Gubernatorial hopefuls sweep through Texas, voters finally get a say in long, rough primary

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Voters finally get a say in rough Texas primary

DALLAS — After months of bitter sniping between an entrenched governor and the senator vying to unseat him, Texas Republicans cast ballots Tuesday for who they want to lead the state for the next four years.

Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison each tried to drum up support with last-minute stops in Dallas. They’ve waged long, rancorous campaigns, with Perry painting Hutchison as the consummate Washington insider and Hutchison saying the longest-serving governor in state history needs to move on after a decade in office.

But a third candidate popular with tea party voters, activist Debra Medina, might deny both a clear majority and push them to an April 13 runoff. The winner faces the top Democrat in November. Ex-Houston Mayor Bill White is favored in that race over Houston hair-care magnate Farouk Shami and five others.

The tea party movement’s influence was evident at Texas polling places early Tuesday.

Outside a junior college in the Dallas suburb of Frisco, Barbara Baldwin, a tea party volunteer from Plano, handed out pamphlets as voters streamed in just after the polls opened.

“I think the citizens are just concerned about what’s happening in government,” Baldwin said.

Kevin Merritt, a 31-year-old Frisco software developer, said he considered voting for Perry before finally going with Medina. He said he was concerned about Medina’s suggestion that the U.S. might have been involved in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, but said he listened to the entire interview and felt she just didn’t articulate her point well.

Perry, the state’s longest-serving governor, wants an unprecedented third full four-year term. Hutchison argues he’s trying to stay too long and has grown arrogant in office. Medina calls herself the best alternative to establishment candidates.

Perry has pushed an anti-Washington message and talked up Texas as having one of the nation’s best economies, something he says he helped bring about.

On Tuesday, he took part in a military-related Texas Independence Day celebration in his official role as governor, administering the enlistment oath to 24 military recruits in Dallas.

“We didn’t even know the governor was going to be here,” said Rhonda Kelly of Royse City, whose son, Jason Bishop, was sworn into the Army by Perry. “He’s got my vote, even before I came here.”

Hutchison says she’ll do things differently from Perry, including lower business taxes and tackle ethics reforms and an education system plagued by a 30-percent dropout rate. She characterizes Perry’s contention that she is a Washington insider as “ridiculous,” stressing Tuesday that she’s a Texan who lives in Dallas and has fought for the state in the Senate.

She thinks voters will agree with her that it’s time for Perry to leave office.

“People are very excited about this race, and they know Governor Perry is trying to stay too long,” she said outside a Dallas polling place.

White, meanwhile, brushes aside suggestions that backlash against Obama and the Democratic-led Congress will destroy his chances of winning the governorship in the Republican-leaning state.

“What you find is more and more Texans call themselves independents,” White said Monday in San Antonio. “That’s the heart of my strategy.”

A number of other state and congressional offices are on Tuesday’s ballot. There are also several races for seats on the state education board, which approves school curriculum standards. Social conservatives control the 15-member board, and liberal observers view the primary as an opportunity to purge the most far-right members.

The Texas Secretary of State’s Office said 62 percent of early ballots cast in the state’s 15 most populated counties were in the Republican primary.

Associated Press writers Kelley Shannon in Austin, Juan Lozano and Ramit Plushnick-Masti in Houston, and Michelle Roberts in San Antonio contributed to this report.