No Democrat has won a statewide race in Texas in decades. But conditions are friendlier than ever.
There's a reason no Democrat has accomplished a statewide victory in Texas since 1994.
Pulling off such an upset would require a uniquely talented politician running an almost perfect campaign. That candidate would need to display discipline, calm and poise. Be telegenic and quick on the feet. The candidate would need to be thoroughly Texan and have an identity infused with elements of the state's cultural zeitgeist. The person would need to run in a halfway decent national political environment. And even with all of those boxes checked, that rare Democrat would still need to square off against an extraordinarily disliked Republican running a lackluster campaign without much support from the person's own colleagues.
Enter: Rep. Colin Allred.
Allred's remarkable debate performance Tuesday spawned a flurry of Instagram slides, TikTok videos and X posts. Both in Texas and nationwide, news feeds have been flush this week with clips of the former professional football player **rebuking Sen. Ted Cruz for hiding in a "supply closet" during the attempted insurrection at the U.S. Capitol
a riot by a mob that Cruz himself helped whip up**. Others showed him repeatedly referencing the time Cruz flew to Cancun, Mexico, as hundreds of Texans died during the middle of a winter freeze, or hammering him on his abortion stance
an issue critical to white female voters who have been abandoning the GOP in droves.
But an impressive debate performance alone is not enough for a Democrat to win a state like Texas. However, polls, fundraising and a changing political climate have all looked promising for Allred. Today, Texas Democrats are in an extraordinary situation, one that has proved elusive over the past three decades: They have an actual chance of winning a statewide race.
I remember similar being said about Beto O'Rourke. In the end he floundered on the rocks of Cruz's candacy.
Beto likely lost because he said the stupidest shit that a dem running in Texas could have said ("we will take your guns!") and it killed his campaign momentum. And even then, he only lost by 2-3%.
To my knowledge, Allred hasn't shot himself in the foot like that, so there is a real chance for him to win.
I mean, he could have retconned it into asking for their active participation in something requiring guns
He could have, yes.
Instead, he doubled down on it and continued his campaign essentially with the message “Yes, I really do want to take away certain guns. Vote for me, Texans!”
Beto didn’t say anything about guns until 2019, after he lost the Senate race, and then campaigned for POTUS.
Even there he could have said something about illegal alien ghetto cocaine-smuggling communist cartel guns, though.
But OK, it's just the kind of humor that pleases me to write is not the same as what fits the subject