Why should North Texas primary voters compromise on school choice and the life of the unborn, when they can have a Faith & Family Champion representing them in Texas Senate District 2?

Sen. Bob Hall (100% and 98% on our 2015 and 2017 Faith & Family Scorecard, which makes him Faith & Family Champion) is running for re-election in the district that spans a large area of North and Northeast Texas from the Red River to rural communities just west of Tyler. Bonham, Greenville, Sulphur Springs, Terrell, and an eastern swath of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex situated around Mesquite make up the population centers of the district.

Hall’s challenger is Rep. Cindy Burkett, who is vacating her seat in the Texas House of Representatives to run for the state Senate. Burkett’s Texas Faith & Family Scorecard rating has since hovered around the lackluster 80 percent range (81% in 2017 and 78% in 2015). Since her election in 2010, Burkett has increasingly sided with anti-family and anti-life legislative measures. In the 2017 session, she supported a loophole to allow abortions for unborn children with detected fetal abnormalities, and voted yes on two measures to deny school choice to Texas families.

SD 2 voters had a similar choice to make in 2014, when a margin of about 300 votes handed Hall the seat in a runoff race against then-incumbent Sen. Bob Deuell, a longtime Republican Senator from Greenville and powerful committee chairman. Deuell became one of the most liberal Republican members of the Texas Senate during his last two legislative sessions. As it happens, Burkett was once a legislative staffer in Deuell’s Senate office.

Aside from an expected incumbent’s advantage, Hall is currently ahead in terms of available campaign funds. Burkett’s campaign has $42,924 in the bank after raising around $322,000 previously, which indicates that she spent a lot early on in her campaign. Hall, however, is hanging on to around $198,000 which will come in handy going into the final weeks before the primary election when voters are paying the most attention.

Geography shouldn’t be an issue for Hall, either, despite Burkett being situated in the more densely populated corner of the district. Suburban Dallas county – including Burkett’s home of Sunnyvale, just outside of Mesquite — makes up for half of the roughly 800,000 residents in the mostly rural district. Hall hails from Canton, a well-traveled center of commerce on the rural southeast corner of the district dotted by several small communities. Hall should have no problems winning the Dallas-area communities, though, having beat Deuell by a landslide 10 percent in Dallas County during the 2014 runoff.

“Bob Hall’s continued experience fighting for religious liberty, marriage, and the unborn at the grassroots level leaves no doubt that he is the right choice for re-election,” said Jonathan Saenz, President of Texas Values Action. “This race will take hard work to win, which is why we need all our pro-life and pro-family friends in North Texas to help keep this principled, unflinching leader in the Texas Senate.”