AUSTIN, Texas -- The declining fortune of the Tea Party is seen by many as this year's Republican story line, but conservatives in Texas seemed to have missed the memorandum.

Instead, after a strong showing in Republican primaries in March, Tea Party-supported candidates appear poised for further gains in runoffs today, including a good chance of ousting the state's three-term lieutenant governor and pushing the Republican-dominated Legislature further to the right.

Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst, a Republican who lost a Senate bid to Ted Cruz two years ago, is struggling to keep the office he has held since 2003 after finishing 13 percentage points behind state Sen. Dan Patrick, a Tea Party favorite from Houston, in the first round of voting March 4.

The 12-week runoff race between the two candidates has produced a fierce outpouring of negative ads and personal attacks, overshadowing the general election race for governor between Greg Abbott, a Republican, and Wendy Davis, a Democrat.

In a state where any hint of support from Cruz, one of the nation's Tea Party favorites, is considered golden to aspiring Republican candidates, Tea Party groups also have a strong shot at influencing nominations in three other statewide races and building on legislative victories from the 2012 election cycle.

Tea Party forces in Texas repelled any notion of diminishing strength by defeating a half-dozen legislative incumbents -- a state senator and five House members -- in the March primaries.

The battle for lieutenant governor has been the hardest-fought race leading up to the runoff, but Tea Party groups are also rallying behind candidates for attorney general, agriculture commissioner, a spot on the energy-regulating Texas Railroad Commission and in a number of legislative races.

The lieutenant governor is one of the most powerful positions in Texas' state government, part of a leadership triad that includes the governor and the House speaker. As president of the state Senate, the lieutenant governor appoints committee members and chairmen, controls the calendar and what legislation gets to the floor for a vote, and decides who is recognized and who is not during floor debate. Many of those who have business in the Legislature have already begun looking toward Patrick as the potential new Senate leader, since Republicans are favored to retain their hold over state government.

"We're going to be the most conservative Senate by far in the history of Texas," Patrick said.

Several other Tea Party candidates appear to have the edge in today's runoffs, including Konni Burton, a Tea Party activist armed with a Cruz endorsement in her bid to win the Republican nomination for a Fort Worth-based state Senate seat being vacated by Davis.

The continuing Tea Party momentum in Texas runs counter to the theme that emerged from last Tuesday's primary results in six other states, where Tea Party reversals spawned talk that the nearly 5-year-old grass-roots movement may have run its course.

Analysts say Texas Tea Party groups are tightly organized and highly energetic, assisted by huge email lists and members who are far more likely than mainstream Republicans to engage in grass-roots efforts to target and get out voters.

"We provide boots on the ground," said JoAnn Fleming of Tyler, executive director of Grassroots America We the People, one of the state's largest Tea Party groups.

Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, said the Tea Party tends to thrive in Texas because Republican primaries traditionally have low turnout and Tea Party organizations have proved particularly adept at getting their people to the voting booth.

"The primary showed that the Tea Party is the majority of the Republican primary vote," Jillson said, predicting that Tea Party candidates were likely to do well in today's runoffs.

Only about 15 percent of the state's 13.6 million registered voters cast ballots in the Democratic and Republican primaries in March, and the turnout is expected to be even lower today.

After watching establishment incumbents -- including several state House committee chairmen -- fall to novice Tea Party candidates in previous elections, the state's political class has become mindful that, in most cases, the key to victory is to be more conservative than the opponent.

"The candidate who has done the best job wrapping themselves in the Tea Party flag has the best chance to win," said Bill Miller, an Austin lobbyist and consultant. "You don't counter them. You co-opt them. You can't run against them and win in a Republican primary."

A Section on 05/27/2014