TX-SEN: True to Form

[wbrocks67]

It's a small sample size right now, but interesting so far in TX-07:

Culberson (R) 50% - Fletcher (D) 49%
O'Rourke (D) 52% - Cruz (R) 44%

O'Rourke is outrunning Fletcher by a nice margin. Looks like a nice little chunk of possible Culberson/O'Rourke crossover voters.

If this is the end result, where Clinton won by +1.4, and O'Rourke wins by 8, that's a great margin for him there. But we'll see what happens in the end.

[wbrocks67]

Beto needs to walk a very fine line with this Kavanaugh thing.  If Beto states that this sexual assault thing disqualifies Kavanaugh, I could easily see Team Cruz retorting back with "Oh, so what some guy does when he's in high school sullies his job prospects, but your DUI when you're 26 shouldn't disqualify you from this job?!"

> rape
> drunk driving

Totally comparable

Yeah, that comparison makes no sense. I think Beto will be quite fine...

[wbrocks67]

Yah, we might be pushing it but I think this will be the first poll that Beto leads.

[wbrocks67]

https://twitter.com/Nate_Cohn/status/1041857615637229568

Culberson up by 4?

I know this is not that topic, but I'm pissed. Lizzie should've done more to put her name out.

Fletcher is up by 5 among the most excited to vote. According to NY, she's only down by 2 overall now too. And that's with a rather small <45 sample size.

[wbrocks67]

We've now had multiple polls that have Cruz up 3 or 4. Most of the recent ones, besides Q-pac. Then Ipsos has Beto +2. Whether y'all like it or not, it's a tossup by data standards.

[wbrocks67]

Ted has backed out of the planned CNN debate. It will now be a one hour town hall with Beto. What is Cruz thinking?

[wbrocks67]

Ted has backed out of the planned CNN debate. It will now be a one hour town hall with Beto. What is Cruz thinking?

His internals tell him he is up and he has decided to play it safe for the stretch run.

By giving his opponent a free one hour commercial that I'm sure will also result in many donations? Eh, that's a stretch.

[wbrocks67]

Is Cruz even doing rallies? I follow Beto on socials and he legit is doing non-stop events every single day, usually 2 or 3 a day with very sizable crowds. We could fall down the "rally" rabbit hole just like people did with Bernie, but it DOES seem like there is something that the polls could not be catching in TX. There appears to be a LOT of people energized for him, and those crowd sizes don't lie. Clinton wasn't particularly inspiring and she only lost by 9, so with an energized base in a Dem year, I'd find it hard to believe that Beto couldn't at least get to 4 or 5 below Cruz. There doesn't seem to be much excitement for him.

Also, it appears that Beto's audience is very young and diverse, and possibly new registrants, so it could be possible that the polls aren't picking up.

Not to mention that sizable portions of his crowds are also white, so in the NYT poll, he's losing whites by nearly 40% to Cruz which seems... a lot.

[wbrocks67]

I mean, I realllllly don't want to write off a candidate who is raising massive sums of money like this, mostly because he can finance the kind of GOTV ops needed to over-perform on election day, but Beto has been down rather consistently in the polls and recent ones have been even worse.

So my question is, how often do Senate candidates over-perform so strongly that they overcome a -7 average polling margin? Does that ever happen? And I mean in races that have more than just a handful of polls.

It just seems like an increasingly tall order at this point, regardless of his ability to print money.

Well, we also haven't gotten a TON of polling recently. Q had +9 and NYT/Siena had +8. The only other recent ones were YouGov (online) at +6 and then the Reuters had Beto +2.

[wbrocks67]

Something must've changed with Ted to agree to the debate, since the CW was that he was so ahead that he didn't need to do it. Now...

[wbrocks67]

Something must've changed with Ted to agree to the debate, since the CW was that he was so ahead that he didn't need to do it. Now...

Maybe he didn't like that $38 million number.

Sure, but if he was really up like 9-10, I would assume he would assume that money still couldn't buy a win when down nearly 10%. Which makes me believe Beto is not down 8-10%.

[wbrocks67]

In Regards to Beto Fundraising-
Dems in texas arent unable to fundraise, I mean wasnt Wendy Davis able to raise over 30 million in her campaign, which is a lot for any campaign anywhere. But apparently Beto raised what she did in one quarter which is nuts.

What does a candidate spend this much money on?
-he should donate some to heidi lol

Given this and Wendy Davis fundraising numbers, I think its safe to say texas dems are willing to open their wallets even when they know they will loose.

It's a waste of money, at this point. It would be advisable for Democrats to divert their funds away from their race and towards their only realistic pickup possibilities-Arizona and Nevada.

Texas isn't unrealistic, though. Even the NYT/Siena poll that had Cruz +8 had Beto +3 among the most certain to vote. He has the enthusiasm on his side -- the question is, is the polling correct in terms of modeling who is going to turn out. Beto's whole thing has been trying to grab people from everywhere, especially young voters who normally don't come out. And they may not. But it will be interesting to see who DOES turn out compared with who the polls expected to come out. I don't wanna go all ~~BERNIE CROWD SIZES~~~~ here, but the sheer number of people he's turning out at every single stop looks pretty unprecedented, and makes me wonder if polls are actually catching this... we'll see I guess.

IS there any word on how Beto is spending that money? I mean if he's not spending it on a total gangbusters GOTV campaign then...

