GOP senate race in Texas down to the wire

The winner of Tuesday's GOP runoff - Ted Cruz, left, or David Dewhurst - will likely be the next U.S. senator from Texas. The winner of Tuesday's GOP runoff - Ted Cruz, left, or David Dewhurst - will likely be the next U.S. senator from Texas. Photo: Michael Paulsen Photo: Michael Paulsen Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close GOP senate race in Texas down to the wire 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

FORT WORTH - In the final days of the battle expected to determine Texas' next U.S. senator, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst was doing election math while Ted Cruz enjoyed the glow of conservative stars alighting in Texas to help his insurgent campaign heading into Tuesday's runoff.

Once the clear favorite to win the GOP nomination, Dewhurst now is in a dogfight with tea party-backed Cruz, thanks to election vagaries, campaign styles and strategies, and Republican voters wary of longtime officeholders.

"The key here is turnout, turnout, turnout," Dewhurst said last week.

Dewhurst pointed to his status as the primary's top vote-getter and endorsements from former rivals Craig James and Tom Leppert, who together got more than 200,000 votes in May.

"I'm not saying all (those votes) go to me. But the arithmetic is, there are more voters for me than there are for my opponent. It's all about turnout," said Dewhurst, who has the support of state heavyweights, including Gov. Rick Perry, as he touts his Texas record.

Cruz beamed confidence a day later at a national tea party rally in Dallas, organized by the limited-government group FreedomWorks.

"There is a great awakening that is sweeping this state, that is sweeping this country," Cruz proclaimed, saying voters want "new leaders who will stand and fight for liberty, who will defend the U.S. Constitution, and who will stop spending money."

Backing Cruz were conservative U.S. Sens. Jim DeMint of South Carolina, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Mike Lee of Utah. The next day, former vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin rallied for Cruz in The Woodlands.

As the candidates make their last-ditch pitches, a national audience is keenly interested in whether Texas will choose a candidate likely to align with traditional GOP conservatives like U.S. Sen. John Cornyn of Texas or one like Cruz, who has promised to join the arch-conservative Senate cadre led by DeMint that is trying to push the GOP further to the right.

Making an impression

At a candidate forum sponsored by the Village Republican Women in Houston, Lynn Conrad showed up wearing a Dewhurst sticker while her husband, Larry Conrad, wore a Cruz sticker.

Halfway through, Larry Conrad, impressed with Dewhurst's sincerity and experience, took off his Cruz sticker. Lynn Conrad, impressed with Cruz's eloquence and energy, put it on. By the end of the forum, however, both had decided to support Dewhurst, primarily because of his experience.

"I just thought both candidates were tremendous," Larry Conrad said. "Both are better than the governor, better than the Republican presidential candidate."

Democrats Paul Sadler and Grady Yarbrough also are fighting for their party's nomination for the seat now held by U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is not seeking re-election. The GOP runoff, however, is expected to be the decisive matchup because Texas has not elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.

Cruz 'worked tirelessly'

Dewhurst began with the advantages of a name known to Texans after his long service in statewide office, establishment backing and deep pockets allowing him to pour money into his campaign.

The story was rewritten as a competitive battle after the primary, with its crowded field, was delayed until late May by a redistricting court fight. Dewhurst did not get the majority he needed to avoid Tuesday's runoff.

Asked why the race is so close now, Dewhurst said, "It's July ... a lot of people are gone. A lot of people are focusing on their families and vacations. And so, in a way, we're interrupting them. But this is an important election."

Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston, said the Dewhurst campaign did not take Cruz seriously early enough.

"Given their early avoidance strategy, they may have given the Cruz movement time to catalyze," he said, noting that Cruz was not well-known statewide when he entered the race, but used the extended campaign schedule to full advantage, appearing at grass-roots gatherings around Texas while chiding Dewhurst for the appearances he missed.

"He (Cruz) worked tirelessly to connect with the party's grass roots throughout the state, and that was of profound importance," said Mark P. Jones, chairman of the Department of Political Science at Rice University. Cruz's grass-roots backing was key to impressing national groups whose resources helped level the playing field against Dewhurst, he said.

Dewhurst attributes his decision to skip forums to the necessities of acting as governor while Perry campaigned for president outside of Texas.

Clinton comparison

Dewhurst also is selling a long record in office that, while studded with accomplishments, faces anti-incumbent sentiment among some GOP voters.

Houston political consultant Mustafa Tameez said that "as we get closer and closer to Election Day, establishment support becomes a liability. "What's happening to Dewhurst reminds me of Hillary Clinton in 2008. She was the establishment candidate who lost to a younger, fresher candidate who hadn't been around as long as she had," he said.

Dewhurst's campaign message, rooted in the reality of the legislative arena, also was more difficult to sell than Cruz's image as a conservative warrior, Jones said.

"Cruz just has to stay on point with the message of what he wants to do," Jones said. "Dewhurst sometimes gets involved in trying to explain what he did, and how he did it, and how that was the only thing that could be done at the time."

Experts are a bit divided on a race they see as quite competitive.

Allan Saxe, associate professor of political science at the University of Texas at Arlington, said that although the "real hard money has to go with David Dewhurst," he sees the race as a tossup. "Ted Cruz has done something that nobody would have thought was possible. Nobody even knew his name."

San Antonio Express-News reporter John W. Gonzalez contributed to this story.

pfikac@express-news.net twitter.com/pfikac joe.holley@chron.com twitter.com/holleynews