Associated Press has ‘Dewey Defeats Truman’ Moment in Texas Senate Race

In a moment of sloppy political journalism, the Associated Press reported that Democratic Senate candidate David Alameel had won the party’s nomination last night. The article read:

AUSTIN, Texas — Dallas dental mogul and former major GOP donor David Alameel has topped four little-known candidates to win the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate.

Alameel distanced himself from a crowded field by securing the endorsement of Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Wendy Davis.

Born in Lebanon, Alameel joined an official delegation that traveled to Afghanistan in 2000 and negotiated secretly with the Taliban.

Those talks sought to facilitate the handover of Osama bin Laden to U.S. authorities, but stalled after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Alameel spent $4.5 million running unsuccessfully for Congress in 2012 and says money will be no object in this race. He long donated generously to both parties — but now says the GOP is too extreme.

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn coasted to victory in the Republican primary.

Curiously missing from the victory report was a description of what percentage of the vote Alameel had won or an acknowledgement that in Texas a winner is declared in the primary only if a candidate has secured a majority of votes. If a candidate is under fifty percent, he or she must face a runoff with the second place finisher and cannot be declared the winner. Nevertheless, because the Associated Press reported Alameel the winner, the story was immediately reprinted by a number of major newspapers. The Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Tampa Tribune, Sacramento Bee and the Huffington Post all ran the story. More embarrassingly, so did a number of Texas newspapers, including the Houston Chronicle , the Bryan-College Station Eagle, and the Galveston County Daily News.

Journalists are human so it is not unusual for them to mistakes. However, the Associated Press should have fact checked before calling the race. Either the author failed to check the Texas Secretary of State’s website or the author was unaware that a candidate with under 50 percent of the vote could not be declared the party nominee (unless perhaps, his runoff opponent conceded). Whatever the reason, the Associated Press foolishly called the U.S. Senate race and several newspapers and web sites dutifully followed suit.

The Democratic Senate race unfortunately is probably headed for a runoff. According to the official Secretary of State’s website, at 1 AM Central Time, with nearly 97 percent of precincts reporting, David Alameel was at 47.08 percent of the vote with Kesha Rogers in 2nd place at 21.52 percent. Alameel has not secured the nomination and he will likely have to defeat Rogers in a runoff election. The Associated Press jumped the gun by a few weeks, leaving election bloggers confused and many newspapers looking silly by spreading the inaccurate story.

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Keith Brekhus

Keith Brekhus is a progressive American who currently resides in Red Lodge, Montana. He is co-host for the Liberal Fix radio show. He holds a Master's Degree in Sociology from the University of Missouri. In 2002, he ran for Congress as a Green Party candidate in the state of Missouri. In 2014, he worked as a field organizer for Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick's successful re-election bid in Arizona's 1st Congressional District. He can be followed on Twitter @keithbrekhus or on Facebook.

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