Rice University experts available to comment on Texas GOP’s US Senate runoff election

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Jeff Falk
713-348-6775
jfalk@rice.edu 

Rice University experts available to comment on Texas GOP’s US Senate runoff election  

HOUSTON — (July 31, 2012) – The race between David Dewhurst and Ted Cruz to become Texas’ Republican Party nominee for the U.S. Senate ends with today’s runoff election and is one for the history books: As of mid-July, campaign and outside groups have invested more than $50 million in the most expensive party primary in Texas history.

Two Rice University Baker Institute for Public Policy experts can comment on the race and its key dynamics:

• Mark Jones, Baker Institute fellow in political science as well as Rice’s Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and chair of the Department of Political Science.
• Robert Stein, Baker Institute fellow in urban politics and Rice’s Lena Gohlman Fox Professor of Political Science.

“This is really a battle between two wings of the Texas Republican Party, with the Republican establishment lining up behind David Dewhurst and the grassroots activists behind Ted Cruz,” Jones said.

Stein agreed. “For the tea party voters in the Republican Party, the word ‘conservative’ is not enough. They don’t want people who have been in office, like Dewhurst, to be re-elected. They want someone who has no prior to commitment to leadership, governors and majority leaders.”

To arrange an interview with Jones or Stein, contact Jeff Falk at jfalk@rice.edu or 713-348-6775.

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