TX-SEN 2020 Megathread: Early Voting

[MT Treasurer]

This article highlights the challenges Cornyn faces in what will almost certainly be his toughest election yet and not necessarily an easier race for Republicans than TX-SEN 2018.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/could-john-cornyn-lose-senate-seat-2020/

Definitely worth a read.

[IceSpear]

This article highlights the challenges Cornyn faces in what will almost certainly be his toughest election yet and not necessarily an easier race for Republicans than TX-SEN 2018.

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/could-john-cornyn-lose-senate-seat-2020/

Definitely worth a read.

Cornyn could definitely be vulnerable, but in order to capitalize on that Dems are going to need to get out of their 2004-esque mindset and start funding Hegar (or whoever else) generously rather than lighting money on fire in places like Kentucky, Alabama, Colorado, IA-04, MN-07, Massachusetts for muh Kennedy, etc. Without a well funded Democratic challenger, Cornyn will just skate through by default. Sadly, anything that requires the Democratic Party apparatus to recognize it's no longer the 90s does not inspire much optimism from me.

Amy McGrath raising more in one day than MJ Hegar has raised in the entire campaign is a highlight of the incompetence of the Democratic establishment.

[MT Treasurer]

Cornyn could definitely be vulnerable, but in order to capitalize on that Dems are going to need to get out of their 2004-esque mindset and start funding Hegar (or whoever else) generously rather than lighting money on fire in places like Kentucky, Alabama, Colorado, IA-04, MN-07, Massachusetts for muh Kennedy, etc. Without a well funded Democratic challenger, Cornyn will just skate through by default. Sadly, anything that requires the Democratic Party apparatus to recognize it's no longer the 90s does not inspire much optimism from me.

Amy McGrath raising more in one day than MJ Hegar has raised in the entire campaign is a highlight of the incompetence of the Democratic establishment.

The DSCC will never reach NRSC 2017/2018 levels of incompetence, but yeah, they haven’t exactly covered themselves with glory this election cycle, even if it’s still relatively early. Of course it might not matter in a Democratic tsunami, but I have a feeling that they’re going to regret not having gone harder after Cornyn when he wins by less than Ernst (not sure why they’re so obsessed with that race) and (of course) McConnell. They would also do well to expand the playing field by putting Republicans on the defensive in KS/AK/MT (obviously these races won’t be easy to win, but conceding them this early does more harm than good when their path to 50+1 is already incredibly narrow).

At least they’re contesting AZ and GA lol.

[Los Angeles Swag Boss]

Cornyn raises $3.2M and pushes war chest up to $11M.
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/10/07/john-cornyn-reelection-campaign-third-quarter/

Unless we have a Beto fundraising spree by someone after the primary, it will be hard to find a candidate who can build name ID quick enough to counter the $5M in negative ads they are going to get in March 2020 post-primary.

Any Dem fundraising numbers?

[Beet]

Cornyn raises $3.2M and pushes war chest up to $11M.
https://www.texastribune.org/2019/10/07/john-cornyn-reelection-campaign-third-quarter/

Unless we have a Beto fundraising spree by someone after the primary, it will be hard to find a candidate who can build name ID quick enough to counter the $5M in negative ads they are going to get in March 2020 post-primary.

Any Dem fundraising numbers?

Royce West raised $545,000 and MJ Hegar raised $1 million last quarter, but hasn't announced anything this quarter yet.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Cornyn should be majority leader not McConnell

[Heebie Jeebie]

It looks like this race along with IA, MT, and AL are starting to become locks for the GOP and CO, NH and MI are starting to become locks for the Democrats, and that the real battlegrounds will be ME, NC, AZ, and both GA seats.

We're still over a year from election day.  "Lock" is probably too strong a term.

[lfromnj]

Cornyn should be majority leader not McConnell

You might as well say Schumer at that point lol.

[Frenchrepublican]

Cornyn should be majority leader not McConnell

You might as well say Schumer at that point lol.

What do you mean ?

[Frenchrepublican]

It looks like this race along with IA, MT, and AL are starting to become locks for the GOP and CO, NH and MI are starting to become locks for the Democrats, and that the real battlegrounds will be ME, NC, AZ, and both GA seats.

Yeah, even if neither GA seats seem particularly competitive at this point.

[lfromnj]

Cornyn should be majority leader not McConnell

You might as well say Schumer at that point lol.

What do you mean ?

Any majority leader is unpopular. Sure McConnell isn't losing but he is gonna underperform Trump. If Cornyn loses then the Ds gain the Senate and Schumer becomes leader.

