Texas Governor Election

Texas politics are often lively, and 2010 promises to be no exception…Just yesterday, Kinky Friedman dropped out of the governor’s race, but there are still a number of interesting candidates.

The deadline for governor candidates to register with the Democratic or Republican Party is January 4, 2010.  So far, the following candidates have registered or expressed interest in running for Governor of Texas:

Candidate name	Website	Political party?	Officially registered?
Alma Aguado	http://www.almaaguadoforussenate.info/about/	Democratic	No – as you can see from the website, she is also considering running for the U.S. Senate
Felix Alvarado	http://www.felixalvarado.com	Democratic	Yes
Fran Cavanaugh	http://www.francavanaugh.com/	Independent	No
Jeff Daiell	http://www.jeffdaiell.com/	Libertarian	No
Bill Dear		Democratic	Yes
Kay Bailey Hutchison	http://texans.forkay.com/	Republican	Yes
Larry Kilgore	http://www.larrykilgore.com/	Republican	No
Debra Medina	http://medinafortexas.com/	Republican	Yes
Steve Nichols	http://www.stevenichols.com/	Libertarian	Yes
Rick Perry	http://www.rickperry.org/	Republican	No – currently in third term as governor
Farouk Shami	http://www.faroukforgovernor.com/	Democratic	Yes
Kevin Sill		Independent	Yes
M.J. (Smitty) Smith		Libertarian	Yes
Edward “Ed” Tidwell		Libertarian	Yes
Bill White	http://www.billwhitefortexas.com/	Democratic	Yes – currently mayor of Houston, but term will expire in January

As you can see, some of the listed candidates have not officially registered yet.  However, January 4, 2010 is the deadline for registering, so a final list of candidates will be available soon.  These are websites for identifying official candidates:

• Democratic candidates
• Libertarian candidates
• Republican candidates
• Other candidates

The Secretary of State website is a great source for more information, including:

• How to become a Democratic or Republican candidate or Libertarian or new party candidates)
• What the qualifications are for different offices
• What offices, besides the governor, are up for election in 2010

In preparation for the election, there is lots of information for voters, including

• Am I registered?
• Who represents me?
• Important 2010 election dates
• Information for student voters
• Texas Election Code
• Other voter information

Share your opinion on who will be the next Texas Governor in the poll below…