The battle for Texas

In 2018, Republican incumbent Ted Cruz won his Senate race against Democrat Robert O’ Rourke, 50.9% to 48.3%. Democrats also flipped 12 state House seats that election, cutting into the Republican advantage. In 2019, a Texas Tribune article predicted, “Democrats could gain control of the Texas House [in 2020] for the first time since 2001,” writing that 30 of the 150 seats are seen as competitive.

But it’s the top of the ticket that has Democrats up and down the ballot feeling confident. “Trump is a bad fit for Texas,” Byron LaMasters told the Washington Examiner. LaMasters is a partner at InFocus Campaigns, a primarily progressive and Democratic consulting firm based in Washington, D.C. The Texas native still works regularly with Texas-based campaigns. “You saw an erosion of support for Trump in 2016. … We have a great opportunity this year. I think Trump, more than anyone, is the one who has accelerated this. Democrats have long been talking about how he alienates college-educated voters in the suburbs.”

“In terms of the big picture, this is mostly an anti-Trump phenomenon,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a conservative co-founder of the Austin-based Steinhauser Strategies. “I don’t think it’s anti-Republican unless Trump is the poster child for the Republican Party long-term. My sense is we’re in this anti-Trump fervor, which is driving down a lot of candidates who otherwise would be doing great.”

Steinhauser still predicts Trump will win Texas and Sen. John Cornyn will win reelection there, “but it will be close. Republicans may lose one or two congressional seats in Texas, and perhaps six or seven seats in the Texas House. While Texas may not flip to the Democratic column in 2020, Republicans better get ready for a knock-down, drag-out fight for the state in 2022 and 2024.”

Democrats only need nine seats to flip the state House. In 2018, O’Rourke won a majority of the state House districts. LaMasters thinks Democrats could take the Texas state House if they just “win the districts that Beto won.”

In 2002, John B. Judis and Ruy Teixeira published the exultant book The Emerging Democratic Majority, arguing that demographic and ideological trends, plus the growth of knowledge-based economic metro centers, meant Democrats were soon to enjoy the fruits of systemic political advantage. Within a decade, they could win Texas at the presidential level. Ten years later, Barack Obama cruised to reelection with more than 50% of the vote — but lost Texas by 16 points.

In late September 1992 — 28 years ago — Bill Clinton’s campaign made a play for Texas “based on polls, both published and private, that show Mr. Clinton running even or slightly ahead of Mr. Bush and on the prospect that independent Ross Perot may draw away enough Bush supporters in Texas to ensure the president’s defeat here,” the Baltimore Sun reported, despite the fact that it was George H.W. Bush’s home state. Democrats sounded even more confident in 2016, when Hillary Clinton was the nominee; Trump won the state by 9.

Is the 2020 chatter any different? “I was once a skeptic on Texas turning blue, but I’ve changed my tune because Trump is a uniquely unpopular Republican in Texas who seems to be the driver of an important development: Like other Americans, Texans with a college degree are shifting rapidly from red to blue, and Democrats have a lot of room to grow with them in Texas,” CNN stat-watcher Harry Enten wrote in 2019. “Democrats Don’t Need To Win Georgia, Iowa, Ohio Or Texas — But They Could,” read a headline this month at FiveThirtyEight.com.

There is the psychological blow to Republicans from losing a state where GOP control of government is the norm and the Bushes are still icons. “For six of the seven presidential elections beginning in 1980,” explained the Bay City Tribune’s Dave McNeely in 2018, “there was a Bush on the presidential ticket in the nation — and Texas. (Bush the Elder for vice-president in 1980 and 1984, and for president in 1988 and 1992; Bush the Younger for president in 2000 and 2004.) And in 1994 and 1998, the younger Bush was on the Texas ballot for governor — winning both times.”

There’s also the practical matter of election math: It’s hard to imagine a path to victory for Trump without Texas, and if Biden wins Texas, it almost surely means we’re in the midst of a rout.

But Trump’s unpopularity could lull Democrats into thinking the state is already in their grasp when it isn’t. Political science professor Brian W. Smith of St. Edward’s University, a private Catholic school in Austin, Texas, told the Washington Examiner it was more likely Texas would turn slightly purple than anything, but that even that wouldn’t necessarily hold. “It is unlikely that Texas will flip to blue and be a Democratic stronghold like California,” he said. “A purple Texas is much more likely. The state is increasingly diverse, and national trends are favoring the Democrats this election cycle. This will flip seats at all legislative levels, and, depending on the size of the wave, could have Texas vote Democratic at the presidential level for the first time since the last century.”

