Updated: After technical issues at RPT virtual convention, the party joins Hotze/Woodfill lawsuit to hold it in person, Woodfill says
The hearing is set for 2pm this afternoon, where attorneys are expected to argue for an in-person convention to start Saturday in Houston

- Susman Godfrey LLP founder and renowned trial lawyer Stephen Susman passed away Tuesday after fighting a weekslong battle with COVID-19, which he contracted while recovering from a bike accident, according to his family.

In a post on the CaringBridge website, his wife Ellen Susman announced that her husband died peacefully with his family by his side. He was 79 years old.

"Our gallant Steve left us today," she wrote. "He fought a valiant battle, from his accident to rehab, but the combination of COVID and his weakened lungs were finally too much for his body. We are brokenhearted, but at peace with the fact that he is free and whole at last."

Susman had been admitted to a hospital in Houston on April 22 after sustaining a traumatic brain injury and breaking multiple bones in a bicycle accident, according to his family's posts. Although he was initially in a coma, he regained consciousness and was eventually transferred to a rehab facility in May where he began his slow recovery.

But three days after undergoing a surgery, on June 21, Susman had developed pneumonia and was diagnosed with the novel coronavirus. His family wrote that they will never know when he contracted the virus and whether it occurred at the TIRR Memorial Hermann rehab facility or at the Memorial Hermann hospital where his surgery took place.

After emerging from a 15-candidate March primary, Republican megadonor Kathaleen Wall and Fort Bend County Sheriff Troy Nehls found themselves locked in a nasty, race-to-the-right runoff that's left them bear-hugging the president in a suburban district that is trending to the center as Trump is losing ground.


The final weeks have brought Republicans even more headaches. Wall went nuclear, tapping her personal wealth to run millions of dollars’ worth of TV ads featuring a sex-trafficking victim and her family excoriating Nehls for failing to protect them. Nehls bested Wall by 21 points in the primary, but even Nehls' allies worry her attack ads have bloodied the GOP frontrunner.

"Kathaleen Wall couldn’t be doing more for the Democrat Party than she is now," said Mike Gibson, a former Fort Bend County GOP chair who is backing Nehls. "Because she’s going to lose. Troy is going to win, and now they’re going to have all this stuff that they can also bring up."

The district, a longtime GOP bastion which former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay drew for himself, has quickly transformed into fiercely competitive territory, the result of an explosion of immigrant communities and the growing suburban rejection of Trump. Incumbent GOP Rep. Pete Olson, who won a much closer-than-expected race in 2018, is retiring rather than run again.