Getting close in Texas makes Trump spend time and resources there that could otherwise be devoted to the Rust Belt. There is value in that. Even if Trump can lock it down with those appearances and resources, he’d rather be able to ignore it like he can Alabama or Indiana.
LOL, Bijou and DrDeth: I think Bernie as nominee would be bad, but maybe not quite *that *bad. I think he could have a chance to win, even, because *Trump *is so bad. But it’s certainly not a risk we ought to take.
Cite? Nate Silver said on the 538 podcast that Beto actually didn’t get a huge boost from Hispanic voters compared to other Democrats, which means his strong showing in Texas was due to other voters splitting tickets.
I haven’t seen any serious analysis that Texas is “in play” within the next couple of elections. Yes, Beto came close against Cruz and Dems made some progress under a blue wave but it’s still an R+8 state.
And Michigan went for Obama by ten points in 2012.
A state like Texas has a chance to go Democratic in 2020 if
–the Democratic nominee is a Texan
–the Republican nominee is unpopular
–the Republican nominee considers Texas a lock and ignores it
Trump can only control the last of those third bullet points. That’s why I say nominating Beto would make him have to spend time and resources there to hold it. That’s not the same as saying that even if Trump contests it, Beto could still beat him. But making Trump spend the time and resources is itself a tactical win.
I dunno about a serious chance, but as SlackerInc & I said, it will be close enough that Trump can’t skip it.
Polls show he has a pretty good chance of beating Donald Trump, at least in his home state, where he’s polling one percentage point behind the president, according to a new Quinnipiac survey.
1%?!? that’s within the margin of error.
*Such close odds in deeply Republican Texas vouch for the excitement O’Rourke generated during his campaign against senator Ted Cruz last year. They’re also a sign of Trump’s sagging popularity. Even self-avowed socialist Bernie Sanders would give Trump a run for his money in the Lone Star state, based on the poll, which was conducted last month.
If the election were today: % for Democrat % for Trump
Beto O’Rourke 46 47
Joe Biden 46 47
Bernie Sanders 45 47*
Nice that even Biden or Sanders could make it a race in Texas. Of course that’s pre-GOP/Kremlin Bernie smear, but still.
Texas will go Democratic, or come close to it, only in the event of a decisive Democratic win.
Trump won Texas by 9%, while Clinton won the popular vote by 2%. So to get an EC-proof majority in the Electoral College, the Democrats need to do just a tiny bit better nationally. Even if we assume that Texas is moving leftwards faster than the rest of the country and that Beto is uniquely appealing to Texans, it seems highly unlikely that Dems would win Texas without winning the national popular vote by like 7 percent; if Texas isn’t in fact any more vulnerable than last time, they would need to win by 10 percent.
The numbers you cite make it appear unlikely to become a tipping point state. But wouldn’t you have said the same about Michigan and Wisconsin in 2015, based on the numbers up to that point? And neither of those Rust Belt states are changing demographically as rapidly as TX.
Here are the differences between the Democratic vote in those states compared to the national Democratic vote in the last five Presidential elections:
MI +4, +5, +9, +5, -2
WI -1, +2, +7, +3, -2
In retrospect 2016 was continuing a trend which started in 2012. So no, I wasn’t warning everyone in 2015 about the danger of losing Michigan and Wisconsin particularly, and neither was anyone else that I can recall, but perhaps we all should have been.
Neither of these States experienced a swing within a single election cycle close to the magnitude of the 11 point swing it would take to make Texas a true swing State. But having found a 7 point swing just from looking at 10 data points, I’ll concede it probably isn’t quite as unlikely as I thought.
It would be interesting to look at the data for other States, but I’m sure someone has done it. Anyone have a link so I don’t have to reinvent the wheel?
O’Rourke losing to Cruz by almost 3% was not some huge accomplishment and the race being a moderately close loss (but a loss) was not unpredictable - even I was able to see it back in April '18, expecting it to be closer though.
Cruz was very damaged goods in an election with a huge national shift and Beto got lots of free attention as well as lots of funding. (Abbot for governor OTOH is pretty well liked and never at risk.)
That Quinnipiac poll is most notable in that O’Rourke doesn’t poll significantly better than either Biden or Sanders. That doesn’t speak to him being some special item in that state that any other well known … let’s be honest in this state … white male Democrat … doesn’t also have.
I’m all for fighting in Texas, mainly for its impact on the rest of the ticket. But any that is spent there is at best matched by spending from the other side, at worst not matched and is money not spent where the D MUST win, and as has been pointed out, an election this cycle that wins Texas did not need Texas. And, also again, this poll shows that O’Rourke adds nothing to fighting in Texas that another known white male Democrat does not also bring.
Is a waste of time in terms of the 2020 presidential result.
NOT a waste of time in terms of local elections to House and even some Senate seats.
