Texas Democrats narrowly chose former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez over Andrew White in Tuesday's gubernatorial primary runoff election, and in the state's highest-profile contest, attorney Lizzie Pannill Fletcher trounced liberal activist Laura Moser in the Democratic runoff in the Houston-area 7th congressional district. Fletcher, a former Planned Parenthood board member backed by the Democratic Party, will take on Rep. John Culberson (R) for a House seat Democrats hope to flip in November.
Valdez, the first openly gay gubernatorial nominee in Texas and the first Latina nominee, faces Gov. Greg Abbott (R), who has high approval ratings and a $41 million war chest. Only 430,000 Democrats voted in the gubernatorial runoff, compared with the 1 million who voted in the March Democratic primary, The Texas Tribune sighs, making it both "the largest primary-to-runoff decline — and the smallest number of ballots cast — in the 14 Democratic gubernatorial primary runoffs held since 1920."
In other notable races, Democratic former Air Force intelligence officer Gina Ortiz Jones beat former high school teacher Rick Treviño and will take on Rep. Will Hurd (R) in the fall. And in the race to replace Rep. Lamar Smith (R), Republican Chip Roy, a former chief of staff for Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), will face Democrat Joseph Kopser, a tech entrepreneur.
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