Susan Wright, Jake Ellzey make final pitches to voters in runoff to replace Ron Wright in Congress

ARLINGTON — North Texas voters on Tuesday will elect a replacement for the late Ron Wright, who died in February shortly after winning a second term.

Wright’s widow, Republican activist Susan Wright, is running for the District 6 seat in Congress against state Rep. Jake Ellzey.

On Monday both candidates were trying to finish strong.

Wright joined former President Donald Trump to a tele-rally aimed at turning out Trump supporters to the polls. The telephone event follows a weekend when Trump’s super PAC, called Make America Great Again Action, paid $100,000 for a small television advertising campaign. That ad buy was also designed to signal to Trump’s loyal followers that he’s backing Wright against Ellzey.

Susan Wright, Republican candidate for Texas’ 6th Congressional District (left), speaks with Linton Davis of Arlington outside a polling location during early voting for a special runoff election on Thursday, July 22, 2021, in Arlington. (Elias Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News)(Elias Valverde II / Staff Photographer)

And on Monday, Trump restated his endorsement.

“Big election tomorrow in the Great State of Texas!” he said in an email. “Susan Wright supports America First policies, our Military and our Veterans, is strong on Borders, tough on Crime, Pro-Life, and will always protect our Second Amendment.”

Trump’s endorsement, sought by many of the 23 candidates who ran in the May primary, is expected to weigh heavily on the race, particularly since he’s still considered the leader of the GOP.

But for Trump, backing Wright in a sleepy North Texas race carries some risk. Low turnout elections are hard to predict, and Ellzey represents a significant portion of the district, which includes Tarrant, Ellis and Navarro counties, in the Texas Legislature.

Congressional District 6 candidate Jake Ellzey speaks to supporters during an evening fundraiser at Legal Draft in Arlington, Texas on July 14,, 2021. (Robert W. Hart/Special Contributor)(Robert W. Hart / Special Contributor)

Ellzey has also raised more campaign cash than Wright, though she’s been boosted by outside groups.

Tarrant County is the largest portion of the district, but its share of the vote, while still the biggest at well over 60%, dipped during last week’s early voting period, when compared to the May election, when Tarrant County voters made up about 70% of the overall turnout.

Former president Donald Trump speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Sunday, July 11, 2021, in Dallas. (Elias Valverde II/The Dallas Morning News)(Elias Valverde II / Staff Photographer)

Along with Trump, Wright is backed by Sen. Ted Cruz, former Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price and the anti-tax group called the Club for Growth. The group’s political arm has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads that tout Wright and malign Ellzey. The state representative’s supporters have called the mailers and ads unfair distortions of his record. But Club for Growth leaders stand by the mailers, which describe Ellzey as anti-Trump, soft on border security and a tool of Democrats, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“I like where we are in this race,” said Matthew Langston, Wright’s chief campaign consultant. “We’re in a strong position. I’d rather be us than them.”

Ellzey, who has had to manage attending a special legislative session in Austin with campaigning for Congress, has been making final pitches to voters in the district. Over the past several days Ellzey’s campaign mailers have shown up in mailboxes, including those where Democrats live.

One mailer states that Ellzey would make improving public education a top priority.

“We mail to everybody,” said Craig Murphy, Ellzey’s chief campaign consultant. He added that Wright has also been courting Democratic Party voters, a charge that the Wright campaign disputes.

“We’ve had strong support at the polls during early voting,” Murphy said. “Now we’re finishing up the final moments of the campaign.”

Ellzey is backed by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, U.S. Rep. Dan Crenshaw of Houston and former U.S. Rep. Joe Barton, who employed Ron Wright as his district director and chief of staff for part of the former lawmaker’s 34 years in the seat.

Former Secretary of Energy and governor of Texas from 2000-2015 Rick Perry speaks about Congressional District 6 candidate Jake Ellzey with supporters during an evening fundraiser at Legal Draft in Arlington, Texas on July 14,, 2021. (Robert W. Hart/Special Contributor)(Robert W. Hart / Special Contributor)

In words that illustrated the nastiness of the contest, Langston called Barton a “disgraced creep” after he backed Ellzey, alluding to the nude photos taken during an extramarital affair that in 2017 surfaced online and prompted Barton’s retirement from Congress. Barton shot back that he’s been elected in 17 primaries and 17 general elections, while lamenting that Wright, who’s husband he hired and family he helped in a time of crisis, would allow such an attack from her campaign consultant.

Barton said he helped the family during Ron Wright’s illness and after his death in February.

Ellzey lost the 2018 GOP primary against Ron Wright, and Langston has been boasting that Ellzey is in store for another defeat at the hands of a Wright family member.

Last week Perry told The Dallas Morning News that Trump had been “fed a bill of goods” by Club for Growth officials before endorsing Wright.

Political analysts expected a low turnout for the election, particularly since it’s being held in the dead of summer, when most residents are tuned into other things and many of them are vacationing out of town.

“They have to focus on frequent voters in what will certainly be a low turnout election,” said former Dallas County Republican Party Chairman Jonathan Neerman.