rival, state Sen. Dan Patrick, has said he, not Van de Putte, is the favorite of business groups. Patrick points to his anti-tax fervor, while Van de Putte says she would be better at satisfying employers’ worries about workforce readiness and infrastructure that’s stretched to the limit.
The campaign of Davis’ Republican opponent, Attorney General Greg Abbott, seized on the Post story. It issued a press release that highlights the unnamed Democrats said to be grousing about Davis as a damper on ticket-mates.
Van de Putte, though, wasn’t buying it.
“I have been in those ballrooms with 900 women, 1,000 people, where the magical Wendy Davis is at work,” she said. “She is motivating so many people. Wherever I go, there are Team Wendy T-shirts and people calling and block-walking.”
The activity wouldn’t be happening, Van de Putte said, “if not for Wendy motivating so many.”
Texas lieutenant governor hopefuls state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, left, and state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, right, shake hands following their televised debate last month. (AP pool photo/Eric Gay)
The lieutenant governor candidates began airing ads Tuesday that pulled no punches.
Democrat Leticia Van de Putte said her GOP rival Dan Patrick is untrustworthy.
Patrick said Van de Putte “wants Washington bureaucrats to run our schools” and is out of touch with Texas parents.
The new TV spots are so-called “contrast” commercials that try to exploit the opponent’s weakness. Clearly, Van de Putte believes Patrick is vulnerable on the $5.4 billion of budget cuts that he and other Republicans approved for public schools in 2011. She also is playing up mostly unsourced media accounts that Patrick is distrusted by many of his fellow Republicans.
In Van de Putte’s ad, a narrator asks, “Which Dan Patrick should we trust?” It then splices two seemingly conflicting snippets of his remarks from their televised debate last month.
In one, Patrick says, “I’m really concerned about the dropout rate in our inner cities.”
In the other, he says of the 2011 session, “And so we cut education.”
Actually, Patrick said the 2011 budget reductions were better than the only alternative, which he said was tax increases. He dismissed suggestions the cuts caused grave harm to schools. He questioned whether there really had been 11,000 teachers laid off. Some of those simply retired, and others were classroom slots filled “by, like, the math department head or various people,” he said.
Van de Putte’s ad segues from a grainy, sepia-toned view of Patrick to herself in living color, working in her pharmacy, greeting constituents and wrapping up her candidacy announcement last fall. It says “party labels aside,” she’s the candidate worthy of trust. A narrator recites how she resisted school cuts, has been a leader on veterans’ issues and has proposed to help more students of modest means afford college.
“I’ll fight for you,” she says in a voiceover.
In his ad, Patrick tries to burn in another contrast.
He says his opponent is “liberal Leticia,” which he is banking on to be politically fatal in ruby red Texas. Meanwhile, the spot says, he’s a conservative pushing “real reform” of schools.
Defying predictions, Patrick has stuck to his hard line on immigration in his general-election ads. And in his latest TV spot, he similarly invokes two education issues that, while they may stir many of the staunch conservatives who dominate GOP primaries in Texas, surely are less familiar and pressing to the November electorate.
They are school choice, a code word for school voucher-like proposals, which he chides Van de Putte for opposing; and Common Core, a national initiative by governors’ and chief state school officers’ groups to define what students should know in English language arts and math at the end of each grade.
Though it’s not a federal government program, Patrick’s ad suggests federal “bureaucrats” dictate the learning standards. Last year, he was Senate sponsor of a bill to ban use of the Common Core standards in Texas. It passed and became law, despite opposition from Van de Putte and five other Democratic senators. In Patrick’s ad, a slide says, “Leticia Van de Putte wants Washington bureaucrats to run our schools.” The spot then cites her vote.
“Washington’s policies have no place in Texas and neither does Van de Putte’s out of touch support for the federal government running our schools,” Patrick spokesman Alejandro Garcia said in a statement on the ad.
Patrick closes his ad by saying to camera, “As Senate Education chair, I passed some of the biggest reforms in decades to improve Texas schools. My education plan will empower parents, teachers and school districts, not government.” Though school districts are governmental units, his last remark apparently refers to the state and certainly the federal government.
Postscript: Patrick’s commercial slams Van de Putte as having “actually voted to stop schools from removing teachers convicted of a felony.”
The ad’s fine print cites a 2011 educator-misconduct bill that Gov. Rick Perry signed. The bill, which Van de Putte and eight other Senate Democrats opposed, allowed removal of teachers convicted of any type of felony. According to a House Research Organization report, the law before 2011 allowed “immediate termination only of a teacher convicted of a violent crime or a crime against a minor,” which omitted “crimes that destroy public trust, such as theft, burglary, and embezzlement.” But teacher groups opposed making any felony grounds for removal. That “could punish some teachers needlessly for mistakes made in their younger years,” the HRO report said, describing bill opponents’ argument.