[Frenchrepublican]

Cornyn should be majority leader not McConnell

You might as well say Schumer at that point lol.

What do you mean ?

Any majority leader is unpopular. Sure McConnell isn't losing but he is gonna underperform Trump. If Cornyn loses then the Ds gain the Senate and Schumer becomes leader.

To be honest, the issue of the unpopularity of McConnell seems to be really specific to him, even when he was the Minority leader he was already pretty unpopular (remember how he underperformed in 2008 and 2014 ?). On the other hand Reid and Schumer remained popular in their home state despite their leadership positions in Washington, I don’t think Cornyn would be necessarily unpopular in TX if he were the majority leader.

[Frenchrepublican]

Cornyn should be majority leader not McConnell

Yeah, and even if I have nothing of personal against McConnell, I’m angry at him because of how badly he managed the 2018 elections.

Had the people at the SLF targeted Moore earlier (rather than spending millions against Mo Brooks) and done their jobs of finding controversial stories about him, Moore would have not won the nomination and Jones would have never been elected.

Then you have the WV fiasco, McConnell and the SLF should have supported Jenkins over Fat Pat, had they asked Trump to support him in the primary Jenkins would have prevailed and bye-bye Manchin

McConnell also refused that any money be spent in MT (until September) and OH, which were both very winnable.

[Calthrina950]

It looks like this race along with IA, MT, and AL are starting to become locks for the GOP and CO, NH and MI are starting to become locks for the Democrats, and that the real battlegrounds will be ME, NC, AZ, and both GA seats.

Yeah, even if neither GA seats seem particularly competitive at this point.

Lucy McBath, who would have been a strong candidate for Democrats, decided to run for reelection to her House seat, and none of the other Democratic candidates running thus far (like Tomlinson and Ossoff) seem particularly impressive. Another star recruit for Democrats would have been Stacey Abrams, but she seems to be biding her time for a gubernatorial rematch with Brian Kemp.

And if Trump wins Georgia (which he probably will), then Perdue and the Republican nominee for the open seat will almost certainly win as well. Given how much ticket-splitting has declined in recent years, you can pretty much predict how most of these races will go, just basing off the presidential results. For example, my home state of Colorado. As I've said before, not a single statewide Republican won here last year. Assuming that this carries over to 2020, if Trump loses Colorado (which he will; the state is Likely Democratic, probably close to Safe, in my opinion), then Gardner will lose as well.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Cornyn should be majority leader not McConnell

Yeah, and even if I have nothing of personal against McConnell, I’m angry at him because of how badly he managed the 2018 elections.

Had the people at the SLF targeted Moore earlier (rather than spending millions against Mo Brooks) and done their jobs of finding controversial stories about him, Moore would have not won the nomination and Jones would have never been elected.

Then you have the WV fiasco, McConnell and the SLF should have supported Jenkins over Fat Pat, had they asked Trump to support him in the primary Jenkins would have prevailed and bye-bye Manchin

McConnell also refused that any money be spent in MT (until September) and OH, which were both very winnable.

People forget for WV that Blankenship was surging at the last minute so Morrisey while a bad candidate was still a much much better choice than Blankenship who would have lost by at least double digits if he was the nominee and set back the WV GOP by at least 5 years.

Jenkins while bad didnt do any damage to the WV GOP like Blankenship would have

[Pericles]

Atlas only realized McBath was a good candidate like a week before the 2018 midterms, it's entirely possible someone they're dismissing now will end up performing well and winning.

[Los Angeles Swag Boss]

This thread is for the TX-Sen race lol.....

I do agree with the general idea that it is too far out to say that this race is a GOP-lock, especially with heavy partisan top-down voting.... but it doesn't look as promising as wanted for Democrats.

[Los Angeles Swag Boss]

Placing this image of the fundraising numbers here:

[Rookie Yinzer]

https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1206599974080913409?s=20

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

There is no excuse for her not to run a serious campaign now

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Imo they should've held off on Texas... Edwards is pretty promising and Hegar doesn't strike me as a strong candidate.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

I’m completely behind MJ, and I’ll vigorously campaign for her if she gets the nomination.

[Frenchrepublican]

Cornyn is probably okay considering how awful the democratic field looks like

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/01/06/tzintzun-ramirez-deals-back-back-criticism-us-senate-primary/

[Hindsight was 2020]

Is it too late for Julian to jump in?

[SnowLabrador]

Is it too late for Julian to jump in?

Yeah, the filing deadline was last month.