Texas primary Voters finally get in rough

After months of bitter sniping between an entrenched governor and the senator vying to unseat him, Texas Republicans cast ballots Tuesday on who they want to lead the state for the next four years. Gov. Rick Perry and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson tried to drum up Republican support with last-minute primary campaign stops in Dallas. The two, who are hoping to represent the GOP in the November election, have waged rancorous campaigns in which Perry tried to paint Hutchinson as the consummate Washington insider and she has said it's time for the governor to leave office after eight years. But the late emergence of a third candidate popular with tea party voters, Debra Medina, might deny both a clear majority and push them to an April 13 runoff. The winner will go up against the Democratic nominee in November. Ex-Houston Mayor Bill White is favored among the Democrats over Houston hair-care magnate Farouk Shami and five others. Kevin Merritt, a 31-year-old Frisco software developer who cast his ballot shortly after polls opened at 7 a.m., said he considered voting for Perry before finally going with Medina. He said he liked Medina's goal to lower property taxes and disliked Perry's support of a now-dead project to build a huge system of toll roads.