Update: From my colleague Sarah Mervosh.
Watkins spent the night holed up at his campaign headquarters, a brick building in South Dallas with a large “Re-Elect Craig Watkins” sign hanging on the porch.
The district attorney and a small group, which included his top assistant and his spokeswoman, met for the first part of the evening in a library-like conference room. His spokeswoman, Debbie Denmon, said they planned to move next door to have an “intimate” dinner with family and friends at Watkins’ mother’s business, an adult day care center called The Bridge.
“Craig’s kind of going back to his roots,” Denmon said. “Just keeping it small. He didn’t want a big to-do.”
She said Watkins planned to address the media once the votes had been tallied.
Update at 7:55 p.m.: Hawk won early voting by the slimmest of margins, 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent, about 400 votes. But odds are that’s not enough. Democrats in Dallas County typically score many more votes on Election Day that Republicans.
Original item: Republican Susan Hawk is waging a strong challenge against incumbent Democrat Craig Watkins for Dallas County district attorney.
In a race that’s expected to be close, Hawk has outspent Watkins and developed the more prolific campaign.
Her strategy involves getting a strong Republican base turnout and enough crossover votes to win against Watkins, who is expected to be boosted by a powerful push from Democrats voting along party lines.
Watkins was first elected DA in 2006, and soon after became a national star. But he’s squandered much of that star-power with questions about how he using his power and spends money under his control.
Despite being a two-term incumbent, Watkins ran his campaign on a shoe-string budget, with no campaign manager or significant field staff.
Hawk, a former state district judge who in 2010 ran for re-election to the bench as a Democrat, received significant backing from much of Dallas’ business elite.
In 2010 Watkins’ wife, Tanya Watkins, was Hawk’s political consultant. And Hawk ran on a ticket that included Watkins, though she says that year she voted for Republican Danny Clancy over the incumbent. Clancy lost to Watkins by just over 5,000 votes.
The campaign for district attorney has been nasty. At a forum on domestic violence Hawk suggested that Watkins had been drinking before the event. “Have another cocktail,” she told Watkins after the event.