One of the peculiar and unfortunate artifacts of the Texas election calendar is the primary runoffs. Few states use this system to pick Democratic and Republican nominees who don’t win an outright majority of votes during the primary. And for good reason. Runoffs are a relic of efforts to protect white political power in the South. Few voters bother to participate in them—even fewer than the primaries, which are themselves low-turnout elections. As a result, a small partisan cohort has outsized influence on who governs Texas. If the primaries are a rock concert in an arena where only a fifth of the seats are filled, runoffs are a house show where only the most hardcore fans bother to show up. Or, to keep with the…
The post Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan Won His Runoff, But the Establishment Is Losing the War appeared first on Texas Monthly.
Read: Read More