DALLAS — On Election Day, Dallas County went 55 percent to 45 percent for Democratic candidates.
District Attorney Craig Watkins was the exception, losing by less than a single percentage point to Republican Susan Hawk.
Political analysts say the story of the race wasn't so much Hawk's win as it was Watkins' loss.
"It was amazing to see — in what is basically a straight-ticket ballot — that enough people were willing to go down and find Watkins in order to vote against him," said Southern Methodist University political science professor Cal Jillson. "This suggests that Craig Watkins became an embarrassment to his base enough that they were willing to stay home, and a few of them to go over and vote for the Republican, so it's very much a Craig Watkins loss."
Watkins seemed surprised by the outcome.
"I was under the impression that the voters were really appreciative of what we have done over the last eight years," Watkins told reporters as he conceded hours after the polls closed. "Unfortunately, because of some things that happened, they decided that they wanted a new district attorney."
Watkins' missteps were many:
- Running his prosecutors against sitting Democratic judges.
- Pitting his second-in-command in an unsuccessful bid against the county's Democratic party boss.
- Making repeated threats to take judges before grand juries.
- Using forfeiture money to secretly settle an accident for which he was responsible.
"[Watkins] tried to be kingmaker of Dallas County Democratic Party politics, and when you go for the brass ring, you damn well better catch it," Jillson said. "He didn't, and it caught him upside the head."
After the election, Watkins was asked whether some members of his own party had turned against him. "I don't understand why they would be upset with me just because I allowed some of our prosecutors to run for judge," he responded.
Watkins did have genuine accomplishments. He won national fame for creating a unit to review possibly improper convictions, and that team helped free many unjustly convicted inmates. That was quite a change from his relatively obscure origins, following his victory in 2006 on a rising Democratic tide.
"He was a relatively unknown South Dallas lawyer, not a lot of income, not a lot of cash flow, often in debt," Jillson said. "From that, he sort of bounced to national and international stardom, and everybody wanted to be his friend. I think he was star-struck by that, and forgot to systematically run his office and be part of a Democratic majority in Dallas."
In 2010, Watkins raised about a million dollars for his reelection bid. Even so, his margin of victory was narrow when other Democrats won by comfortable margins — something that Jillson said Watkins should have taken as a sign.
"He never developed a personal machine in the way that [state senator] Royce West has, [Dallas County Commissioner] John Wiley Price has. It never came together," Jillson said. "[Watkins] tried to create a team of elected officials rather than neighborhood activists who would work for him."
In this most recent race, Watkins badly trailed Hawk in fundraising, even as the controversies surrounding his conduct in office mounted.
Last year, Watkins was held in contempt of court when he refused to testify in a case that involved an allegation that he had used the criminal justice system to benefit a political benefactor. Watkins was subsequently acquitted.
Meanwhile, Hawk — who had been both a prosecutor and a state district judge — positioned herself as someone who would run the office in in a nonpartisan manner. Hawk has run on both the Republican and Democratic tickets, repeatedly saying that she does not believe the criminal justice system should be politicized.
"I think the bottom line is: His loss you can attribute to Susan Hawk's integrity and character, and also to Craig Watkins' hubris," said Wade Emmert, chair of the Dallas County Republican Party.
Emmert strongly believes that Hawk can win again on the Republican ticket.
"Among people in politics, there a tendency to think that there's only Republicans and Democrats, when the reality is that there's a bunch of people in the middle that go both ways on who they trust," he said.
But Jillson said he believes that Hawk will have a difficult time winning again as a Republican in a Democratic town, particularly given the increasing rate of straight-ticket voting. He believes that in order for her to win again, she would have to jump ship back to the Democratic Party.
"This was an aberration, and she will be scheming to figure out a way to try to hold that seat," Jillson said. "It's a partisan political puzzle, and she will have to solve it. I think the office should be non-partisan, but to win you have to run in a partisan election."
