Stephanie Klick headed to runoff in Republican primary for Texas House District 91
Incumbent Stephanie Klick and David Lowe are headed to a runoff in the Republican primary for House District 91, according to unofficial results.
Klick has 48.09% of the vote compared to 46.1% for Lowe. Teresa Ramirez has 5.82% with all 200 Tarrant County vote centers reporting.
If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will advance to a May 28 runoff election.
This is one of several state legislative races in which Republican party battles over the impeachment of Attorney General Ken Paxton have played a central role. Paxton has endorsed 34 challengers to Republican state House incumbents who supported impeachment, including David Lowe in the House District 91race.
Klick was one of 60 Republicans who voted in May 2023 to send articles of impeachment against Paxton over to the Senate for trial. Paxton was accused of abusing his office to benefit real estate investor Nate Paul.
While he was acquitted after a two week trial in the Senate, Paxton is still facing a criminal securities fraud case, which is set to go to trial in mid-April. He’s also facing a whistleblower lawsuit from ex-employees who allege Paxton retaliated against them for reporting alleged corruption to the FBI.
This race is also a rematch between Lowe and Klick. The pair emerged from a field of six Republicans to go head to head in the runoff where Klick beat Lowe by nearly 10%.
Paxton’s candidates appeared to be under-performing early on Tuesday, however, Beaumont Republican and House Speaker Dade Phelan was forced into a May 28 runoff against Paxton-backed challenger David Covey.
Phelan called the runoff a battle for the soul of his district, while Paxton framed it as part of an effort to remove what he called Phelan’s liberal agenda from the state house.
This story was originally published March 5, 2024 at 7:36 PM.
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