Decision 2002
Professors surprised by magnitude of GOP win
The Texas Republican Party continued its electoral dominance Tuesday by leading every race for statewide office. Victory was expected despite ballot counting problems in Tarrant County.
By Brandon Ortiz
Editor in Chief

FORT WORTH — As Republicans were on the verge of winning every statewide office and reclaiming the legislature for the first time since Reconstruction Tuesday, some political science professors were surprised by the GOP’s margin of victory.

Gov. Rick Perry defeated challenger Tony Sanchez in a landslide, while Republican David Dewhurst won the lieutenant governor’s race against former Comptroller John Sharp, whom polls showed as the Democrats’ lone hope to reclaim a statewide office. Former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk was barely leading in Dallas in his U.S. Senate bid against Republican John Cornyn.

“If he can’t carry his own county, it is not encouraging,” political science professor Donald Jackson said Tuesday before the votes were counted. “There is nothing in the current data encouraging for the Democrats. If Tony Sanchez can’t carry the ticket, I don’t know who can.”

A jubilant Perry, who moved up to the governor’s office after George W. Bush resigned to become president, declared victory before a crowd of supporters at the Austin Convention Center. The songs “Celebration” and “God Bless Texas” rang out.

“The victory is not in the electing of a governor,” Perry said. “It’s the Texas dream of opportunity, prosperity that knows no geographic boundaries and includes every Texan.”

Sanchez, Kirk and Sharp, a Hispanic, black and Caucasian, respectively, were part of a “Dream Team” Democrats hoped would lead the ticket to victory by energizing minority voters.

But the GOP continued its statewide dominance that stretches back to 1994.

• Perry had 58 percent, or 2,113,295 votes, and Sanchez had 40 percent, or 1,458,189 votes, with 78 percent of the estimated total vote counted. Perry was leading in every region of the state except South Texas.
• With 78 percent of the total estimated vote tabulated, Cornyn had 55 percent, or 1,995,303 votes and Kirk had 43 percent, or 1,572,964 votes. Minor candidates combined for 2 percent.
• With more than half of the estimated votes counted, Dewhurst had 1,444,998 votes, or 52 percent, to Democrat John Sharp’s 1,282,288 votes, or 46 percent. Two minor party candidates each had 1 percent.
• Republicans were leading races for comptroller and agriculture, land and railroad commissioners.
• In legislative races, Republicans were close to taking control of the state House of Representatives for the first time in 130 years.

Returns were still not in from some major metropolitan areas, including Harris and Bexar counties. Tarrant and Bexar county officials expected their results to be delayed, possibly until this morning.

About 230,000 Tarrant ballots would have to be recounted after a tabulating machines failed to count straight party ticket votes because of a programming error. County elections administrator Robert Parten said officials discovered a glitch early Tuesday that was causing ballots cast for a straight party vote to go untallied. That means no candidate received a vote on that ballot.

Perry’s victory Tuesday marked the end of a bitter campaign that included attacks over drug money and murder.

“It has been quite a bit more negative,” than past elections, political science professor Jim Riddlesperger said Tuesday afternoon. “There has been much more media advertising. It has been a while since we had a competitive race.”

Riddlesperger compared the election to the 1990 gubernatorial contest between Republican Clayton Williams and Democrat Ann Richards. The two candidates spent $53.4 million in a race noted for its mudslinging. Williams, a wealthy oilman, was hindered by frequent snafus, such as refusing to shake Richards hand and making a joke about rape in front of reporters.

Though Sanchez did not make mistakes to such a degree, Riddlesperger said the Laredo banker was a similarly poor candidate.

“He is clearly not a professional campaigner and he made the same kind of mistakes,” Riddlesperger said.

The governor’s race made Texas history for the amount of money spent — at least $87 million from the two candidates combined.

Sanchez, who spent at least $59 million of his own money on the race, sought to become the state’s first Hispanic governor. Perry was vying to get elected to the office he inherited in December 2000 after Bush resigned.

The money was spent on a glut of advertising that Jackson said was substanceless.

“The tone is insulting in both parties,” he said. “From no policy content and nonsense in ads — and it was bipartisan — it was insulting.”

Brandon Ortiz
The Associated Press contributed to this report.