With a four-point lead, MJ Hegar declares victory over Royce West in U.S. Senate runoff
With a four-point lead, former Air Force pilot MJ Hegar declared victory over Dallas state Sen. Royce West in the U.S. Senate Democratic primary runoff late Tuesday night.
Hegar made the announcement shortly before 11:30 p.m. with nearly 80% of polling places reporting. Hegar was ahead by 37,488 votes at the time, according to the Texas Secretary of State’s unofficial results.
With all all polling places reporting Wednesday morning, Hegar had 52.13% of the vote with West at 47.87%.
“I am humbled by the support we have received from all across the state, and am confident we have a decisive victory,” Hegar said in a statement. “Together, we are mounting a Texas-sized winning campaign that will take down Senator Cornyn and deliver real results on health care, racial justice, economic opportunity, climate change, immigration, and gun violence.”
Wednesday morning, West conceded and congratulated Hegar on her win. In a statement he looked back on the historic nature of his campaign and his staff who helped, “get us very close despite being underdogs” and outspent.
“I have been working to elect Democrats for decades, and I look forward to turning Texas blue in November,” West said.
The race has drawn national attention, with Democrats seeing it as an opportunity to shift a traditionally red state in their favor. Hegar will go on to face three-term Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn — who has far outraised both of his Democratic challengers — in November.
In a statement after Hegar’s announcement, Cornyn’s campaign doubled down on his achievements and said Hegar’s candidacy “isn’t very impressive” and that they looked forward “to shining a spotlight on how ideologically out-of-touch” she is with Texans.
“She was passed over for endorsement by grassroots leaders across the state and nearly every elected Texas Democrat,” the statement read.
Recent polls put Hegar, a Purple Heart recipient who served three tours in Afghanistan, ahead of West, and she led the way in fundraising and national support. Meanwhile, West, who would be Texas’ first Black U.S. senator, emphasized his more than 25-year career in the state Senate and efforts to further criminal justice reform.
Earlier Tuesday evening, as some outlets began to call the race for Hegar, West had remained optimistic. He told reporters around 9:20 p.m. that he “should be able to close that lead” when Hegar was five points ahead.
West placed his bets on making up the difference in the urban centers, like the counties of Dallas, Tarrant and Harris, where votes had yet to be fully reported, and his campaign predicted the race would come down to 10,000 or so votes. Even as Hegar declared victory, West’s campaign said they would wait to make a statement in the morning after more votes had been counted.
In his hometown of Dallas, West had a wide lead in both the counties of Dallas and Tarrant, while Hegar, who lives in Round Rock, pulled ahead across Central and South Texas and in Bexar County. In Harris County, West was ahead by just one point, or about 1,590 votes, Wednesday morning.
On Super Tuesday, Hegar held onto an early lead among her dozen Democratic opponents and earned 22.31% of the vote — less than the over 50% needed to avoid a runoff election.
The race for who would join her in the runoff stretched through the night, with West eventually pulling ahead of labor organizer Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez with 14.66% of the vote to her 13.19%.
In recent weeks, the race has gotten heated. During a debate on KVUE-TV late last month, West raised a 2011 contribution to Cornyn’s campaign and Hegar’s previous record of voting in a 2016 Republican primary, and Hegar accused West of using his office to bolster his financial prospects.
The race was upended by the coronavirus’ pandemic, which pushed primary runoff elections from May 26 to July 14. And in the wake of protests spurred by George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody, both West and Hegar have been vocal about the need for criminal justice reform and condemned Cornyn’s comments questioning systemic racism.
West has touted his own bills that have pushed for criminal justice reform, and shared personal experiences of getting stopped by police as a Black man. He’s also recently secured prominent endorsements, including from civil rights attorney Benjamin Crump, who represents the family of Floyd and has previously represented the families of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
In a press conference last month, Hegar was joined by Javier Ambler’s family in calling for accountability from the Williamson County’s Sheriff’s Office. An investigation by the Austin American-Statesman and KVUE-TV revealed last month that Ambler, a Black man, died after deputies held him down and tased him while a reality show filmed the encounter.
Hegar has far outraised her Democratic opponents, and her campaign announced earlier this month that in the second quarter of 2020 she raised over $1.7 million — her largest haul to date. Endorsed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Hegar has also gained high-profiles endorsements from former Democratic presidential candidate U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood and more.
While West has trailed in fundraising, he has touted his local support, with the backing of many of his fellow state lawmakers, Dallas-Fort Worth officials, former primary opponents and U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro. Tuesday night he told reporters he felt like he was battling “two Goliaths” this election, referring to the DSCC’s support of Hegar and Cornyn’s war chest.
Cornyn’s campaign announced Monday that he raised nearly $3.5 million in the second quarter of 2020 and will be going into the November general election with $14.5 million on hand.
Hegar had pushed back on West’s comment Wednesday night, and told reporters that if anyone should have been the underdog, it was her.
“I am just a combat veteran and a working mom, and I took on an establishment candidate, both in Senator West and John Cornyn, that had a lot of establishment support behind him,” Hegar said.
The Texas Democratic Party announced Wednesday that Tuesday’s election was the highest turnout in a Democratic primary runoff, with 955,735 votes based on unofficial returns.
“This is a symptom of trouble coming for John Cornyn, this general,” Hegar said of increased turnout.
This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 8:21 PM with the headline "With a four-point lead, MJ Hegar declares victory over Royce West in U.S. Senate runoff."
