{"id":13116,"date":"2023-08-05T16:34:22","date_gmt":"2023-08-05T16:34:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13116"},"modified":"2023-08-05T16:34:22","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T16:34:22","slug":"texas-democrats-could-win-the-state-this-year-but-only-if-things-go-their-way","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13116","title":{"rendered":"Texas Democrats could win the state this year. But only if things go their way"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by<\/em> Christopher Hooks <\/em><\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Spare a thought this week for the Texas Democrat, God\u2019s most unlucky creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texas\n Democrats prospered in the 2016 and 2018 elections, leaving them with \nan outside shot at taking back the statehouse, winning half of the \nstate\u2019s congressional seats and even flipping the state in a \npresidential election for the first time since 1976. (And all that \nbefore a round of redistricting, no less.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\n only if a lot of things kept going their way. First among them: They \nneeded a Democratic presidential candidate who is well-suited to the \nstate. But alas, the people who run the party are coming to the \nconclusion that there isn\u2019t one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

President\n Trump did for Texas Democrats what they\u2019ve been unable to do for about \n40 years: unite a coalition of new voters, along with moderate and \nRepublican-leaning independents, under a single banner. That coalition \nmight not outlast Trump, but while he\u2019s in office it\u2019s busting down \ndoors all over the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To\n keep it going in 2020, the party would settle next for a fresh face \nwith fuzzy politics who\u2019d be broadly acceptable to both wings of the \ncoalition \u2014 so as to better keep the focus on the crass, septuagenarian \nNew York billionaire who had brought them together in the first place.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\n the primary finalists include a second crass, septuagenarian New York \nbillionaire, Mike Bloomberg; a cranky septuagenarian socialist, Vermont \nSen. Bernie Sanders; and, further down in the polls, septuagenarian Joe \nBiden, who cannot be reliably counted on to remember things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other hangers-on are not much better, as far as Texas Dems are concerned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other state parties might shrug and try to make the best of it. Texas Democrats, however, have a much easier time imagining that collapse is imminent than imagining that they might do something right in difficult circumstances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, the \nlast few weeks have seen a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, a \nmounting panic. Here\u2019s why: Democrats outside Texas want only to flip \nthe state in a presidential election. Texans care more about flipping \nthe Texas House, which could become collateral damage of a presidential \ncampaign, even a successful one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yes, Sanders, Biden and Bloomberg all have plausible arguments<\/em> to make about why they could win Texas this fall, even if none of them are likely to do so. Biden\u2019s is the best case: He\u2019s fuzzy and nonthreatening. For that reason alone, he\u2019s gotten a lot of support from elected officials, and he may yet walk away with a good chunk of delegates in Tuesday\u2019s primary<\/a>. Their hope, perhaps naive, is that he\u2019ll sort of settle into the background over the summer and let them keep the focus on Trump.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bloomberg\u2019s case is that he\u2019s rich. Texas is a very expensive state to campaign in, and Mike is the cool stepdad who will buy Texas Democrats a lot of new toys. He could flood the state with cash, and the things that cash could buy. People here think cash could compensate for the fact that he\u2019s likely to prove unexciting to the party\u2019s core voters and that he exhibits the charisma and political aptitude of a bank loan officer. His paternalism is the kind of politics Texans love to hate. But organizers here would love to have a few hundred million dollars to play around with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then \nthere\u2019s Sanders, the chief cause of Texas Democrats\u2019 current angst even \nthough, in head-to-head polls of the state, Sanders performs about as \nwell as other Democrats, and sometimes even a little better. Texans \nplace such a high value on \u201cauthenticity\u201d and \u201cstraight talk\u201d that it \ncan sometimes overcome unpopular positions. Whether all that \nauthenticity can overcome the label of \u201csocialist\u201d is where the angst \ncomes from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But\n if the candidates would all win or lose Texas by the same margin, many \nDemocrats would rather lose with Mike or Joe than with Bernie. That\u2019s \nbecause the moderate voters who helped the party win its new \ncongressional seats here don\u2019t love paying taxes. Sanders might force \nthem to think again about their pocketbooks which means, of course, the \nstate House would remain beyond reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sanders didn\u2019t help himself when he vowed to \u201cban fracking.\u201d That pledge threatens a lot of Texans\u2019 livelihoods \u2014 not just executives in Houston, but, say, truck drivers in the heavily Hispanic Rio Grande Valley making six figures with a high school education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Historically,\n things that are good for the national Democratic Party prove bad for \nthe state party, and vice versa. Sanders might well be the candidate the\n party needs to win back the Midwest for Democrats, and thus the \npresidency. But he might do it at the cost of hurting Texas Democrats\u2019 \nability to win back power before redistricting comes around next year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Or at least that\u2019s the theory. Take it with a grain of salt. Texas Democrats are not the best at figuring out what Texas Democrats need to do to win elections. Either way, the young voters who seem keen to put Sanders over the top in Texas on Tuesday are the future of the state, just as they are the future of the party. They just might have to wait a while.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Christopher Hooks is a writer-at-large for the Texas Monthly.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Christopher Hooks Spare a thought this week for the Texas Democrat, God’s most unlucky creation. Texas Democrats prospered in the 2016 and 2018 elections, leaving them with an outside shot at taking back the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13117,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[85,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-13116","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-politics","9":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13118,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13116\/revisions\/13118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}