With a 10% margin of victory over a Democrat challenger, Republican Jim Wright won election Tuesday to the Texas Railroad Commission, extending the Republican party’s control of the energy regulatory agency.
Wright, owner of an oilfield waste services company, beat Chrysta Castaneda with a reported 53 to 43% margin while a Libertarian candidate and a Green Party candidate managed only a few percentage points of the total votes.
Because he upset incumbent railroad commissioner Ryan Sitton in the March primary, Democrats thought they had a shot at winning a seat on the commission for the first time in 25 years. It didn’t happen.
The Texas Tribune reports no Democrat has been elected to any statewide seat in the state since 1995.
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