[wbrocks67]

Beto really needs to stop with the hand held selfie style low budget ads.  Spend a little money and make the ads look like someone other than a 2nd grader put them together.  How can someone run such a flawless campaign- yet have such a horrible tv ad campaign?

It's supposed to be personal instead of cheap typical political ads. I'm sure some people find them endearing, tbh.

[wbrocks67]

Beto did a Great job in the CNN Town-Hall tonight.  I also think it could actually help winning some undecided voters (he did a good job of removing the "scare" that Republicans and  Cruz have tried to paint on Beto).

I mean, at this point it was a free commercial and all the exposure can't hurt.

[wbrocks67]

I follow Beto on socials, and he is doing literally multiple on multiple events everyday. Meeting voters at like 5-10 Early voting sites a day, pop up rallies. I mean, you have to give him credit. He is GRINDING. The Question is, is Ted doing anything like this? I'm genuinely curious. It would seem to me that Beto is out there working, while Ted is kind of coasting, assuming the Rs will come out and vote for him regardless (which is definitely possible). Beto is doing all of these events, but it feels like you hear nothing from Ted?

[wbrocks67]

David Byler's piece is the worst of punditry though, because it's when the pundits assume they are right. They don't offer a "hey, we could be totally wrong though" approach. They assume that what they're saying is all correct and there's no way it could go a different way.

[wbrocks67]

Cruz would not be posting that if he was 8-9 pts ahead. Even 5.

[wbrocks67]

Sweat Ted....sweat!

https://mobile.twitter.com/scottbraddock/status/1058915208062734336

Feels like expectation setting

That's almost certainly what it is. The GOP did this in every congressional special this cycle.

... and they were right to in nearly every one though. Alabama, PA-18, AZ-08, etc

[wbrocks67]

Yeah, this is pretty laughable spin from the Rs. The early vote turnout looks good for Republicans in TX (at least for statewide races, not necessarily in particular districts).

How so? The higher the turnout, the better the odds are for Beto. Just look at the NYT/Siena poll, as turnout goes higher, Cruz's odds/leads go down. Not to mention, it appears that there is a huge surge of non-voters voting. Not saying Beto is gonna win, but the huge surges in TX would make me think this is a real race.

[wbrocks67]

Sabato:

Just had the umpteenth reporter and Texas political veteran from both parties tell me they think the polls are wrong on Texas Senate. Latest guy has reported from 7 @BetoORourke rallies recently & believes an upset will happen. As we saw in ‘16, polls are imprecise instruments.

https://twitter.com/larrysabato/status/1059106103512965120?s=21

[wbrocks67]

Sabato:

Just had the umpteenth reporter and Texas political veteran from both parties tell me they think the polls are wrong on Texas Senate. Latest guy has reported from 7 @BetoORourke rallies recently & believes an upset will happen. As we saw in ‘16, polls are imprecise instruments.

https://twitter.com/larrysabato/status/1059106103512965120?s=21

More expectation setting. But frankly, if there is going to be a polling error it will be in Texas. Every past election has had the Lone Star State as safe pub, but now since everyone knows it is competitive, the electorate might be totally different from past elections. I also don't doubt that Cruz is down RIGHT NOW in the EV, but probably will pull ahead thanks to E-Day votes.

It's pretty cynical (and yes, most things are) to just assume that every reaction this weekend is expectation setting, when probably 50% of the takes for better or worse are accurate.

[wbrocks67]

Sabato:

Just had the umpteenth reporter and Texas political veteran from both parties tell me they think the polls are wrong on Texas Senate. Latest guy has reported from 7 @BetoORourke rallies recently & believes an upset will happen. As we saw in ‘16, polls are imprecise instruments.

https://twitter.com/larrysabato/status/1059106103512965120?s=21

More expectation setting. But frankly, if there is going to be a polling error it will be in Texas. Every past election has had the Lone Star State as safe pub, but now since everyone knows it is competitive, the electorate might be totally different from past elections. I also don't doubt that Cruz is down RIGHT NOW in the EV, but probably will pull ahead thanks to E-Day votes.

Agreed. People are getting their hopes up over this race, one in which Cruz is set for victory.

And I hope that Beto wins even *more* so that people with takes like this can eat crow.

It's one thing to say that it's a tossup, that either side can win. Bc that's absolutely true. But it's the absolute worst when people try and act like one side is completely set for things. Trump won in 2016. Anything is possible. Not sure why people won't admit that.

TX has record turnout. I certainly don't think it's necessarily bc of Ted Cruz.

[wbrocks67]

Tarrant County is a close-to-perfect bellwether. If O'Rourke wins it, at best for Cruz, Cruz is winning by 1-2 points, and, more likely, he's underwater.

Who does the early vote in Tarrant favor?

The distribution of early vote across precincts when I looked at it (more towards the start of early vote) was pretty similar to 2016, but just a tad more in R precincts than that.

However, Devout Centrist said that part of the R precincts in which it was more concentrated in was particularly in areas that swung a lot from Romney to Clinton.

So the pessimistic take for Beto is that it is a bit more R than 2016. The optimistic take for Beto is that it is up particularly among former Rs that are now voting for Beto.

To tell which of those it is with more certainty, you would need more detailed voter file data and modeling on the county level than what is publicly available.

Part of my take is that the DSCC/NRSC do have that more detailed data, and neither of them is really spending in TX, so...

Pretty sure Dems stayed out of TX because they wanted to let Beto take care of it himself and be able to have the "independent" angle. Not to mention Beto had enough $$$$ to take care of himself