Here's the story:
- Analysis: Let the Political Games (Officially) Begin.
For Republican presidential candidates, Texas is the center of the universe — the biggest of the reliable red states and the source of the most electoral votes. It is to the Republicans what California is to the Democrats: the foundation of victory in national elections. Which is why Monday marks the end of one of Donald Trump’s biggest implied political threats. You know the one, the idea that if he doesn’t do well in the primaries that he might turn around and launch an independent candidacy?
Not in Texas.
Today is the deadline for candidates to file for the 2016 elections — as Democrats, Republicans or independents. Trump already filed as a Republican, barring him from running a Texas race as an independent unless he changes that filing by the close of business today. And candidates who run in the party primaries are barred from becoming official write-in candidates (or at least the registered write-in candidates whose votes the state will count). It’s a win-or-go-home state, politically. Trump and all the others will have to get by with just one bite at this apple.
The Texas Secretary of States' page on independent candidates confirms this.
- Click here for it.
You may have your name placed on the general election ballot as an independent candidate if you are not affiliated with a political party. Tex. Elec. Code Ann. § 1.005(9). If you vote in a party’s primary elections or participate in a party’s conventions, you thereby affiliate with the party. Tex. Elec. Code Ann. §§ 142.008, 162.003, 162.007.
So now you can impress your family members over the holidays if they want to talk about Trump and what he might do. Since he has affiliated himself with the Republican Party by filing as a candidate in the party;s primary, he cannot run as an independent in Texas. If he can't do that, there may be little point in running elsewhere. Unless he thinks he can win as an independent without winning Texas.
