By Steve Miller
Texas Insider Report: EL PASO Texas U. S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes was ousted from office Tuesday in what by all accounts was
one of the hardest 
fought and acrimonious primaries in recent Texas history. Reyes an eight-term incumbent Democrat fell to Beto ORourke a 39-year-old former city council member who benefitted from anti-Reyes ads paid for by the Campaign for Primary Accountability a conservative Super PAC based in Houston.
ORourke ended with 50.47 percent of the vote to Reyes 44.35 in the five-candidate race.
Can you all just confirm for me that this is really happening ORourke said with a wide smile looking slightly worn from weeks of ceaseless campaigning. He was clearly taken aback by the reality and had little more to offer than the obligatory I want to thank all of you for making this possible.
The contest was marked by tough charges by
Reyes on ORourke. One ad exposed ORourkes
drunk driving arrest in 1998. In another Reyes claimed ORourke
favored a bridge between El Paso and Juarez Mexico that would take the homes of 5000 families.
ORourke portrayed Reyes as an out-of-touch bureaucrat who put family members on his payroll and in an
ad that broke last week exposed a virtual border fence business that hired Reyes children and contributed $17000 to his campaign after Reyes advocated for the fence in Congress.
The two held their poll watching parties within blocks of each other yet the events were worlds apart. Reyes party was held in a ballroom on the 17th floor of the Doubletree El Paso.
Starting around 7 p.m. a band played Tejano music and the crowd drank and ate from a large buffet spread in the middle of the room. Reyes didnt make his first appearance until 10:10 p.m. walking into the ballroom holding hands with his wife Carolina. He believed at that time that the race would go to a runoff election.
Tonight has been a wake-up call for us here in this community" Reyes said. A wake-up call for us to decide are we going to let people in Houston decide who we are going to send to Congress here?
But most of his staff and volunteers knew even then that it looked bad for their boss as they watched the results posted on the hour by the El Paso County elections department on their iPads and smartphones.
ORourkes party was held at a small restaurant and bar on the citys west side a once moribund area on the rebound. The average age was a little over 30 with plenty of boisterous drinking and smiles everywhere. Music? Good luck hearing it over the crowd noise.
ORourke walked through the crowd posing for pictures and greeting patrons.
Reyes re-election effort was not only hurt by the accusations and exposures of the ORourke campaign but by the earnest campaigning of ORourke who could be found everywhere.
He stood by the side of the road by early voting sites with a campaign sign. He put up a table outside a music festival downtown on Saturday handing out buttons with his face on them and black-and-white flyers that asked voters to Punch #18 for Beto ORourke for Congress May 29 7 a.m.- 7 p.m."
On Monday early voter turnout was determined to be higher than that of 2010 when Reyes easily won the general election with 58 percent of the vote. But his opponent at that time was a Republican who stood little chance in the D dominated 16th congressional district.
In ORourke he faced a youthful favorite son of El Paso. His father a county judge was
killed when a car hit him while riding his bike. A local trail the Pat ORourke Memorial Trail is named after him. The elder ORourke was 58 when he died.
ORourke mounted a feisty social media campaign using Facebook and Twitter to inform followers of his campaigning activities. He said he was inspired by the 2008 Obama campaigns use of social media.
Like Obama ORourke presented a youthful alternative to business as usual. He supports ending the
War on Drugs and easing back on policing of the Mexican border. He told voters that Reyes 67 a Vietnam vet and former Border Patrol agent was out of touch with todays political climate.
Still ORourke supports many of the same measures Reyes supported in Congress including both the stimulus bill in 2009 and more recently the American Jobs Act although he qualified the latter which was turned back by Senate Republicans.
Some level of stimulus was needed" ORourke said recently. But at some point you need to start trimming."
The district now loses an experienced lawmaker in Reyes who holds a
seniority rank of 132 in a town that defines people by their power. Reyes is a member of the House Armed Services Committee and the House Committee on Veterans Affairs.
Reyes also brought home the cash in the form of earmarks. He sponsored 76 pieces of legislation that brought in $88 million to his district between 2008 and 2011 records show in the top 33rd percentile for overall amount.
Reyes repeatedly called ORourke a Republican mostly because he benefitted from ads put out by the conservative PAC in Houston.
In addition to the ads the Campaign for Primary Accountability launched an anti-Reyes portal
The Reyes Record April 26. In the closing days of the primary race the Campaign spent $195000 on anti-Reyes ads.
Reyes was taking in money to the end filing
a report dated May 27 showing receipt of $7000 from several PACs.
Steve Miller is a reporter for Texas Watchdog which is affiliated with the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity.
