Sugar Land, Texas – Rep. Tom DeLay won the GOP nomination to the House on Tuesday, beating three challengers in his first election since he was indicted and forced to step aside as majority leader.
With 88 percent of precincts reporting, DeLay had 19,765 votes, or 62 percent. His closest challenger, environmental attorney Tom Campbell, had 9,637 votes, or 30 percent.
“I have always placed my faith in the voters, and today’s vote shows they have placed their full faith in me,” DeLay said in a statement. “Not only did they reject the politics of personal destruction, but they strongly rejected the candidates who used those Democrat tactics as their platform.”
The Democratic nominee in the fall will be Nick Lampson, a former congressman ousted from office in 2004 under the new congressional map engineered by DeLay. Lampson had no primary opponent Tuesday.
In the other big Texas primary race, a former Democratic congressman from Houston won the right to challenge Gov. Rick Perry in a state where the GOP holds every statewide office.
Chris Bell prevailed over Bob Gammage, a former Texas Supreme Court justice who jumped into the race in December after a decade out of politics. Perry easily won his primary against three little-known opponents.
Bell said the victory was “exactly the boost my campaign needed” heading into what could be a historic four-way race for governor in November. Two independents – Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn and musician and professional wiseacre Kinky Friedman – are seeking enough signatures from voters who do not vote in the primary to get onto the fall ballot.
In a third contest Tuesday, Democratic voters in a congressional district stretching from San Antonio to Laredo had to decide a rematch between freshman Rep. Henry Cuellar and Ciro Rodriguez, who served 3 1/2 terms on Capitol Hill before losing to Cuellar in 2004. With no Republican running in the district, the winner will take the seat.
