Skip to Main Content

Texas special election: GOP activist wins Farenthold’s seat

Texans waiting in line to vote are pictured. | Getty Images

A line of early voters wait outside the Gardner Betts Annex on March 6 in Austin. Both candidates in Saturday's special election had already won their respective primaries. | Drew Anthony Smith/Getty Images

By POLITICO Staff

Republican activist Michael Cloud won a special congressional election Saturday in Texas to replace former Rep. Blake Farenthold.

The Associated Press called the race with Cloud at 54 percent of the vote in the nine-candidate, all-party contest. Democrat Eric Holguin was a distant second, with 32 percent.

Cloud and Holguin will face each other again in a little more than four months: Each had already won his party’s nomination for the general election in primaries earlier this year.

If no candidate had earned a majority of the vote, a runoff between the top two vote-getters was tentatively planned for sometime in September. Cloud will serve the unexpired term through the end of the year.

Farenthold resigned in April amid an ethics investigation into sexual harassment and a taxpayer-funded settlement that the former congressman has not repaid, despite GOP leaders’ pleas.

See full results here.