Colin Allred

Allred, Johnson win primaries outright, Valdez advances to runoff

TAMMYE NASH | Managing Editor
nash@dallasvoice.com

The presidential primaries in Texas went as expected, with President Joe Biden and Donald Trump easily claiming victories in the Democratic and Republican races, respectively. Biden claimed 85 percent of the vote in a field of eight candidates, while Trump won 80 percent in a field of nine candidates.

Republican Primary results in Texas and other Super Tuesday states did, however, prompt Republican Nikki Haley to suspend her campaign for the Republican presidential nomination. Haley won 17 percent of the Texas GOP Primary vote.

The big question on Tuesday in Texas, though, was what would happen in the down-ballot races. And for the state’s LGBTQ community, results were a mixed bag.

In the race for U.S. senator, LGBTQ ally Colin Allred, currently the District 32 representative in Congress, easily outdistanced his eight opponents in the race for the Democratic nomination. He took 59 percent of the vote. Republican incumbent Ted Cruz won 88 percent of the GOP vote against two challengers.

Julie Johnson

“Ted Cruz has had 12 years of pitting us against each other,” Allred said Tuesday night, May 5. “It’s time we had a senator who will bring us together. I’ll be that senator. We’ve had enough of ‘me’ guys. ‘We’ is much more powerful than ‘me.’

“We can do this together.”

And in the race to replace Allred as the District 32 representative in the U.S. House, state Rep. Julie Johnson came one step closer to being the first openly LGBTQ to represent a Southern state in the Congress, winning 50.1 percent of the Democratic Primary vote to escape a runoff against nine other candidates.

“This win belongs to a united LGBTQ community and many others,” Johnson said Wednesday, May 6. “Together, we’re going to make history.”

Her closest opponent was Brian Williams with just 19 percent; none of the other eight candidates made it into double-digits. Openly trans candidate Callie Butcher, who filed to run on the last day to file, placed seventh out of 10 candidates.

In the Republican Primary race for District 32, David Blewett got 44 percent of the vote and Darrell Day got 38 percent, sending that contest into a runoff.

The District 32 seat in Congress had been held by Republicans until 2018, when Allred defeated incumbent Pete Sessions to turn the district blue. This week, 28,422 people cast their ballots in that race in the Democratic Primary, compared to 24,048 voting in the GOP Primary in that race.

Former Dallas County sheriff Lupe Valdez — who stepped down from that office to challenge Greg Abbott for governor in 2018 — ended the day with 38 percent of the vote in the Democratic Primary, just 5 percent behind incumbent Sheriff Marian Brown. The remaining 19 percent was divided between three other candidates.

Mike Hendrix, a political consultant working with Valdez’s campaign, said the campaign is happy with the outcome so far. “Our strategy was always to make it into a runoff so we can go head to head and start talking about the sheriff’s record,” he said. “Suicide rates are up; murders in the jail are up; deaths in the jail are up and morale is very low.”

Hendrix said Brown beat Valdez in the early voting by some 6,000 votes but that Valdez performed better on Election Day, winning about 77 percent in the Oak Lawn precincts then.

Lupe Valdez

In the Texas House
Every LGBTQ member of the Texas House LGBTQ Caucus is a Democrat, and each one has won their primary races.
The caucus chair, Rep. Mary González, was unopposed in the Democratic Primary for House District 75 near El Paso, and will be re-elected in November since she has no Republican opponent.

The same is true for Rep. Jessica González of Dallas, caucus vice chair, in District 104. Jessica González has run unopposed in both the primary and the general election she first took office after defeating incumbent Democrat Roberto Alonzo in the 2018 primary.

The caucus secretary, Rep. Erin Zweiner in District 45 south of Austin, won her primary race with 71 percent of the vote and will face Republican Tennyson Moreno in November. In District 134 northwest of Houston, Rep. Ann Johnson, caucus legal counsel, was unopposed in her primary. She will face Republican Audrey Douglas in November.

Rep. Josey Garcia, from District 124 near San Antonio, was unopposed in the primary, and will face Republican Sylvia Soto in the general election. Rep. Venton Jones of Dallas, the District 100 incumbent who in 2022 became the first person with HIV elected to the Texas Legislature, won his primary race this week and has no Republican opponent in November.

