Not all political contests are created equal. Some contests are not competitive for various reasons, such as fundraising, candidate quality, endorsements, and several other factors. Today we’ll look at more or less competitive races, placing the blowouts off to the side for now.
In the first round of the primary the average margin of victory was 28 points. For our purposes, a race was competitive if it was inside the average.
By this definition, about a quarter of races were non-competitive. Candidates in competitive races did best with Jordan Berry and Kevin Brannon. Candidates were better than 60% with Todd Smith and Luke Macias and Murphy Turner.
On the flip side, Reb Wayne and Bryan Eppstein did very poorly in competitive races. The other three, Allyn and Company, Allen Blakemore and Ted Delisi, won half of their competitive races.
Later this week we’ll examine how much donors paid each consultant for these results.
| Consultant | Competitve candidates | Wins | Win % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Jordan Berry | 6 | 5 | 83.33% |
| Kevin Brannon | 6 | 5 | 83.33% |
| Todd Smith | 3 | 2 | 66.67% |
| Luke Macias | 5 | 3 | 60.00% |
| Murphy Turner Associates | 10 | 6 | 60.00% |
| Allen Blakemore | 2 | 1 | 50.00% |
| Allyn & Company | 2 | 1 | 50.00% |
| Ted Delisi | 2 | 1 | 50.00% |
| Bryan Eppstein | 9 | 3 | 33.33% |
| Reb Wayne | 5 | 0 | 0.00% |
Jordan Berry – Jim Landtroop, Scott Sanford, David Simpson, Drew Springer, James White, Bill Zedler
Kevin Brannon – Craig Goldman, Stephanie Klick, Matt Rinaldi, Ron Simmons, Steve Toth, Scott Turner
Todd Smith – Doc Anderson, Trent Ashby, Sid Miller
Luke Macias – Matt Beebe, Giovanni Capriglione, Matt Krause, Stuart Spitzer, Jonathan Stickland
Murphy Turner Associates – Greg Bonnen, Roger Burns, Mike Hamilton, Ken King, Steve Nguyen, Chris Paddie, Raul Pineda, Jim Pitts, Ken Sapp, Joe Straus,
Allen Blakemore – Jim Murphy, Ryan Sitton
Allyn & Company – Jim Pruitt, Jason Villalba
Ted Delisi – Rob Eissler, Ralph Sheffield, Paul Workman
Bryan Eppstein – Byron Cook, Roger Fisher, Chuck Hopson, Trent McKnight, Bennett Ratliff, James Smith, Joe Straus, Susan Todd, Vicki Truitt
Reb Wayne – Marva Beck, Jon Cole, Michael Leyman, Tommy Merritt, Barbara Nash
CORRECTION: The original post relied on primary-source data from the Texas Ethics Commission and Mike Hailey’s Capitol Inside. Based on input from consultants and campaigns, we are continuing to update the data. We appreciate the information!
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