The 2006 United States Senate election in Texas was held November 7, 2006. Incumbent Republican

Kay Bailey Hutchison Kay Bailey Hutchison (born Kathryn Ann Bailey; July 22, 1943) is an American attorney, television correspondent, politician, diplomat, and was the 22nd United States Permanent Representative to NATO from 2017 until 2021. A member of the Republi ...

won re-election to a third full term.

Major candidates

Democratic

Barbara Ann Radnofsky Barbara Ann Radnofsky (born July 8, 1956) is a Democratic politician, author and mediator from the U.S. state of Texas. She was the first woman to have won the Democratic nomination for a U.S. Senate seat in Texas. Early life and career Radnofs ...

, attorney * Gene Kelly, retired attorney & 2000 Democratic Senate Nominee * Darrel Reece Hunter

Republican Republican can refer to: Political ideology * An advocate of a republic, a type of government that is not a monarchy or dictatorship, and is usually associated with the rule of law. ** Republicanism, the ideology in support of republics or agains ...

, incumbent U.S. Senator

General election

Campaign

The Democratic nominee had never run for public office and was expected to face an uphill battle in the general election, especially in a state that has not elected a Democrat statewide since 1994 and against a historically popular Hutchison. Since neither Radnofsky nor her main opponent, Gene Kelly, had received a majority of votes in the Democratic primary, a runoff was held April 11, 2006, which Radnofsky won. Radnofsky's campaign platform is available on her website. Scott Lanier Jameson won the Libertarian Party nomination at the party's state convention on June 10, 2006, defeating Timothy Wade and Ray Salinas. Arthur W. Loux, a Roman Forest City Councilman and a member of the

Minutemen Minutemen were members of the organized New England colonial militia companies trained in weaponry, tactics, and military strategies during the American Revolutionary War. They were known for being ready at a minute's notice, hence the name. Mi ...

, was running as an independent. Hutchison co-sponsored legislation supporting the creation of a constitutional amendment that would limit terms for senators, but had been quoted saying that she would only leave after two terms if such a law applied to all senators. After deciding not to challenge Governor

Rick Perry James Richard Perry (born March 4, 1950) is an American politician who served as the 14th United States secretary of energy from 2017 to 2019 and as the 47th governor of Texas from 2000 to 2015. Perry also ran unsuccessfully for the Republica ...

this year, as had been widely speculated, Hutchison was running for a third term. She had no opposition in the 2006 Republican primary, and had approval ratings in the 60 percent range going into the election, although they had been slipping rapidly.

Debates

Complete video of debate
October 19, 2006

Predictions

Polling

Results

, this was the last time a Republican won Texas’s Class 1 Senate seat with over 60% of the vote, as well as the last time a Republican candidate for this seat won

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

or Bexar counties. To date, this is the most recent statewide election in which

Dallas County Dallas County may refer to: Places in the USA: * Dallas County, Alabama, founded in 1818, the first county in the United States by that name * Dallas County, Arkansas * Dallas County, Iowa * Dallas County, Missouri * Dallas County, Texas, the nin ...

voted for the Republican candidate.

References

External links

;Official campaign websites (Archived)
Kay Bailey Hutchison

Barbara Radnofsky

Scott Jameson

The Green Papers link on the Texas Midterm Election
{{Elections in Texas footer

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

United States Senate The United States Senate is the upper chamber of the United States Congress, with the House of Representatives being the lower chamber. Together they compose the national bicameral legislature of the United States. The composition and pow ...