No...its being turned off by Trump. I don't trust that suburbanites will vote for Democrats as they continue moving left once Trump is out of the picture. If the election was Nikki Haley VS Bernie Sanders, are we really supposed to expect that Dallas and Fort Worth and Fort Bend and Williamson counties would vote D?
They wouldn't, they'd deliver a Bush level victory...let's also remember Bush won the governorship by only 8 the first time, then by 30.
Unfortunately for Republicans, the cat's out of the bag. The damage Trump has done to suburbs is showing to hold up – hence the strong down-ballot performance this year. Neither Allred nor Fletcher nor Beto even really ran as conciliatory moderates, and Sessions/Culberson/Cruz weren't unapologetic Trumpists. And, as mentioned earlier in this thread, there's not much room to grow in rural areas.
Nikki Haley isn't winning a Republican presidential primary... ever. Even before Trump, but now especially. And those kinds of hypotheticals don't really prove that Texas
isn't trending D. It's kinda like saying "Iowa isn't trending R... if the election was Sherrod Brown VS Tom Cotton, do we really expect such-and-so voters in Hicksville County to vote R?"
