Primary delivers shock, reality check
Ex-Navy SEAL, no stranger to adversity, earns spot in 2nd District runoff despite well-heeled opponents
Six million dollars was not going to stop Dan Crenshaw.
The former Navy SEAL, who nearly lost his life in Afghanistan, has faced much tougher odds than he encountered in his uphill congressional race. But it didn’t look good for him Tuesday night.
Based on early and absentee ballots, the first to be announced, the 33year-old Crenshaw was running a distant third in the Republican primary in the 2nd Congressional District, which covers large parts of northern Harris County.
Crenshaw was almost 2,000 votes out of the second-place position he needed to achieve to qualify for a runoff. In second place was Kathaleen Wall,
a wealthy conservative activist who had plowed $6 million of her own money into a bevy of television ads promoting her candidacy. She also had two of the biggest names in Texas politics on her side: Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
But late Tuesday, as the vote count ground on, Crenshaw’s total started to surge, and after midnight, he slipped ahead of Wall and into second place, behind state Rep. Kevin Roberts. He held on and ended up making the May 22 runoff by a hair’s breadth: a margin of 145 votes out of more than 46,000 cast. A total of nine candidates competed in the primary.
“We clawed our way in there,” Crenshaw said in an interview with radio host Michael Berry.
On Tuesday morning, Crenshaw was telling his supporters in northern Harris County to keep working and remain confident. He told them he had volunteers at every precinct in the district, making a final big push.
“We’re feeling optimistic,” he said. “We’re feeling good.”
Facing Litton in November
Roberts and Crenshaw are battling to see who will take on Democrat Todd Litton in the November general election. Litton easily won the Democratic primary, outdistancing four rivals. The candidates are vying to replace U.S. Rep. Ted Poe, a Republican from Atascocita who did not seek re-election.
Crenshaw, a retired lieutenant commander, spent 10 years in the SEALS, including tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Crenshaw nearly lost his vision when an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan nearly put him in a coma for five days. He survived but lost his right eye. He wears an eye patch.
Roberts said he has immense respect for Crenshaw and that voters can expect a high-integrity campaign from both. He said he’ll continue to make the same case to voters that he’s been making since November: that he has proven conservative credentials. Elected to the state Legislature in 2016, Roberts has focused on his experience. He is the only one of the Republican candidates to hold elective office.
“It really feels good,” Roberts said Wednesday of his firstplace finish in the primary.
With Wall spending $6 million, he said he wondered early on if that would be a difference maker.
“It shows you can still run an old school campaign — meeting people and listening to them and what they are going through,” said Roberts, who manages the business side of the Lanier Law Firm in Houston. “And money can’t buy that.”
Roberts and Crenshaw expect to get together later this month at a gun range. The reason: Roberts won an auction to spend an hour shooting with a Navy SEAL, Crenshaw said.
Big spenders, bad results
Wall’s defeat is another blow for wealthy self-financed candidates, who have consistently lost campaigns for Congress in Texas even while heavily out-spending their opponents.
Wall, an investor and consultant for tech startups, has been a major GOP fundraiser. She and her husband Holloway Frost have been generous donors to Abbott’s political action committee.
Since 2000, 21 candidates have put at least $1 million into their own campaigns. Eighteen lost.
Self-funders are often political novices who try to use their money to overcome their inexperience, said Larry Sabato, the director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia.
In Wall’s case, that inexperience showed up in speaking engagements, where she struggled to remember talking point. Her campaign also avoided interviews with the media.
On election night, Wall spoke to supporters but never conceded that she had lost.
“Thanks to everyone for running a good race,” Wall told a couple dozen supporters at Cafe Adobe as election results came in. “And thanks to the voters of Congressional District 2 for trusting me with their vote.”