Craig Goldman was all smiles as he walked down a few steps and shook supporters’ hands at his election night watch party.
The six-term Texas House member had clinched the Republican Party’s nomination for Texas’ 12th Congressional District — and it wasn’t close, according to the Associated Press.
AP called the race about 8:30 p.m. May 28 when Goldman had 63.9% of the vote to opponent John O’Shea’s 36.1%. That was a difference of almost 28 percentage points or 4,730 votes.
“Everybody who worked so hard to get us here tonight, again, I want to thank you so much,” Goldman said at his campaign’s party at Courtside Kitchen. “But tomorrow we wake up and the work continues because this is just a speed bump. We have not punched a ticket to Washington, D.C., yet.”
Goldman now faces Democrat Trey Hunt in the Nov. 5 election.
Goldman and O’Shea went to a May 28 runoff after no one in a field of five candidates scored a majority of votes during the March 5 primary. Goldman came out on top, with 44.4% of the vote. O’Shea came in second, with 24.2% — a 20 percentage point difference.
Goldman built an insurmountable lead starting in March and kept it through the runoff, state Sen. Kelly Hancock, R-Fort Worth, said.
“Tonight, we’re seeing the outcome of some hard work — hard work that we know is going to take place by our next congressman for Tarrant County and Parker County,” Hancock said.
Goldman and O’Shea spent the weeks leading up to the runoff trading barbs, raising money and making their case for why they should carry their party’s mantle and succeed retiring U.S. Rep. Kay Granger, R-Fort Worth.
At Fitzgerald on Camp Bowie Boulevard, O’Shea planned to wait to see how the rest of the votes would shake out at the end of the evening.
“The initial vote is disappointing, but we’re going to wait and see how things turn out,” O’Shea told the Fort Worth Report. “I said I felt called by God to run, and the results are up to him. We put in the work.”
The 12th Congressional District of Texas covers west Tarrant County and most of Parker County. This is the seat’s first open race since Granger’s election in 1996. She is retiring after nearly three decades of service in Congress.
O’Shea saw the race as part of a larger conflict inside the Republican Party.
“There is a war in our Republican Party. One side has to win, and the other side has to lose,” he said.
O’Shea, a friend of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, also has received the support of Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller and the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Goldman, a top lieutenant for Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, has the backing of Granger, Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and nearly the entirety of Tarrant County’s Republican delegation to the Legislature. Fort Worth Mayor Mattie Parker has also thrown her support behind Goldman.
“I encourage you to go to my website, look at my record and look at what I’ve done. My entire adult life, I’ve identified a problem, I’ve come up with a solution. I’ve been able to do it at the Texas Legislature. I’m certainly going to do it as a member of the U. S. Congress, and I’d be honored to have your vote,” Goldman said.
O’Shea hammered Goldman over his impeachment vote against Paxton, whom the state Senate later acquitted.
Goldman, chair of the GOP caucus, joined 59 other state House Republicans to impeach Paxton over allegations of misconduct. The vote was 121-23.
“The articles of impeachment did not say innocent or guilty. There’s not one member of the Texas House that voted innocent or guilty on that occasion,” Goldman said. “They said, as members of the grand jury, is there enough evidence for there to be a trial? So, that is what the Senate did.”
At Goldman’s party, Hancock and the legislator wanted supporters to head home early rather than wait for more election results to trickle in. After all, they had a more pressing priority: the Dallas Mavericks’ game against the Minnesota Timberwolves.
“Go watch the Mavs game and have a nice night because I certainly want to,” Goldman said, looking up at a TV playing the game. “They’re down, and we have to go root for them so they can come back.”
Jacob Sanchez is an enterprise journalist for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at jacob.sanchez@fortworthreport.org or @_jacob_sanchez. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
