Houston Democrats

Carroll Schubert alienated potential swing voters by running a mean and nasty campaign. What's interesting is that he didn't do well even after Rick Perry visited San Antonio twice to lend him his support. Apparently, two hugs and Perry referring to him as "brother" just aren't enough to ensure an electoral victory.

Julian Castro's support came mainly from City Council Districts 1 through 7, the main core of San Antonio, as well as the East, West, and South sides of San Antonio. Phil Hardberger did well in Carroll Schubert’s stronghold on the North Side.

The results:
Julian Castro 41.99% (47,893)
Phil Hardberger 30.05% (34,280)
Carroll Schubert 26.32% (30,029)
Julie Iris Oldham 0.81% (919)
Everett Caldwell 0.34% (391)
Rhett R. Smith 0.25% (289)
Michael Idrogo 0.24% (270)

Castro and Hardberger now have a month before the June 7 runoff to remobilize their bases and to gain as much of Schubert's 30,000 votes as possible.

Jason points out:

Second—and this is the encouraging news—the demise of Rick Perry's "brother" in a high-profile race in San Antonio represents a serious erosion in Perry's support down there. In 2002, he easily beat Tony Sanchez there, 142,085 votes to 125,420. We knew Democrats would vote for either Castro or Hardberger. What Saturday's election showed us was that Independents and moderate Republicans are abandoning Rick Perry in really big numbers.

Kay Bailey Hutchison has yet to declare her candidacy for governor. She will make an announcement sometime this summer whether to run for reelection to the Senate or to return to Texas to take on Perry. However, it seems likely that she will make a run at the governorship.

Many would like to see Perry and Hutchison go head to head, splitting the far right Republicans from the moderate Republicans. The idea is that Perry would come out as the Republican nominee and face off with Chris Bell in the general election. Ideally, this would give Chris a chance to pick up some moderate votes in order to topple Perry from the governorship.