Smart Politics: Political Analysis By and Beyond the Numbers

While Texas U.S. Senator John Cornyn exceeded prognosticator expectations by landing in first place in the GOP primary last week, he heads to the May runoff breaking his own state party record for the lowest support for an incumbent in a race for the office. Cornyn won 41.9 percent, some 17.5 points behind the 59.4 percent he received in 2014’s eight-candidate field. This marks a new low water mark among the 14 contests with a GOP incumbent on a Texas U.S. Senate primary ballot. [Cornyn now owns the bottom three finishes with his 76.0 percent in 2020 the only other time an incumbent has failed to win 80 percent]. Cornyn’s 1.2-point margin over second place finisher Attorney General Ken Paxton is also the narrowest among the 25 Republican primaries for the office in state history, besting the 6.2-point margin Houston businessman Wes Gilbreath notched over U.S. Representative Beau Bolter (before losing the runoff to the two-term congressman).

Political parties in three states set all-time party and a few state records in gubernatorial elections during the 2022 midterms. In Hawaii, Lieutenant Governor Josh Green won a party- and state-high 63.16 percent in the gubernatorial race, besting predecessor David Ige’s 62.67 percent in 2018. In Florida, GOP Governor Ron DeSantis received 59.37 percent – just eclipsing the 59.10 percent won by Republican Harrison Reed during Reconstruction in 1868. In Wyoming, Governor Mark Gordon claimed a party (and state) record 74.07 percent en route to a second term, besting the 67.12 percent GOP mark he set four years prior and the 69.99 percent received by Democratic Governor Dave Freudenthal in 2006.