Jake Ellzey, right, has defeated Susan Wright, left, in the race to replace the late Congressman Ron Wright in the U.S. House.

In what the Texas Tribune is calling “a major upset,” Texas state Rep. Jake Ellzey of Waxahachie has defeated fellow Republican Susan Wright in a special election runoff to replace Wright’s husband, U.S. Rep. Ron Wright in Congress. Ellzey ended the evening with 53 percent of the vote, compared to Wright’s 47 percent

Ron Wright, the Republican from Arlington who had represented Texas’ 6th Congressional District since 2019, died Feb. 7 this year after a battle with COVID-19. Ellzey, a U.S. Navy veteran, and Susan Wright earned their place in Tuesday’s runoff by being the top two vote-getters out of 21 candidates from all along the partisan political spectrum in the May 1 special election.

Wright had been considered the favorite in the runoff since her husband had been popular in the district and since she had the backing of the former president, Donald Trump, who endorsed in the final days before the May 1 voting. In the runoff, Trump issued three statements reiterating his endorsement of Wright, starred in a robocall for her and headlined a telephone rally for her on Monday night, the day before the runoff, the Tribune noted.

Ellzey positioned himself as a “Reagan Republican,” and had the backing of former Texas Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw, a Houston Republican, in the runoff. In the final days of the campaign before yesterday’s voting, Ellzey’s campaign seemed to be reaching out to Democrats by declaring him to be “pro-public education” and stressing that Wright was backed by Trump.

But at the same time, according to the Tribune, Perry — who served as Trump’s Secretary of Energy from March 2017 through the end of 2019 — and some other Ellzey backers suggested Trump had been misled into supporting Wright. (In other words, they believe that had Trump known all the facts, he would have backed Ellzey over Wright, which makes it obvious that the LGBTQ community shouldn’t expect any support from Ellzey.)

Ellzey’s victory this week means that his seat in the Texas House — to which he was elected just last year — is now empty, and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott will have to call a special election to fill it for the remainder of his two-year term.

— Tammye Nash