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Texas: The Tea Party finds a silver lining in the primaries

texastribune.org

In the Texas primary, four of the five candidates in judicial and legislative races endorsed by Ted Cruz won on Tuesday said The New York Times.  

The lessons from Texas may be Tea Party candidates and donors are more selective about picking the races to focus on.  Senator John Cornyn, the Senate’s second-ranking Republican leader in Washington got only 59 percent of the vote.

“We did take our licks in some races, but over all we’re trying to steer the ship in a certain direction, and we’re going to get there,” said Robert Gonzalez, president of the Clear Lake Tea Party in suburban Houston. “At the end of the day, Cornyn got 59 percent of the vote. It wasn’t a huge victory.”

Texas Democrats are trying to color the continued pushing by Republicans to the far right as being out of step with ordinary Texans.  However, the Democrats’ showing on Tuesday suggested they were struggling to be competitive.  Republican voters far outnumbered Democrats at the polls — 1.3 million versus roughly 550,000.

More about the Tea Party’s silver lining in the Texas primary from the New York Times can be found here.