A quick rundown of the results of last night's party primaries.Voter turnout stunk. With some counts still out, it appears the Republicans attracted 675,239 voters, or 5.3 percent of those registered, and the Democrats attracted 522,129, or 4.1 percent.
• Nobody in the state's congressional delegation got beat. U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, has a comfortable lead over former U.S. Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, D-San Antonio, with some ballots still left to count. And former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Sugar Land, got 62 percent in the GOP primary, living to face Democrat Nick Lampson in November in a race of national interest. Van Taylor, the richer of the two Republicans seeking to challenge U.S. Rep. Chet Edwards, D-Waco, and the one with the Iraq war on his resume, won that primary.
• Six incumbent state legislators -- a senator and five House members -- lost their bids for reelection. Frank Madla, D-San Antonio, in incomplete returns, appears to have fallen to Rep. Carlos Uresti. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington, beat House Public Education Chairman Kent Grusendorf in a race seen in Austin as a referendum on leadership plans for education. Truth be told, it's also a story about an incumbent going unchallenged for a long time and then getting up too slowly when serious competition finally arrived; your previous case study, two years ago, was House Appropriations Chairman Talmadge Heflin, R-Houston. Two more incumbents from the Dallas area are out, though by possibly recountable margins: Jesse Jones, D-Dallas, lost to Barbara Caraway, and Elvira Reyna, R-Mesquite, lost to Thomas Latham.
• Two of the so-called Leininger Five -- Roy Blake Jr. of Nacogdoches and Carter Casteel of New Braunfels -- lost to Republican challengers. Former Rep. Wayne Christian, R-Center, beat Blake with plenty of room to spare. Nathan Macias of Bulverde had a 45-vote margin, out of more than 20,000 votes, in the Election Night count; that'll likely lead to a recount. Three others -- Charlie Geren of Fort Worth, Delwin Jones of Lubbock, and Tommy Merritt of Longview -- won handily.
• There'll be a runoff for U.S. Senate, between Barbara Ann Radnofsky, who got 43.4%, and Gene Kelly, who got 37.4%.
• Chris Bell is the Democrats' nominee for governor, getting 63.7% of the vote and putting Bob Gammage to bed. Gov. Rick Perry got 84 percent against three no-names.
• There will be a runoff for lite Guv between Maria Luisa Alvarado (39.9%) and Ben Z. Grant (38.7 percent). Grant, with less than 40 percent of the vote, had the only non-Hispanic name in that contest. On the GOP side, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst got 78 percent against Tom Kelly, a political unknown.
• In HD-38, Eddie Lucio III will join his dad in the Lege. Lucio the elder is in the Senate; the younger won a seat in the House last night.
• They're still counting votes in Laredo's HD-42 and with a couple of boxes still out, Richard Raymond is 26 votes from an outright win over three challengers.
• In HD-146, Rep. Al Edwards, D-Houston, was forced into a runoff against Borris Miles.
• And in HD-72, Rep. Scott Campbell, R-San Angelo, will face a runoff with Drew Darby, who finished first in a three-way race there.
• A couple of other Republican House members with stiff challenges both won, but in HD-78, where El Paso Rep. Pat Haggerty beat Lorraine O'Donnell by 96 votes, expect a recount. Rep. David Swinford, R-Dumas, was in trouble a few weeks ago, but pulled it out, getting 57.5% against Anette Carlisle.
• Courts: Justice Don Willett had a three percentage point win over former Justice Steve Smith for the Texas Supreme Court. Sharon Keller, presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, beat back a challenge from Tom Price, who'll remain in his seat on that court. And Charles Holcomb and Terry Keel will run for Holcomb's spot on that court; Robert Francis of Dallas is out of that one.
• Republican voters put three folks running in open seats on trajectories for the Texas Senate. In SD-3, former highway commissioner Robert Nichols, R-Jacksonville, got 54% in a four-man field. In SD-7, radio talk show host Dan Patrick, R-Houston, got 69% in a four-way that included two state reps and a Houston city councilman. And in SD-18, Rep. Glenn Hegar, R-Katy, got 55% in his primary.