The 2008 United States Senate election in Texas was held on November 4, 2008. Incumbent Republican

John Cornyn John Cornyn III ( ; born February 2, 1952) is an American politician and attorney serving as the senior United States senator from Texas, a seat he has held since 2002. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the Senate majority whip for ...

defeated Democratic nominee

Rick Noriega Richard Joel Noriega (born January 8, 1958) is a former American politician and retired major general in the Texas Army National Guard who is currently director of Harris County Universal Services (HCUS). From 1998 to 2009, Noriega was a Democr ...

, a member of the

Texas House of Representatives The Texas House of Representatives is the lower house of the bicameral Texas Legislature. It consists of 150 members who are elected from single-member districts for two-year terms. As of the 2010 United States census, each member represents abo ...

, to win re-election to a second term in office.

Democratic primary

Candidates

* Gene Kelly,

U.S. Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...

veteran and nominee for the U.S. Senate in

2000 File:2000 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Protests against Bush v. Gore after the 2000 United States presidential election; Heads of state meet for the Millennium Summit; The International Space Station in its infant form as seen from S ...

* Ray McMurrey, teacher at

Mary Carroll High School Mary Carroll High School, often referred to as Carroll, is one of six high schools that are part of the Corpus Christi Independent School District. History Opened in 1957, Mary Carroll High School is currently the second largest and third oldest ...

, State Representative * Rhett Smith,

U.S. Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage o ...

veteran and

auditor An auditor is a person or a firm appointed by a company to execute an audit.Practical Auditing, Kul Narsingh Shrestha, 2012, Nabin Prakashan, Nepal To act as an auditor, a person should be certified by the regulatory authority of accounting and a ...

at the Texas Department of Human Services

Results

Republican primary

Candidates

, incumbent U.S. Senator *

Larry Kilgore Larry SECEDE Kilgore (born 1965) is a political activist in the Texas Secessionist Movement. He is a perennial Republican candidate who has run in multiple Texas statewide elections. He is one of the most prominent supporters of Texas secession (g ...

, conservative/

Secessionist Secession is the withdrawal of a group from a larger entity, especially a political entity, but also from any organization, union or military alliance. Some of the most famous and significant secessions have been: the former Soviet republics l ...

activist

Results

General election

Candidates

(R), incumbent U.S. Senator *

(D), State Representative * Yvonne Adams Schick (L), real estate entrepreneur

Campaign

Cornyn, running as an incumbent, had a 42% approval rating with a 43% disapproval rating in June 2007. Texas is a

red state Starting with the 2000 United States presidential election, the terms "red state" and "blue state" have referred to U.S. states whose voters vote predominantly for one party — the Republican Party in red states and the Democratic Party in b ...

, that Republican presidential nominee John McCain won with over 55% of the vote. Cornyn slightly underperformed McCain. However, Noriega underperformed both 2008 Democratic presidential candidate

Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...

in Texas and Cornyn's 2002 opponent,

Ron Kirk Ronald Kirk (born June 27, 1954) is an American lawyer, politician and member of the Democratic Party who served as the United States Trade Representative from 2009 to 2013 and the 57th Mayor of Dallas from 1995 to 2002. Born in Austin, Texas, ...

, with Noriega receiving just 42.8% of the vote.

Predictions

Polling

Results

References

External links

Elections Division
from the ''Texas Secretary of State''
U.S. Congress candidates for Texas
at

Project Vote Smart Vote Smart, formerly called Project Vote Smart, is a non-profit, non-partisan research organization that collects and distributes information on candidates for public office in the United States. It covers candidates and elected officials in s ...

Texas, U.S. Senate
from

CQ Politics Congressional Quarterly, Inc., or CQ, is part of a privately owned publishing company called CQ Roll Call that produces a number of publications reporting primarily on the United States Congress. CQ was acquired by the Economist Group and combine ...

Texas U.S. Senate
from ''OurCampaigns.com''
Texas Senate race
from ''2008 Race Tracker''
Campaign contributions
from

OpenSecrets OpenSecrets is a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C., that tracks data on campaign finance and lobbying. It was created from a merger of the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP) and the National Institute on Money in Politics (NIMP) ...

Cornyn (R-i) vs Noriega (D)
graph of multiple polls from Pollster.com * ''Official campaign websites'' (Archived) *
John Cornyn
Republican candidate *
Rick Noriega
Democratic candidate *
Yvonne Schick
Libertarian candidate {{Elections in Texas footer

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

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 ...

Democratic primary

Candidates

Results

Republican primary

Candidates

Results

General election

Candidates

Campaign

Predictions

Polling

Results

See also

References

External links