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Civil rights lawyer Lee Merritt suspended his campaign for the Democratic nomination for Texas attorney general on Thursday, clearing the way for top vote-getter Rochelle Garza to face Joe Jaworski in a May runoff election.
More than a week after election day, Merritt, who was less than 4,000 votes behind Jaworski for second place, conceded that he had failed to garner enough votes to make the runoff and endorsed Garza.
“She has demonstrated that she can run a campaign that can energize our base, that reflects the diversity of our party,” Merritt said in a press conference in Houston. “She and I had a conversation yesterday about my plans to join her on the campaign trail to encourage young progressive voters to get engaged in the process.”
In a statement, Jaworski said he enjoyed a cordial relationship with Merritt on the campaign trail and wished him well in his law practice.
“I’m looking forward to a robust runoff campaign with Ms. Garza, so that Texas voters can choose the best candidate to defeat Ken Paxton in November,” he said.
Decision Desk HQ, The Texas Tribune’s election results partner, predicted last week that Garza would proceed to a runoff after she received around 43% of the vote, well short of the 50% threshold needed to avoid a runoff.
For the past week, the second-place finisher remained a question mark as Jaworski maintained a slight lead over Merritt as some absentee and provisional ballots continued to be counted.
Last weekend, Harris County also announced it identified around 10,000 votes, including 6,000 Democratic primary votes, that were not properly counted, adding to the uncertainty of the election result.
As he waited for all the votes to be counted, Merritt’s campaign was critical of delays with the vote count and said the state’s new restrictive elections law had created barriers for voters, particularly those who voted by mail ballot.
“I think it should be investigated and people should be held accountable,” he said.
The runoff is slated for May 24. The winner of the Democratic primary will face the winner of the Republican primary runoff — either incumbent Ken Paxton or Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush. The Democratic nominee will face a significant uphill battle to beat the Republican nominee; Texas voters haven’t picked a Democrat as the state’s top lawyer since Dan Morales in 1994.
During his time as Galveston mayor, Jaworski was an advocate for rebuilding public housing destroyed in the wake of Hurricane Ike in 2008 — a stance that contributed to his defeat in 2012 after a wave of anti-public housing voters chose his opponent. Jaworski, a trial attorney, is the grandson of famed lawyer Leon Jaworski, who served as a special prosecutor during the 1972 Watergate scandal.
Merritt had collected endorsements from state and national politicians, including Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee of Houston and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
Last week, candidate Mike Fields, who placed a distant fourth in the primary, asked Jaworski and Merritt to forgo a runoff and allow Garza to focus her attention on winning the general election in November since she was the preferred choice of the majority of Democratic voters.
“It’s time to respect our constituents and get behind Rochelle,” he told the other candidates in a text message. “She won. We should honor that by giving her the opportunity to turn her focus to whoever the Republicans put forward instead of having her mired in a prolonged runoff.”
