Yesterday, Kos posted an article that had very good news for Texas. I had fun with it on Twitter because I’m in Harris County (Houston) and getting good news from this site about Texas is rare. However, I had to correct someone who told Beto to focus on the Big Four: Houston (Harris), San Antonio (Bexar), Dallas (Dallas), and Austin (Travis). One that leaves out Fort Worth (Tarrant) which is the third largest county in the state and fifth largest city in the state. Two, those four cities are nowhere near enough.
Those four counties only make up a third of all registered voters in Texas. The top twenty-five counties make up two thirds of the registered voters in the state, but some of those are very red counties.
So, what to do: Yes, campaign in the Big Four and canvas the heck out of Fort Worth to flip that county from Red to Blue. It has a high minority population, it just needs to vote. Next: Hidalgo (South Texas Border), El Paso , Cameron (STB), and Webb (Laredo -STB) Counties all need to turnout big. Those are heavily Democratic counties that don’t match the state’s turnout rate. Then Nueces (Corpus Christi) County needs to flip. It is a light pink county that again, would be blue if the voters turnout.
Guess what? That still is not enough! There are four suburban counties to watch on election night. Collin and Denton are suburban counties of the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. Williamson is a suburban county of Greater Austin. Hillary lost those three counties by a combined 140,000 votes. Those are highly educated counties that have to trend Democratic to win. Fort Bend is in Greater Houston and went for Hillary, but not down ballot. That is a very wealthy, ethnically diverse county that is a must win this year. So those four counties will set the stage for flipping Texas and a few House seats too.
But you also need Jefferson (Beaumont) County, with a large Black population to turnout. You have to get Montgomery County, suburban Houston, to not be an 80-20 wipeout. Margins have to be managed in East Texas, West Texas, Central Texas, and North Texas.
In Beto O’Rourke’s words, “We have to show up everywhere.” It takes a hell of a lot more than just the Big Four. If Harris comes out huge for Democrats, that makes the task easier, but Democrats have to show up across the state. That is how to Turn Texas Blue.