Daily Kos Elections Texas runoff and Georgia primary preview

Tonight voters in Georgia select candidates in primaries throughout the states, while Texans will decide the winners in several runoffs where no office-seeker took 50 percent of the vote in the May primary. Our roundup of key races is below. Also be sure to vote in the poll at the bottom of this post. But first, here are interactive maps of Texas's new congressional districts to help you follow along, one of the northern part of the state and one of the southern:

Interactive map of northern Texas's new congressional districts Interactive map of southern Texas's new congressional districts ' TX-Sen (R): The Republican primary in the open seat race to succeed the retiring Kay Bailey Hutchison has, up until a few weeks ago, always felt like David Dewhurst's race to lose. Dewhurst is the state's lieutenant governor, a well-known long-time fixture in the state's Republican establishment'and, on top of that, he's wealthy enough to self-fund if things got hairy. Dewhurst finished a pretty easy first place in the primary in late May, getting 45 percent; with the endorsement of third-place finisher Tom Leppert, the closest thing to a "moderate" in the field, that should have been enough to get Dewhurst over the top in the runoff. However, tea party types (both locally, and their Beltway orchestrators) are none too keen on Dewhurst, and it seems like the all the momentum since the runoff has gone to Dewhurst's runoff rival, former state Solicitor General Ted Cruz'who has a pretty establishment background himself (including clerking for William Rehnquist) but who does seem to have a better command of right-wing dog-whistle phrases.

Groups like the Club for Growth have helped Cruz maintain something close to financial parity, while the Sarah Palins and Jim DeMints of the world have publicly stumped on Cruz's behalf. The most recent public poll of the race'a PPP poll released Monday'shows a remarkable reversal from the May primary; they find Cruz leading Dewhurst 52-42, thanks to a 75-22 margin among those who consider themselves tea partiers. Dewhurst also released an internal on Monday giving himself a small lead, but at this point, a Dewhurst victory in the runoff would have to be considered a surprise, which is something that no one would have expected a month ago. (David Jarman)

Head below the fold for the rest of our writeups.