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TX-23: Another Democratic Victory!

Posted by on December 13, 2006 at 09:35 AM

South Texans went to the polls yesterday and elected former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez to represent them in the 23rd District of Texas, capping off a landslide year with a 30th pick-up for Democrats.

Rodriguez faced 7-term Republican incumbent, Henry Bonilla, who was forced into a special general election this summer after the Supreme Court ruled that the Tom DeLay-engineered redistricting of South Texas violated the Voting Rights Act. The primary election results of March were thrown out, and the general election pitted Bonilla against a slew of Democratic challengers.

No candidate managed to capture 50% of the vote on November 7th, and a run-off election was scheduled between the top two vote getters, Rodriguez and Bonilla.

Rodriguez's campaign moved to aggressively turn out the vote during the early vote period, and as a result, led the GOP incumbent in votes before the polls opened on Tuesday. A hard-charging field operation and media strategy led to victory Tuesday night and Rodriguez trounced Bonilla, winning 54-46% of the vote.

Commenting on the mood of the electorate, Rodriguez said:

"I think (it was) the trend throughout the country," Rodriguez said after his 54 percent to 46 percent victory in Tuesday's runoff. "I think they're fed up ... they elect us to go out there and solve problems, not create any more."

San Antonio's local political columnist called it an "earthquake":

The soundness with which Rep. Henry Bonilla, the one-time Hispanic poster boy of the Republican Party, was beaten Tuesday night was the equivalent of a political earthquake.

The seven-term incumbent, who as late as Tuesday harbored dreams of becoming a U.S. Senator, was essentially fired from office and replaced by Ciro Rodriguez, a former congressman known more for being a good man than a good campaigner.

Defying every political truism of Bexar County politics, Bonilla started the night by becoming the rare well-known Republican to not only lose early voting, but to lose it badly.

And the slide only continued. Without the benefit of voting analysis that will show exactly what happened in the coming days, the assumption has to be that Bonilla's Republican base either stayed home or strayed to Rodriguez, while more motivated Democrats went to the polls.

During his victory speech last night Ciro demonstrated he was clearly ready to get to work on many of the items on Speaker-designee Pelosi's agenda:

"I think we have a real mandate," he said. "We needed to make sure we worked on raising the minimum wage. We're also going to take care of prescription drug costs. And, by God, we're going to do the right thing by our veterans."

Thanks to Texas, Democrats just got a larger majority and America just got another fantastic Congressman.

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