Rothenberg puts a crimp on Henry Cuellar's chances at upsetting Bonilla in the Texas 23rd district, including it in his Said to Be 'Hot,' These Four Races Are Just Not column. This is the second piece of bad news I've read for Cuellar this week; the other being at Cook and Others, detailing Cuellar's campaign team woes. I'm not completely convinced that it's unwinnable by Cuellar (sure, Bush won the district with 58% in 2000, but so did Clinton in 1996 with 50%), but it doesn't deserve to be in the Democratic column at this time-- back to a slight lean for Bonilla until more is seen from Cuellar's campaign.
Rothenberg states that Too many local Democrats didn't like or trust him[Cuellar], as evidenced by the fact that state Sen. Judy Zaffirini (D), a Laredo power broker, held a fundraiser for Bonilla. According to the San Antonio Express-News though, Zaffirini invited Bonilla as a special guest for her fundraiser, without any endorsement:
State Sen. Judith Zaffirini, D-Laredo, made it very clear last week that she has not endorsed U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla for re-election to Congress and has no plans to do so. But that didn't stop her from inviting the San Antonio Republican to appear as her special guest at a splashy North Side fund-raiser last week. "Rep. Bonilla and I are friends who have worked together for years, but I have not endorsed him and he has not endorsed me," she said.
That same week Cuellar was endorsed by Cisneros. San Antonio Express-News also has an article out on the new Dem HQ's there, with Cuellar hugging county Democratic Party chairman Gabe Quintanilla. The Democrats are pressing there for voting a straight ticket. That might be enough to push Cuellar over the top. I'm not convinced by Rothenburg's thin reasoning. Bonilla certainly isn't making any friends while cutting funding for SA's Amtrack service.
In the CT 2nd, ATR has info on a poll done by U Conn., that finds Simmons leading 41 percent to 23 percent among 2nd district registered voters and 46 percent to 24 percent among likely voters... The poll put Simmons' name identification at 88 percent, while Courtney's was 37 percent. That seems like a pretty low poll number for Simmon's, given his already high name ID-- Courtney could move up in this race rather quickly with some exposure.
http://news.mysanantonio.com/story.cfm?xla=saen&xlb=400&xlc=825444
News on what's going on in Bexar County, which is one end of District 23.
Posted by: Precinct1233 on September 29, 2002 06:07 AMI've been looking at the voting history for this district (or, more correctly, some of the counties in this district.)
In Webb County (Laredo), the second-largest county in the district after Bexar (San Antonio), 28,000 people voted in the Democratic primary for Senate, compared to 31,000 total in the 2000 general election, which went 18,000 to 13,000 for Gore. And that's without any GOTV spending by Sanchez.
If we assume general election turnout will be double primary turnout (generally a safe bet), that's nearly enough extra votes to overcome Bonilla's 2000 margin, since in every race except the Presidential, Webb County is overwhelmingly Democratic (look at the Republican primary numbers: in the most-contested race, incumbent Hispanic versus challenging Anglo for Supreme Court Place 4, only a couple of thousand people voted in Webb County).
Given that Cuellar is from Webb County and Bonilla from Bexar, his numbers in Webb should approach 80% of voters, and Sanchez is spending at least $10 million on GOTV, so the turnout will be huge. Given the Sanchez GOTV effort in the rest of the district, I don't see how Bexar can carry the balance of the district.
Posted by: precinct1233 on September 29, 2002 01:51 PMThanks for the info.
Posted by: MyDD on September 30, 2002 11:01 PM