There's a chance voters will need two elections to choose either Gov. Rick Perry or Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison as the Republican nominee for governor.
Each says they'll win the primary outright, but in red-state Texas, there's one group of Republican voters who are real red. If that group follows recent trends, it could force a runoff.
Perry or Senator Hutchison will need a majority to win March 2, but that might not happen.
"The question is whether that fringe vote goes three or four percent or nine or 10 percent," said Cal Jillson, an SMU political science professor. "At nine or 10, it can affect the outcome and cause a runoff."
There has been a substantial protest vote in the past two Republican primaries. Last year those votes went against Sen. John Cornyn and candidate Larry Kilgore got 18 percent of the 1.2 million votes cast. That's nearly 227,000 votes.
In 2006, Kilgore led a group of fringe candidates in scoring nearly 16 percent of the vote against Perry.
So, just who is Kilgore? He is secession candidate who spoke at a Capitol rally this year.
"I hate that flag up there," he said. "That flag that's above the Texas flag, that's the United States flag. I hate the United States government."
Kilgore planned to run for governor again, but dropped out Monday and threw his support to Debra Medina, who is for states rights although not for secession.
"I'm fighting for Texas and people see that and they're excited about it," she has said about her run for the Republican nomination.
But, will voters get be as excited to give Medina or other candidates support in the double digits and perhaps deny either Hutchison or Perry a majority? In such a contested race, Jillson thinks the fringe vote may fade.
"Toward the end it becomes very clear that it's going to become either Perry or Hutchison and people want to have an impact on that final choice," he said.
With early voting starting in two months, no poll yet show Perry or Hutchison at 50 percent.
E-mail bwatson@wfaa.com