Not a waste of time if over a few cycles it speeds up the day when a D presidential victory relies on one of those fairly tenuous combinations and instead has Texas placing purplish, even as Florida becomes less purple and more red.
The 2020 election is about more than the 2020 presidential winner alone, even though that needs to come first. It is about governing and accomplishing over the next four years and about being able to win in future cycles as well.
It also must be noted that any national tactic that tries hard to win AZ and FL (IOW not counting how much money and time is spent there but the who is on the ticket and what issues they emphasize in what ways) are likely going to correlate with impact in TX as well.
Yes. And I’m sorry if I come across as defeatist or desperate.
But Victory in November 2020 is absolutely essential. With rational humans at last in charge, we can then debate the details of healthcare, tuition, etc. at leisure.
If instead Trump wins, which is a strong possibility, the grief will be beyond any mercy; and time spent polishing the D agenda — especially in ways that just piss off the redneckish Rust-belt workers that electorally we depend on so very much — will then just be heartbreaking mirages.
The NPR Politics podcast this week featured clips from two Democrats (edit: make that a Democrat and a “Democrat”) that really distill the fundamental question before Democratic primary voters this cycle (and all cycles, but especially this one):
So that’s one side of the argument, certainly not the side I am on. Here is the other (emphasis mine):
This is everything. I never paid a lot of attention to Garcetti before, but I could just kiss him. I understand why Detrow was surprised: prominent Democrats aren’t usually so blunt in expressing exasperation with the “purity troll” wing of the party. And a few months ago, it seemed like they would be more afraid than ever to do so. But although I don’t support Biden for the nomination, I have to credit him with emboldening the pragmatists of the party, giving them a sense that whatever you might see on Twitter, it really is safe to just let 'er rip and say what needs to be said. This was almost a “callout”, and I love it.
Clearly you can slice and dice the numbers various ways. But in Texas, a state that has been moving demographically in our direction for years, Hillary lost by nine points. This seemed to be the main argument for why it was only going to go to Democrats as an “overkill” state, not a “tipping point” one. Yet Michigan was among three key states that swung in 2016, and Romney lost it by ten points the cycle before Trump won it.
And again, it doesn’t have to actually tip the balance. If Trump has to spend time and money there to defend such a huge electoral prize (with expensive media markets and massive logistical issues for GOTV), that hurts his ability to focus like a laser on the Rust Belt.
Beating Trump isn’t enough. But it’s a lot more complicated than Sanders is making it out to be there. What we need to beat is the social forces that made Trump possible, and that’s a lot harder to pin down than “the fossil fuel industry” or “Wall street”.
Creating an enemy other, a boogeyman, like “the fossil fuel industry” or “Wall street”… or “Trump” … or “immigrants”, or “Islam” for that matter … is Populism 101. Of course it is simplistic. The tactic is to get a bunch of voters as identifying as the “us” in a battle against a “them.” Smaller fraction of American likely voters and more different and scarier the “them” is, the better for the tactic. It may not be great that the tactic works but it does fairly commonly. Simplistic messages easier than complexity.
My take remains that winning the White House is a necessary but insufficient notch in service of setting us on a less harmful if not fully positive path. We need a Congress that can get legislature accomplished and to be positioned for the long game of future elections as well.
Chronos, with full recognition of your statement that they are hard to pin down, what do you specifically identify as “the social forces that made Trump possible”?
BERNIE SANDERS: Beating Trump is not good enough. You got to beat the fossil fuel industry. You have to take on all of those forces of the status quo who do not want to move this country to energy efficiency and sustainable energies.
This actually shows Sanders is behind the times, because in fact several of the Big oil companies are leaders in alternative energy.
Interesting! A smart pivot on their part, hedging their bets.
It is of a piece with the way the Sanders crowd never seems to acknowledge the strides Walmart has made in cleaning up its act. Or they might pat themselves on the back for having pushed them to do so, without extending any credit to Walmart’s management.
A clever enough response but the question is a bit serious, assuming the thesis you expressed is.
I’m not so sure that social forces get the primary credit/blame for electing Trump so much as uneven electoral power does, overweighting the impact of rural votes and over-concentrating Democratic voting strength in too few states.
And marketing forces play a role. The national Democratic party has not well articulated their message in a way that includes left behind rural Americans along with others. Sometimes the messaging can come off as othering them and also as a bit condescending.
My stab at the social forces is that the same demographic shifts that favor the Democratic Party’s chances over the next decade or so, the increase in minority and youth voters and power, also is experienced as a bit frightening to many lower SES and less highly educated whites who are still dropping out of the middle even as the economy does well. And for some sociological reason Hispanic voters are not flexing their turnout muscle.
Even if I am right though … I won’t win any elections!
Uneven electoral power was able to turn 40something percent of the voters into a majority of the electoral college. But when you’ve got 40something percent of the electorate supporting someone like Trump, that’s already a sign of some sort of serious problem.
