| STATE OF THE RACE: Toss UP
Candidate Page: Dan Barrett
Candidate Page: Mark Shelton House District Map: District 97
District History: 2006 Election Results Click here to return to the Burnt Orange Political Report home page. 30-Day Out Campaign Finance Report: HD-97: Barrett vs. Shelton
| Contributions | Expenditures | Cash on Hand | Democrat Dan Barrett
| $168,406.87 | $125,782.29 | $113,548.59 | Republican Mark Shelton
| $119,569.00 | $54,693.67 | $86,669.28 | | Barrett's Advantage | $48,837.87 | $71,088.62 | $26,879.31 |
Here's one good anecdote for why Barrett will win: Shelton finally sent out his first mail piece this weekend. It in response to 3 negative mail pieces Barrett had already sent out on Shelton's position in support of vouchers. There's no way that Shelton had planned to (1) be so far behind on his mail plan, and (2) be talking about vouchers right now. Barrett is running a good race -- just like he did a year ago. Remember? Remember back before the Obama/Clinton primary season. Remember back all the way to December 2007, when Democrats still only had 69 members of the Texas House. Remember when there was a huge, unexpected victory by Texas Democrats. Remember when Dan Barrett won in an open race against Mark Shelton? House District 97 was not drawn to be a Democratic seat. In 2006, Barrett had taken on the recently retired Anna Mowery and claimed only 40.82% of the vote. Tarrant County on the whole only gave Barbara Radnofsky, the U.S. Senate nominee, 34.80%, Chris Bell 31.07% in his bid for Governor, and the bellwhether Texas Supreme Court candidate Bill Moody 42.79% of the vote. The Republican's should have won this election based on the poor democratic performance index (DPI) of the district alone. During the special election yesterday, Barrett won with 52.2% of the vote. In addition, Barrett was dramatically out spent. According to the 8 day out reports, Mark Shelton spent over $100,000 and raised (and presumably spent) another $10,000 from TexPAC before the election. Barrett on the other hand spent a little over $45,000 according to his 8 day report. Again, according to his telegram reports, raised an additional $4,000 in the final week of the election from Texas Parent PAC and two individuals.
Those two paragraphs were from Matt's excellent wrap-up post on Barrett's surprise victory. All that's changed in this high-stakes race since then is that Barrett has even higher name ID and more money -- but the same can be said of Shelton. A top target for Republicans, and a key hold for Democrats, this race is going to come down to the wire. If Barrett can hold on one more time, he will be the lynchpin in replacing Tom Craddick as Speaker of the Texas House. Here are some other links that previous coverage of the race on Burnt Orange Report: |
