November 5, 2018
CRUZ-ING FOR A BETO-ING:
More than 4,884,528 Texans voted early in the midterm election (ELBERT WANG, DARLA CAMERON AND CHRIS ESSIG UPDATED NOV. 3, 2018, Texas Tribune)
Early voter turnout in the 2018 midterms surpassed turnout from the 2012 presidential election in the 30 Texas counties where most registered voters in the state -- 78 percent -- live. In the entire early voting period, 4,514,930 Texans cast in-person ballots and 369,598 cast mail-in ballots. This means 39.9 percent of the 12.3 million registered voters in those 30 counties have voted.
With days to go, contest for attorney general shows signs of a competitive race (EMMA PLATOFF AND PATRICK SVITEK NOV. 4, 2018, Taxeas Tribune)
Less than 36 hours before Election Day, the race for attorney general is showing signs of competition that have been absent in just about every other statewide contest.Republican incumbent Ken Paxton, who was indicted more than three years ago on felony securities fraud charges, has been running a relatively quiet campaign with the comfortable advantage of a GOP incumbent in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide in more than two decades.But now he is firing back at his Democratic challenger, Justin Nelson, with a new attack ad -- the first one from Paxton that addresses the indictment -- and getting a fresh influx of high-dollar campaign donations, signals that Republicans are not taking anything for granted in the race for Texas' top lawyer.
Posted by Orrin Judd at November 5, 2018 4:35 AM