TX GOP freak-out is finally public!
After the 2018 election, officially the TX GOP confidently crowed over Cruz beating (surviving) Beto and down-played the major gains Dems made in local and federal down-ballot races. Privately, the TX GOP engaged in what has been become known as a collective "freak-out" of these numbers:
- Tarrant County, the last GOP urban center flipping blue
- 12 state house seats flipped which robbed GOP of their once reliable supermajority
- 2 state senate seats flipped which robbing GOP of their once reliable supermajority
- 2 Congressional seats flipped
- 6 Congressional seats held by under 5% margin
- All 59 incumbent GOP judges in Houston lost their seats
- Harris County Clerk (Houston) flipped into voter expansion advocate's hands.
- And finally, record turnout that blew past every internal GOP estimate.
While local Texas media and a few of us Kossacks here covered in some depth this private "freak-out," the clueless national press bought hook, line and sinker into the TX GOP's official "Texas is a red state, you fools" confident posturing.
Even when the DCCC announced it would target 6 Texas Congressional districts as hard as they had challenged 6 Orange County GOP-held seats, national pundits still foolishly parroted the Texas Republican Party's official talking points.
It's taken 7 long months, but finally that private "freak-out" has become public knowledge, and once again pundits have egg on their faces:
- On July 25, 2019, one of those 6, Rep. Pete Olson of Sugar Land (TX-22) announced he would not seek a seventh term.
- On July 31, 2019, Rep. Mike Conaway of Midland announced his retirement.
- On August 2, 2019 Rep. Will Hurd announced his retirement, too. Hurd who won TX-23 by just 900+ votes, was the top DCCC Texas target.
- Today, August 5th, Kenny Marchant, who barely won with 50.6% of the vote, became the 4th Texas congressman to retire as the GOP Texodus grows.
Texodus! Texodus! Texodus!
Texas Democrats, who have been playing offense since the 2018 mid-terms, have successfully framed local and Congressional departures as the great "Texodus."
To understand the origins of Texodus, you need to start back on Halloween night 2018.
First, Clinton coming within 9points of Trump in 2016 didn't scare TX GOPers because turnout only increased 1% over 2012 presidential. At that pace, it would indeed take several cycles before Texas would be in danger.
Then came Halloween 2018, the night the TX GOP "freak-out" really began. The "high minority turnout nightmare" warning issued 10 years earlier by Derek Ryan, the former research director for the Republican Party of Texas, was finally come to life before their very eyes.
The GOP's strangle-hold on local, state and federal races required low turnout, especially from minority voters and younger Latinos. Yet the October 31st early vote update laid before their grim eyes showed Texas urban centers on pace to meet or shockingly exceed 2016 presidential early vote.
Texas, which came in dead last in mid-term turn-out in 2014 with a measly 28.3%, was on pace to near 50% turnout. Indeed, after all the votes were counted, Texas nearby doubled its 2014 percentage and jumped a staggering 44 spots to 6th in national turnout for the 2018 mid-terms.
Forget 1% increases.
Turnout increased more than 18% over 2014!
TX GOP number crunchers began predicting a 20% jump in turnout over 2016 for the 2020 presidential.
Their numbers remodeled the Texas electorate and found some GOP seats would fall victim to their own gerrymander. Worse, even safe red seats could see a competitive challenger, preventing their donations from being generously shared with vulnerable members
Much like California has served as the Democratic piggybank, Texan donors have enriched national GOP coffers for decades. TX GOP told national party all that lovely ruby red money will be required to hold Texas, and local and Congressional seats.
Olson, Hurd, and Marchant, who all won close elections in 2018, were handed the "new electorate math" and blanched.
Some of us here predicted last Friday Marchant's retirement would come any day. I heard yesterday, at least one more ranted about the new math and may retire, too!
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David Wasserman agrees Texodus ain’t over!
Dave WassermanVerified account @Redistrict
In 2018, six GOP House incumbents from TX won their races by less than 5%. Three of them (Olson, Hurd and Marchant) are retiring so far and I’d be really surprised if they’re the last.
The chart scaring GOP
The Texas Secretary of State site reported 15,793,257 million Texans were registered to vote in 2018. This number could top 17 million in 2020.
Texas SOS reported 7.4 million registered voters did not cast a ballot in 2018. 2.2 million are eligible voters but remain unregistered. Added together, those 9.6 million exceed the 2016 presidential vote total and they represent the untapped pool.
Michael Li, a Lone Star native, currently working for the Brennan Center, compiled a nice visual pie-chart of the numbers freaking out the TX GOP.
Michael Li 李之樸Verified account @mcpli
As people parse polls and talk about whether Texas is - or is not - a potential 2020 battleground, a chart
#txlege
Of course, there are plenty of GOP voter within those 9.6 million who didn’t cast voters in 2018.
However, the population centers who have seen the most growth the last decade are the more left-leaning urban and suburban areas.
Pew Research estimated 600,000 new voters will have turn 18 between 2018 and 2020, and the large majority will be people of color.
Throughout the summer and fall of the 2018, the Cruz campaign had to continually adjust upward their estimated turnout.
And, there are those in Texas today who find Cornyn's estimated 10-10.5 million too low. Including some rich Republican donors who launched a new Super Pac intended to register GOP voters. While GOP have always conducted, efficient registration drives, this sense of near-panic is new.
Engage Texas launched in mid-June with the promise of signing up and turning out hundreds of thousands of new GOP voters to help keep the state red in 2020. The super PAC is led by Chris Young, a former top staffer at the Republican National Committee.
The super PAC has already built a staff of at least 18 people, and it has set up shop in three of the state's biggest cities while sending organizers to a dozen politically important counties.
The group says it has already opened offices in Austin, Houston and the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It also has dispatched organizers to begin work in Bell, Blanco, Collin, Dallas, Denton, Fort Bend, Harris, Hays, Lampasas, Tarrant, Travis and Williamson counties.
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/07/31/engage-texas-raises-nearly-10-million-register-new-republican-voters/
Take note, they're targeting cities and suburbs. This is in contrast to Trump's 2016 strategy of maximizing rural counties. Texas rural counties, like most of the country, have been shrinking in sharp contrast to the exploding urban and suburban areas.
Battleground Texas and Latino groups never stopped their registration drives. Battleground Texas has a drive going on now for 50,000 new voters. Voto Latino I know has been working summer fiestas and in the fall UT students plan part 2 of their mobilization effort.
All this news has finally opened election forecaster’s eyes that the TX GOP freak-out is very real. New Yorks Time Election forecaster Nate Cohn finally weighed in,
Nate CohnVerified account @Nate_Cohn
And it also, obviously, implies that the GOP's broader concerns about Texas are pretty well-warranted. By our estimates, Trump was underwater *statewide* in Texas among either RVs or in a presidential electorate The GOP sirens are going off for a reason
11:30 PM - 4 Aug 2019
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This entire exchange between Nate Cohn and David Wasserman perfects captures the recent sea change when discussing the chances of Texas flipping in 2020.
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Dave WassermanVerified account @Redistrict
Dave Wasserman Retweeted Nate Cohn
Wouldn’t be at all surprised to see the Dem nominee do about as well in TX as FL - a big change from the past. That said, both still very likely to the right of the 2020 EC tipping point.
Dave Wasserman added,
Nate CohnVerified account @Nate_Cohn
I have some questions about whether Democrats can really win over some of these voters in the end, especially if the Dems move left. But on paper the opening is real and not much different than, say, Florida
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