Ga. may elect first U.S. black female governor
Texas Democrats pick two women in runoffs
ATLANTA — It was a big night for women in Georgia and Texas primaries, with Georgia Democrats taking the lead by giving Atlanta lawyer Stacey Abrams a chance to become the first black female governor in American history.
Abrams set new historical marks already with a primary victory that made her the first black nominee and first female nominee for governor of either majority party in Georgia.
Democrats were set to nominate a woman for governor either way, with Stacey Abrams and Stacey Evans battling it out in a pitched primary fight.
But the 44-year-old Abrams stood out in her bid to be the nation’s first African American woman to lead a state. The former state General Assembly leader also has been insistent that the way to dent Republican domination in Georgia isn’t by cautiously pursuing the older white voters who have abandoned Democrats over recent decades. Rather, she wants to widen the electorate by attracting young voters and nonwhites who haven’t been casting ballots.
Texas had three House runoffs that will be key to whether Democrats can flip the minimum 24 GOP-held seats they’ll need for a majority when a new Congress convenes next year. All three were among 25 districts nationally where Trump ran behind Hillary Clinton in 2016. Democrats nominated women in two of the districts and a black man in the third; all three nominees will face white, male incumbent Republicans in November.
Attorney Lizzie Fletcher far outpaced activist Laura Moser in a metro-Houston congressional contest that became a proxy for Democrats’ fight between liberals and moderates. National Democrats’ campaign committee never endorsed Fletcher, but released opposition research against Moser amid fears that she’s too liberal to knock off vulnerable Rep. John Culberson in the fall.
In a San Antonio-Mexican border district, Gina Ortiz Jones, an Air Force veteran and former intelligence officer, got Democrats’ nod to face Rep. Will Hurd in November. Jones would the first openly lesbian congresswoman from her state.
Former NFL player Colin Allred won a battle of two attorneys and former Obama administration officials in a metro-Dallas House district. Allred, who is black, topped Lillian Salerno and will face Republican Rep. Pete Sessions in November. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee lined up behind Allred after the group’s initial favorite failed to make the runoff.
In the governor’s race, Democrats tapped former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez to take on Republican incumbent Greg Abbott in November. Valdez is Texas’ first openly gay and first Latina nominee for governor.