Texas GOP chooses tea party-backed Cruz for GOP Senate nomination

AUSTIN –  Tea party-backed Ted Cruz has defeated Texas Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst for the Republican nomination for U.S. Senate.

The former state solicitor general won the runoff Tuesday. He'd lost the May 29 primary by a large margin but forced the runoff because Dewhurst fell short of a majority. Cruz advances to the November election to succeed retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Cruz painted Dewhurst as a timid career politician too willing to compromise with Democrats.

The race was seen as a national test of the tea party's influence.

Dewhurst had represented the mainstream GOP choice and had the backing of Gov. Rick Perry. But tea party activists and conservative leaders from across the country supported Cruz. Their funding and grassroots organizing helped him overcome Dewhurst's financial advantage and name recognition.

Texas Democrats pick ex-state Rep. Sadler for US Senate

DALLAS –  Former Texas state lawmaker Paul Sadler has beaten political unknown Grady Yarbrough in a Democratic runoff to capture a U.S. Senate nomination.

Sadler is an attorney who served in the Texas House from 1991 to 2003. He advances to the November election to replace retiring Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Sadler faced little challenge from Yarbrough, a perennial candidate who ran previously as both a Democrat and a Republican.

Yarbrough likely only made the runoff because he shared a last name with iconic former U.S. Sen. Ralph Yarborough, though he's not related.

Texas hasn't elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since Lloyd Bentsen in 1988.

Sadler supports the White House-backed health care reform, Planned Parenthood clinics and allowing tax cuts for the nation's wealthiest residents to expire. 

Reid suggests Romney not releasing tax returns would have 'embarrassed' late father

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, in calling out Republican candidate Mitt Romney for declining to release all but his most recent tax returns, suggested that Romney's late father, also a politician, would have been "embarrassed" at his son's stance.

The remark came as Reid quoted an unnamed former business acquaintance of Romney's as claiming the candidate had avoided taxes for a full decade -- that presumably being the reason he wouldn't want the returns to be made public.

"His poor father must be so embarrassed about his son," Reid said in an interview with the Huffington Post.

George Romney, a Michigan governor, released 12 years of tax returns during his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination in 1968. His son has released only his 2010 tax return and an estimate for 2011, years when he was preparing for his own presidential bid or already running.

Reid said someone who had invested with Bain Capital, Mitt Romney's former venture capital firm, told the Democratic leader, "Harry, he didn't pay any taxes for 10 years."

Reid acknowledged that he had no evidence to back up such a claim. Yet he went on to suggest that Romney, though under no requirements to disclose more as presidential candidate, wouldn't get past the nominating process for a Cabinet position if he were to maintain the same level of financial privacy.

Romney has attempted to deflect criticisms of his decision not to release more tax returns, arguing that he has done everything the law requires.

His campaign repeated that refrain Tuesday in response to Reid's comments, with adviser Kevin Madden telling the Huffington Post that Romney had "gone above and beyond the disclosure requirements by releasing two years of personal tax returns in addition to the hundreds of pages of personal financial disclosure documents he has provided to the FEC and made public."

The campaign also has previously denied that Romney went any years without paying any taxes.