There are two other openly LGBTQ lawmakers in the Texas House Rep. Christian Manuel of Beaumont in District 22 was unopposed in the primary and has no general election opponent. And Rep. Jolanda Jones of Houston was unopposed in the primary and will face Republican challenger Claudio Gutierrez in November.

In District 115 north of Dallas, the seat left vacant by Rep. Julie Johnson’s decision to run for Congress, Democrat Cassandra Hernandez defeated Kate Rumsey in the primary. She will face Republican John Jun in November.

In what caucus officials called an “unprecedented” move, the Texas Stonewall Democratic Caucus, the official LGBTQ caucus of the Texas Democratic Party, earlier this year issued a statement warning Democratic voters in District 146 in Houston not to vote for the incumbent state representative, Shawn Thierry, “due to continued anti-LGBTQ+ actions and statements.”

During the 2023 Texas Legislature, Thierry broke ranks with her fellow Democrats to vote in favor of Senate Bill 14 which prohibits gender-affirming health care for transgender minors. Thierry also voted with Repubicans on a measure banning certain books from school libraries.

On Tuesday, openly-LGBTQ union organizer Lauren Simmons came just half a percentage point shy of winning the primary outright. Now Simmons, with 49.5 percent of the vote on Tuesday, and Thierry, who got 44.4 percent, will face each other in the May runoff. The winner advances to the general election against Republican challenger Lance York.

Trans woman Mo Jenkins, who had the backing of the LGBTQ+ Victory Fund in her campaign for Texas House District 139 in Harris County, placed third in a five-candidate race with 17.7 percent of the vote. Angeanette Thibodeaux (33 percent) and Charlene Ward Johnson (24 percent) are in a runoff, and, with no Republican in the race, the runoff will represent the district in the Texas House.

An ally is defeated
In the race for the Place 13 seat on Texas’ 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, out LGBTQ Judge Tonya Parker was unopposed in the Democratic Primary. Mike Lee was unopposed in the Republican Primary for that seat, which means the two will go head-to-head in the November general election.

Even though they were not running directly against each other in the primaries, the fact that Parker drew 30,000 more votes in her race than Lee did in his could bode well for Parker’s chances in November.

In the Republican Primary for the District 11 seat on the Texas State Board of Education, Republican incumbent Patricia Hardy lost to right-wing candidate Brandon Hall, who based his campaign on far-right talking points like “critical race theory” and who supports Greg Abbott’s wildly unpopular school vouchers program. Last summer, Hall made headlines by attacking a Weather for nonprofit offering support for LGBTQ youth.

In the general election, Hall faces Rayna Glasser, who was unopposed in the Democratic Primary.

Other LGBTQ candidates in Texas
Five other LGBTQ candidates running for office in Texas also got the backing of the Victory Fund. They include former state Rep. Celia Israel, one of the founders of the House LGBTQ Caucus. Israel has won the office of Travis County Tax Assessor-Collector since she was unopposed in both the Democratic Primary and the general election.

Another Victory Fund candidate running unopposed in both the primary and the general election was Charles Spain, the place four justice on the 14th District Court of Appeals, which means Spain automatically retains his seat.

The Senate District 15 seat was left vacant last year when the incumbent John Whitmire stepped down to run for and win the office of Houston mayor. This week Victory Fund’s endorsed candidate, Molly Cook won 21 percent of the vote in that race, putting her in a runoff with Jarvis Johnson, who won 36 percent. A special election will be held May 4, the same day as the runoff, to see who will serve out Whitmire’s unexpired term. Cook is an ER nurse and a community organizer.

Paul Hill came in fourth in a five-candidate race for Hays County Justice of the Peace Precinct 2, Place 2. In the Democratic Primary race for Harris County District Attorney, openly LGBTQ incumbent Kim Ogg lost to Sean Teare, a former prosecutor in Ogg’s office.

Visit DallasVoice.com to read Lisa Keen’s coverage of LGBTQ candidates around the country.