Just as expected, the popular former Houston mayor Bill White has won the Democratic primary nomination for Texas governor. He beat Houston businessman Farouk Shami to get the right to face the Republican nominee.

The Republican race hadn't been called as of 9:42 pm ET but with less than ten percent of the vote in, incumbent Gov. Rick Perry was holding a fairly commanding double-digit lead over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison.

Debra Medina, the choice of many in the Tea Party movement, was bringing up the rear with 17 percent of the vote.

Update at 7:30 a.m. ET, March 3: Our colleague Ken Rudin is covering the Texas news at Political Junkie. He writes that Perry got more than enough votes to avoid a runoff.