Start date November 4, 2008 | ||
The 2008 election for Texas's 22nd congressional district was held on November 4, 2008, as part of the United States House of Representatives elections for the 111th United States Congress. Pete Olson defeated the incumbent Nick Lampson.
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This race was considered a key race because the seat was previously held by former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, as well as the fact that the seat is represented by a Democrat, Nick Lampson, whose victory was largely attributed to Republicans being forced to run a write-in campaign. The Republican candidate is Pete Olson who is facing the incumbent, Lampson.
An October 22, 2008, poll by John Zogby and the Houston Chronicle has stated that Olson has a 17-point lead over Lampson.
On October 30, 2008, Larry Sabato predicted in his Crystal Ball newsletter that Olson's congressional race to be a "Republican Pick Up."
Background
Tom DeLay had been facing a myriad of ethical challenges and allegations of corruption stemming from his association with controversial Republican donor Jack Abramoff. DeLay's controversial nature, which dated to his role as House Majority Whip (and later, House Majority Leader), played a key role in his 55–41 margin of victory in 2004 against a heavily underfunded Democrat. By contrast, George W. Bush carried the district with 64% of the vote compared to 34% for Democrat John Kerry. The district, while heavily Republican, had been made more Democratic with the addition of a heavily blue-collar portion of Galveston County, which provided a base of unionized blue-collar refinery workers versus the more affluent, suburban white-collar profile of most other areas of the suburban Houston district, including the suburbs of Sugar Land and Pearland, the NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston's Clear Lake City development, and the city of Pasadena. However, Pearland and Pasadena have gradually become Democratic strongholds in the past few years, despite having a large white middle class population; this is in part because many of them are Northern and West Coast transplants. Additionally, Pasadena has a large Mexican American population, and a growing black middle class population (a traditional Democratic voting bloc) is growing in Pearland and Sugar Land.
In March 2006, DeLay won 62% of the vote in a four-way Republican primary, which would have enabled DeLay to take on former Congressman Nick Lampson, who was redistricted out of his old district in 2004. On April 3, 2006, however, after former DeLay aide Tony Rudy pleaded guilty to corruption charges stemming from the Abramoff scandal, DeLay announced he would withdraw from the race, resigning from Congress on June 9, 2006. Republicans attempted to replace DeLay's name on the ballot, but were prevented from doing so after Texas Democrats argued that DeLay was still eligible for re-election, a decision that a district judge ruled in the Democrats' favor. After the Supreme Court upheld the ruling, DeLay withdrew his name from the race on August 8, leaving Republicans without a candidate on the ballot.
On August 17, 2006, precinct chairs nominated Houston city councilwoman Shelley Sekula-Gibbs as the GOP write-in candidate. Despite polling that suggested a competitive race as well as a visit from George W. Bush himself, Lampson won the seat with 51%, winning in all four counties and even some heavily Republican precincts. However, Sekula-Gibbs won a special election that was announced by Republican Governor Rick Perry, taking in 62.5% of the vote.