That Other Senate
August 10th, 2007 at 4:50 pm
We’ve focused a lot on the race to possibly replace John Cornyn in Washington, but a D.C.-based analysis group, the Lone Star Project, has identified a state Senate race worth watching.
According to polling done in May, Republican Kim Brimer, who represents SD 10, is vulnerable to a challenge even though his district leans GOP, the Lone Star Project concludes. Their homepage right now has the details from the polls. The short story is that Brimer, despite holding office in Tarrant County for around 20 years, is hardly well known, nor particularly well liked. “When asked their opinion of Kim Brimer, nearly 50 percent of those surveyed had never heard of him,” the Project’s release says. Another 25 percent of those surveyed had a “neutral” opinion of Brimer, while only 18 percent rated his performance “favorable.”
Matt Angle, a spokesman for the Project, said that in the past Brimer, like many down-ticket candidates, has benefited from high-profile Texas Republicans at the top of national tickets. Brimer’s been “riding a bandwagon that somebody else is driving,” Ange said.
This year, that’s different. Cornyn is the highest profile candidate, and he polled at only 31.6 percent favorable (versus 14.9 percent unfavorable). And for the first time, according to the Project’s survey, Bush’s approval disapproval rate is slightly higher than his approval rate in the district.
That all bodes well for the right Democratic candidate, Angle said. Given the conservative tilt of the district, that candidate would likely need to be centrist — or “mainstream,” as he put it. Just yesterday BOR reported that Fort Worth city councilwoman Wendy Davis is the first candidate to publicly announce plans to challenge Brimer. Her decision was based in part on the Lone Star Project’s findings.
