The Democratic Primary for the newly created 33rd Congressional District will go to a July run-off between Marc Veasey and Domingo Garcia.
Veasey was leading Garcia Tuesday night, but did not win 50 percent of the vote. Both men will face off in a runoff July 31.
The 33rd district was created after redistricting to give black and Latino neighborhoods in Dallas-Fort Worth more representation. The new district is a minority-majority district with approximately 40 percent of voters Hispanic and 25 percent black.
Veasey, the state representative of the 95th district since 2004, said he already represents a diverse district and isn't worried about a run-off.
In the new district that covers parts of southeast Fort Worth, northwest Fort Worth and parts of Arlington, Grand Prairie and west Dallas, Veasey received most of his votes from Tarrant County and less than 20 percent from Dallas County.
In the runoff, Veasey expects to get support from across the district, not just in Tarrant County. His advisors said that the vote presently favors Tarrant County over Dallas. Early voting gave Veasey an early lead of 40 percent of the vote and Veasey’s place in the run-off was never in question.
Garcia is a Dallas attorney and civil rights activist who said that while he came up with fewer votes, he’s pleased with Tuesday’s outcome. In the next month, Garcia said a large portion of his concentration will be on swaying Tarrant County voters.
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“I’m personally going to go door knocking. We’re going to go to the community meetings, the Chamber of Commerce meetings, go to church on Sundays and personally get our message that Domingo Garcia wants to be a voice for every voter in the district,” Garcia said.
“Regardless of race or sex gender, sexual orientation ... it’s about brining all Americans together to fight really the people who’ve been putting a lot of middle-class families down.”
Garcia said he will also ask the candidates who didn’t make it to the runoff to support his campaign.
“I’m going to ask them all to unify behind my campaign and I believe that will be part of my strategy of unifying District 33.”
The winner of the July runoff will face one of two Republicans vying for the seat in November.
Veasey only spent around $200,000 in the primary. Domingo Garcia spent more than twice that at $486,607 after loaning his campaign $600,000.
Spending the most money but only getting about 10 percent of the vote was Dr. David Alameel, who loaned his campaign $2.6 million and spent it all in failed bid to win the nomination.
