TX-SEN: True to Form

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

It's a very tough road for Beto. Cruz may be unliked, but the Cruz machine in Texas is very very strong and Cruz has done a good job keeping himself out of trouble lately. Good luck to Beto because he'll need it.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Yeah while the rural areas are like 80-20 republican, they only account for about 15-20% of the state. The issue is the suburbs are just as red as the cities are blue.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

one of mah coll-eegs over at Texahs said the followin "I don't know. I'm even seeing a lot of Beto signs in the yuppie Highland Park area outside of Dallas. Not sure if that area normally leans left, but I would be shocked if it does."

now this quote got me here thinkin' mah fellow 'merican Cruz is uh bout to get a bigger ass whoopin from Papa Beto than mah paps gave me as a lil lad, and boy was that smart.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

That's a lot of money in one month:

https://twitter.com/evanasmith/status/997478904578433024

Ok yeah Beto is definitely going to beat Cruz in money, question is if his message will resonate in the Suburbs of TX.

He will do better than Hillary in the suburbs/urban areas of TX. The question is how much better? Rural TX is probably not swinging much at all to Beto given how polarized it is (it isn't like rural WI).

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Too bad Beto has to get through Gangsta Greg who has over $50 million in his bank account

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

It's true that Beto is not well known. Political enthusiast forums =/= voters in Texas and Mississippi. Pretty much every poll of TX Senate shows about half of voters do not have an opinion of Beto. While pretty much everyone can identify that they have heard of Beto before, many do not know much about him besides he is a democrat and maybe some superficial attributes (such as him being young).


I am not sure about Baria, but I'd imagine he's not well known either considering his result in the primary.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

you know if republican turnout is somewhat lower and beto doesn’t get absolutely demolished in the rural areas while maintaining/outdoing hillary’s margins in the triangle, he has a pretty decent chance

He definitely needs to outdo Hillary's margins in the triangle. Rural TX is not swingy at all, so Beto will get demolished there. He may do marginally better than Hillary in rural TX, but not significantly.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

you know if republican turnout is somewhat lower and beto doesn’t get absolutely demolished in the rural areas while maintaining/outdoing hillary’s margins in the triangle, he has a pretty decent chance

He definitely needs to outdo Hillary's margins in the triangle. Rural TX is not swingy at all, so Beto will get demolished there. He may do marginally better than Hillary in rural TX, but not significantly.

yes i mean by appealing to rural areas he could do less horribly than usual and lose by like less than 40 points instead of the high 40s

I don't know man... rural TX is super inelastic. It's not like the rural midwest / plains states that are elastic. Most of the democratic votes from rural TX are Latinos, who have low turnout in midterms.

I don't think Beto even gets a 5 point swing from rural TX, honestly. Maybe in rural border counties, but not in the rural panhandle.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

you know if republican turnout is somewhat lower and beto doesn’t get absolutely demolished in the rural areas while maintaining/outdoing hillary’s margins in the triangle, he has a pretty decent chance

He definitely needs to outdo Hillary's margins in the triangle. Rural TX is not swingy at all, so Beto will get demolished there. He may do marginally better than Hillary in rural TX, but not significantly.

yes i mean by appealing to rural areas he could do less horribly than usual and lose by like less than 40 points instead of the high 40s

I don't know man... rural TX is super inelastic. It's not like the rural midwest / plains states that are elastic. Most of the democratic votes from rural TX are Latinos, who have low turnout in midterms.

I don't think Beto even gets a 5 point swing from rural TX, honestly. Maybe in rural border counties, but not in the rural panhandle.

What? TX-13, the panhandle sistrcit, literally voted for Clinton in 92! There is dem strength possible here.

1992 was an eternity ago in electoral politics. There's a ton of places that voted Clinton in '92, even by majorities, that just aren't winnable for Democrats anymore. The Dem coalitions between then and now are incredibly different.

Yeah... for example, Phil Bredesen's winning 2018 coalition is going to be completely different from his winning 2002 coalition.

He won a ton of rural white counties in 2002... in 2018, if he wins, it's probably due to insane margins in Nashville + its surrounding suburbs, while not doing terribly in rural TN.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

you know if republican turnout is somewhat lower and beto doesn’t get absolutely demolished in the rural areas while maintaining/outdoing hillary’s margins in the triangle, he has a pretty decent chance

He definitely needs to outdo Hillary's margins in the triangle. Rural TX is not swingy at all, so Beto will get demolished there. He may do marginally better than Hillary in rural TX, but not significantly.

yes i mean by appealing to rural areas he could do less horribly than usual and lose by like less than 40 points instead of the high 40s

I don't know man... rural TX is super inelastic. It's not like the rural midwest / plains states that are elastic. Most of the democratic votes from rural TX are Latinos, who have low turnout in midterms.

I don't think Beto even gets a 5 point swing from rural TX, honestly. Maybe in rural border counties, but not in the rural panhandle.

What? TX-13, the panhandle sistrcit, literally voted for Clinton in 92! There is dem strength possible here.

1992 was an eternity ago in electoral politics. There's a ton of places that voted Clinton in '92, even by majorities, that just aren't winnable for Democrats anymore. The Dem coalitions between then and now are incredibly different.

Yeah... for example, Phil Bredesen's winning 2018 coalition is going to be completely different from his winning 2002 coalition.

He won a ton of rural white counties in 2002... in 2018, if he wins, it's probably due to insane margins in Nashville + its surrounding suburbs, while not doing terribly in rural TN.

Hold your horses, he has not won yet.

His losing map would look similar too. Strong margins in nashville + suburbs, but poor in rural TN. Just lower numbers across the board.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

O’Rourke pressure Cruz into a debate.

http://thehill.com/homenews/396438-cruz-has-yet-to-set-date-to-debate-dem-challenger

Its interesting that Cruz doesnt want to debate Beto, even though its been shown that Beto is still a relative lightweight, and Cruz is a master debater. What is he afraid of?

Oh Cruz is definitely a master debater. We know that all right.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Outraising Cruz with $10 million in campaign donations, trailing him by just 2 percentage points according to Civiqs, pressuring Cruz for a debate, an immigration crisis that seems to be mobilizing Texas' Hispanic vote in favor of O'Rourke, etc.

O'Rourke seems to be having a good summer.

Civiqs poll is a clear outlier here. Race seems to be more like +6 to +8 Cruz.

$10 million in 1 quarter is pretty bonkers but the TX GOP swamp runs deep, and Beto is probably much too leftwing for TX.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

If beto wins people will want him to run in the next presidential election thats open for the dems after 2020

He would literally be a senator for 3 months before running for president, has anything of that sort happened before??

Also hard to believe(but also not really) that a year from today we will pretty much already be familiar with the entire 2020 democratic field

Yeah, Obama was an extraordinary candidate and even he had been in the Senate at least since Jan 2005 before running in '08. 

Of course, Beto is no Obama, and Terrific Ted will cruise to victory, so it's a moot point.

No one besides far right looney nutcases likes Tepid Ted

Unfortunately, dems decided to run Beto the Communist

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Cruz has led basically every poll... how is this a tossup right now?

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Cruz had a great debate until last question. I can't beleive he's that stupid. I mean even Trump managed to say something nice about Hillary without attacking her.

Trump actually had a really good response to that question.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

In the likely event he loses narrowly, I hope Beto turns around and runs for President ASAP. We need someone magical to defeat Trump and I don't think any of the senators making a move has what it takes.

Beto is soo overated. He is nowhere near qualified enough to be Commander of Chief.