Was It Good For You, Too?

Primary results, runoff landscapes, and ISIS brides

(Welcome to another installment of Life Its Ownself. If you enjoy reading it, please let me know by hitting the Like button at the bottom, subscribing to this newsletter, and recommending it to others. Also, feel free to comment below.)

1.    Well, That Was That

The Democratic and Republican primaries are over, thank heavens. I voted in the Democratic primary, where I found it hard to get excited about the statewide races. I was much better informed and passionate about local and judicial races, where I knew and had opinions about most of the candidates. For many Republican friends here in Travis County, the opposite was probably true: they made passionate choices on the statewide races, but were blasé about local races.

Turnout was meh. Of the 17,183,996 registered voters in Texas, 16.77% of them voted, 10.66% in the GOP primary and 6.11% in the Democratic primary. That’s about what the turnout percentages were in 2018. That also means about 14.3 million Texans had something better to do with their time this election.

Last week, I made seven predictions about the primaries, and got six out of seven. That’s the same ratio of Mercury astronauts who were not killed in the first decade of the space program. (Too soon?)

I predicted that Greg Abbott, Beto O’Rourke and Dan Patrick would all cruise to renomination, and I was right. I also predicted runoffs in the Democratic Lieutenant Governor primary, both the Democratic and the Republican primaries for Attorney General, and the GOP primary for Agriculture Commissioner and I was right about three out of four. They’re discussed below.

2.     Runoff elections to watch

Runoff elections usually inspire the kind of fervor and passion of watching a dead animal decompose in your backyard. About 1 in 6 Texas voters showed up for the primaries; turnout in the runoffs will be lucky to be half that.

The GOP Attorney General runoff between Ken Paxton and George P. Bush will be the most interesting to watch, although its outcome seems foreordained. Paxton got about 43% of the primary vote to Bush’s 23%. If you view Louie Gohmert’s 17% as likely Paxton voters in the runoff, he cruises to victory. Bush’s theory of the case: Paxton’s legal troubles will only worsen between now and November, and Bush alone can keep Democrats from retaking the AG’s office. Paxton, for his part, will remind voters of his 100% Donald Trump approval rating.

As of press time, tt’s unclear who will be in the Democratic runoff for Attorney General. South Texas civil rights lawyer Rochelle Garza earned the top spot with 43.1% of the vote, but former Galveston mayor Joe Jaworski and North Texas lawyer Lee Merritt are separated by only 1,487 votes statewide. Deciding who goes against Garza will await final canvassing and certification of local vote totals. Either way, the runoff will pit two political unknowns against each other.

Mike Collier came within five points of beating Dan Patrick in 2018. He’s gunning for a rematch this fall, but first he has to win a Democratic runoff for Lieutenant Governor against State Rep. Michelle Beckley. Beckley, who was down by 12% in primary voting, has called for Collier to drop out of the runoff, saying he does not inspire the Dem base. This will be a mainstream vs. progressives squabble. If progressive voters are more enthused and disciplined, she may end up battling Dan Patrick in the fall.

The runoff elections are Tuesday, May 24, with early voting from May 16-20.

3.    Sorry to see you go; don’t let the door hit you in the …

Elections provide voters with the opportunity to choose their officials. (Gerrymandering provides officials with the opportunity to choose their voters, but that is a topic for another day.) Elections also provide voters with the opportunity to un-choose their officials, and some of that happened last week. Let’s pour one out for some folks who will enjoy the pleasures of being a private citizen, at least for the time being:

• Don Huffines, booted out of the Texas Senate by his Dallas County voters four years ago, now rejected by voters statewide;

• Allen West, proving his constituency as GOP party chair in Texas was always small and mercurial;

• Louis Gohmert, who gave up a secure East Texas congressional seat and the chairmanship of the Congressional Batsh*t Crazy Caucus (surrendered to Marjorie Taylor Greene) to run for Attorney General;

• James White, the East Texas lawmaker who challenged Sid Miller for the Agirculture Commissioner seat. After an uneven start in the Texas House, White settled down and became a respected member, even making the Ten Best list published by Texas Monthly in 2019;

4.      And a Dishonorable Mention to …

Congressman Van Taylor (R-Plano). Last Wednesday, Congressman Taylor ended his reelection campaign amid revelations that he carried on a nine-month affaire de cœur with Tania Joya, who was once married to a member of ISIS. They were both married to other people at the time. The affair began innocently enough but blossomed quickly. Racy text messages were exchanged. Assignations were, ahem, consummated. They argued over money. He offered to help her with her bills – on condition of keeping their affair secret. She accepted. She feared for her mental and emotional health. They broke it off in a cascade of tears and recriminations. Pretty standard stuff, as affairs with ISIS brides go.

As inappropriate as it was, though, Van Taylor’s ultimate offense was not his affair with Joya. His mortal sin was disloyalty to Donald Trump:

·      He was one of only four House Republicans from Texas who voted to certify the results of the 2020 election

·      He was one of only two House Republicans from Texas to vote for the creation of the bipartisan January 6 Commission.

These were enough to get him onto Donald Trump’s radar screen, in the worst way possible. Trump branded him a RINO, and later endorsed an unknown opponent, Suzanne Harp, in what would become a five-person primary. Harp ultimately was the one who exposed Taylor’s affair, according to the Daily Beast.

Joya says she got in touch with Harp last Thursday, after becoming tired of seeing Taylor’s campaign billboards around town.

“All I wanted was for Suzanne Harp to just say, ‘Hey, I know your little scandal with Tania Joya. Would you like to resign before we embarrass you?’” Joya told The Dallas Morning News. “But it didn’t happen like that.”

Instead, Harp sent a supporter to meet with Joya, who bared her soul in a 35-minute recorded interview posted online Sunday night by National File, a far-right news site accused by traditional media outlets of frequently publishing specious claims.

Joya also shared some racy text messages from Taylor that proved, if nothing else, that he had time to watch porn despite his busy congressional schedule. 

Notwithstanding Joya’s “tiredness” at seeing all those billboards – I mean, really? – it’s clear that Taylor was set up. Harp, who did not advance into the runoff, may be satisfied with burnishing her MAGA credentials as a RINO-killer. One wonders what Joya is getting out of it. The affair’s end was sad and tawdry. She’s had financial woes on and off since she came to America, and money was an element, for better and worse, of her relationship with Taylor. Did, or will, she receive a payoff for telling her story? Time will tell.

Although Taylor has ended his re-election bid, he has not yet resigned from Congress. It seems doubtful, though, that he will finish out his current term next January. And why should he? What could he hope to accomplish now? Although the House GOP Caucus tolerates harpies shrieking during the State of the Union address, it will not tolerate his toxic combination of marital infidelity and disloyalty to Donald Trump. 

The world will little note, nor long recall, the political career of Van Taylor. America loves second acts, it’s true, and Taylor may well show up on Dancing With the Stars or some similar piffle. His personal wealth makes it impossible to completely rule out a return to public life. But his is a cautionary tale about the twisted morality of MAGA World, and its capacity for exacting punishment.

I hope Van Taylor will try to reconcile with his wife and rebuild the life he had with his children. We should leave him alone to do it.