Smith chalks up this possibility to a long list of things that may be in Democrats’ favor this year, including the fact that Texans vote “on partisanship, issues, and candidates,” he said. Trump’s decline in popularity and the troubling optics of his COVID-19 response also contribute. He thinks Texans could vote at the local level for “a unified Democratic base, and strong support among independents would be the foundation for a blue wave in Texas.”

An Oct. 9 University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll shows Trump ahead by 5 points. “There are still heavily Republican areas in the state,” Smith said, and warned: “Democrats are excited, but an excited Democratic voter counts the exact same as a tepid Republican voter. You do not get an extra vote because you are enthusiastic.”

Plus, Democrats don’t have a monopoly on enthusiasm. At the end of September, a handful of Republicans running for Congress joined together and released what they themselves dubbed unironically “the greatest joint campaign ad in history.” Texas Monthly said the ad, which highlights their website, “Texas Reloaded,” and features congressman Dan Crenshaw as the ringleader of candidates forming an Avengers-style posse, is “a whole thing.” The version Crenshaw’s campaign uploaded to YouTube had nearly a million hits. “If you don’t live in Texas,” the Crenshaw campaign asserts, “this ad will make you want to move here.” In the spot, Crenshaw gathers a few more ex-military men and some talented women who have vowed to keep Texas on the right path.

Wesley Hunt is one of those veterans spending the countdown to Nov. 3 campaigning in the 7th District against Democratic incumbent Lizzie Fletcher. The African American Hunt is a Houston native and graduate of West Point who served eight years in the Army as an Apache helicopter pilot. He then went on to Cornell to complete multiple graduate degrees, including an MBA. Hunt is hoping Houstonians will be receptive to his focus on jobs and energy since he is vying to represent the “Energy Corridor.” The oil and gas industry is the “lifeblood” of the economy, he says, providing 250,000 jobs. The win would be an upset and a big grab for Republicans.

Tony Gonzales is a Navy cryptologist running in San Antonio for Republican Rep. Will Hurd’s seat following his retirement. He has particularly strong feelings about whether or not Texas is in danger of turning “blue,” especially as a wave of California residents — 700,000 since 2008, according to CBS — have flocked to Texas, possibly bringing their liberal values with them: “We have a saying: ‘Don’t California my Texas.’ We know our model here of limited government, low taxes, free enterprise, and self-reliance lead to prosperity.”

Republican strategist Jeff Burton, a former deputy executive director of the National Republican Congressional Committee who regularly works with Texas candidates, isn’t too worried about that. “I have a different view in terms of people moving from California to Texas,” he said. “I bet most of them are leaving because they are conservatives. California is a liberal haven. Why would [a dedicated progressive] leave?”

Burton does think “a number of races could flip” and that “the presidential race will be closer than it should be.” He concedes Democrats have moved the needle, just not as far as they wish: “Democrats have been talking about winning the state since 2002. Has it changed a little? Yes. But has it changed a lot? No.”

Like many others I spoke to, he thinks any Democratic wins are again due to Trump: “Texans don’t like Trump’s personality. They don’t like New Yorkers. They’re brash. They can be rude. It’s not Texas. Remember the old El Paso Picante Sauce commercial? ‘New York City? Get a rope!’ This is about Donald Trump and the quality of the candidates.”

Burton was more optimistic for conservatives regarding the future of Texas. “Democrats are now organized and have money and hope,” he said. “Hope is an important thing. They could win the state House, but it’s going to be fleeting. It will be fleeting. Texas will pop back, and it will be closer in the next midterm.”

Another candidate running for the House, Genevieve Collins, agrees that Texans are resistant to progressivism. “Today’s Democratic Party is far too radical. Texas voters see that for what it is,” Collins told me in an email. She faces perhaps the toughest battle, trying to knock out a Democratic incumbent in the 32nd District, which covers Highland Park and Dallas.

If Democrats make any gains in key contentious congressional races, Republicans hope they’ll take it back. But that in itself is a concession to the battle underway. There’s no way for either party to get a hold on Texas without fighting hard for it. As Smith told me, “If the GOP loses big, they need to begin preparing for 2022, as this will be their best chance to flip the state back.”

This year marks the 185th anniversary of the Battle of Gonzales, the first official military fight of the Texas Revolution, which began in 1835. It was there that Texas originally flew the “Come and Take It” flag, something that has become a landmark of Texas pride and a representation of Texans’ fierce spirit. It’s also a taunt both major parties might find themselves using as the battle for Texas unfolds.

Nicole Russell (@russell_nm) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.