Educator-backed candidates hit near-clean sweep in Texas primary runoff elections

Three of our endorsed victorious candidates were Texas AFT members.

---

Supporters of public education had great reason to celebrate this week as most Texas AFT-endorsed candidates emerged victorious in Tuesday’s primary runoff elections. 

Most exciting of all the victories was a 3-for-3 rout for Texas AFT members – Montserrat Garibay, Adrian Reyna, and Allison Bush each won their elections and are considered heavy favorites in November. Garibay and Reyna are running for the Texas House, representing districts 49 and 125, respectively. Bush easily dispatched her charter-backed opponent and will be the Democratic nominee for the State Board of Education, District 5. 

For Congress, Texas AFT-backed candidates Colin Allred (CD-33), Christian Menefee (CD-18), and Johnny Garcia (CD-35) also won their runoffs and are running in heavily Democratic seats that were gerrymandered during last year’s Trump-led redistricting effort. For the statewide ticket, Vikki Goodwin and Nathan Johnson will be the Democratic nominees for Lt. Governor and Attorney General, respectively – also endorsed by Texas AFT. Endorsed candidates that did not win on Tuesday were state representative candidates Lawrence Allen Jr. and incumbent Hubert Vo, both of whom we thank for their pro-public education campaigns and years of public service.  

Turnout was scant, with just 9.3% of Texans casting a ballot. A little more than double the number of Republicans voted than Democrats, which makes sense given the high-profile and messy U.S. Senate primary being litigated on the GOP side. However, that still means that out of more than 18.5 million eligible Texans, less than 2 million voted. Primaries are already relatively low-turnout affairs; add in it being a midterm cycle and a runoff, it’s a surprise turnout wasn’t lower. High information voters are deciding these races. Turnout will be higher in November – in 2018, turnout for the general election was nearly 46%.  

And with an eye towards November, we want to reiterate that this will be a public education election. Voucher transparency and the “state of public education” have already been the topic of interim committee hearings in the legislature. Communities are becoming aware of the disastrous funding shortfalls that are affecting their ISDs, from El Paso to Houston. Governor Abbott will be crowing about his privatization scam, but he’ll also have to answer for its unpopularity and ripple effects on our local public schools while facing public education stalwart Gina Hinojosa (endorsed by Texas AFT). 

Let’s talk again about Allison Bush, who is the Democratic nominee for SBOE District 5, which covers Austin, San Marcos, and Seguin. The policy question at the forefront in that runoff was which has the most deleterious effect on public education, voucher schemes or charter schools. Both are bad, but Bush believes charter schools are the more immediate threat, and she isn’t wrong, at least in the case of Austin ISD. This was a point of contrast with her runoff opponent, who received thousands of dollars from the charter school industry’s PACs. 

The Austin Chronicle’s reporting on this race was top-shelf, but the punchline is this: in a post-voucher world, pro-charter forces will want to shift negative attention towards voucher privatization and away from unfettered charter expansion approved by the commissioner alone and which costs our public schools $4 billion per year. The SBOE’s responsibilities include the ability to veto the commissioner’s approval of new charter operators, which is why the charter industry desperately wanted to buy this seat that has long been held by pro-public education candidates.  

We believe this policy debate will play out in races all over the state before November. Bush’s perspective and integrity earned her Texas AFT’s endorsement as well as an outpouring of grassroots support from parents and community members who know that our public schools are at stake. Despite being outspent 5 to 1, Bush prevailed with a sizeable victory on Tuesday. 

Texas AFT will monitor and report on education-related debates that pop up on the long campaign trail between now and November 3. The last day to register to vote (it’s never too early to think about) is Monday, October 5.