TX-SEN 2020 Megathread: Early Voting

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Cornyn raised $3.5 million in Q2.

That’s pitiful.

Yeah, but he has a great amount of COH compared to either of his opponents.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Hopefully Siegel wins over Gandhi.

Why?  Given that Ghandi's prospective district is diversifying, wouldn't he be a good nominee?

Siegel may well have better name ID/campaign infrastructure etc as 2018's nominee.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/NRSC/status/1283258106118656002

*Sigh*

This is going to be one of those elections where the whole thing becomes a misogynistic slug fest where the GOP post unflattering pictures of the candidate, demean her character with the Clinton/Pelosi insult playbook and dog-whistle the heck out of the entire campaign.

At least they're mixing it up with Chuck Schumer this time. 

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

https://twitter.com/FreeBeacon/status/1283885890406879232?s=20

what the heck man :/ horrible recruit

Mfw the Democratic Party adopts tankie rhetoric without even moving towards the good bits of socialism.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Various minor party candidates and independents have failed to qualify here, but the Green Party will be joining the Libertarians on this ballot in November.

Edit: one independent write-in candidate also qualified before the local write-in deadline.
Edit 2: I was wrong. The Greens aren't on the ballot after all.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

The Texas Supreme Court has ruled 3 Green candidates shall be restored to the ballot:  their Senate nominee David B. Collins, their TX-21 nominee and their Railroad Commissioner nominee.

Corrected versions of mail-in ballots will now need to be re-sent to voters who've already been sent ballots which are now incorrect.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

It's a pity [almost anyone else] doesn't have Amy McGrath's money.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Terrific news for Democrats if this is the GOP's closing message.

https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1311612005829226498?s=20

Tillis tried to mitigate for this by putting up a bill that would reinstate certain ACA protections for preexisting conditions in the event that the Supreme Court struck them down.

Cruz blocked it.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Terrific news for Democrats if this is the GOP's closing message.

https://twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1311612005829226498?s=20

Why do people think he's going to oust run Trump by 5 points

It's not that he'll get more votes but that voters less familiar with Hegar will leave their ballots blank. Cornyn is kind of anonymous for an incumbent but still much more well-known than her.

N.B. I think the overperformance is likely to be considerably smaller than 5%

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I'm not sure it will, although I don't think it has a huge amount of downside all by itself. There are ways in which certain kinds of political "moderation" can and do help, especially when one's own party doesn't have an occupant in the White House, but saying, "Take my word for it - I voted for a guy some of you used to like in a secret ballot years ago," doesn't seem guaranteed to be especially helpful. It's fundamentally different from Jim Justice endorsing Trump in 2016. Even in TX, "Romney Republicans" weren't really a thing; although there are people who voted for Romney, the GOP nominees for whom there are lingering affection (in certain constituencies) are HW, W and Reagan.

It'd be one thing if this was a response to oppo research; she could burnish her credentials by being proud of what they were attacking her for, but that's not it. It just seems like (probably) wasted airtime to me.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

Damn! She is very good.

Yeah, definately moving this from Likely R to Lean R in my mental model. I'm curious to see how my actual model will react in the coming weeks.

If it's as good as you say, it could be cut into an ad or lead to good coverage all by itself. This could mean we are now here:

1. Cornyn will keep matching Trump's percentage in polling, but still outperform him in terms of margin because of the larger number of undecideds in the Senate race/a SEN-PRES gap in the name recognition of the candidates. Everyone will continue to rate it Likely R because of Hegar's "weaknesses" as a candidate + Cornyn's "uncontroversial" nature and act like it’s far less competitive than IA, NC, GA-R, etc. The general consensus will still be that the main reason TX-SEN 2018 was close is because of the loathsome Cruz and the astonishing "Beto effect"/"Beto's" unique strengths as a candidate.

2. In late September/early October or so, Hegar will release a GREAT ad which touts her military experience or bipartisan credentials or personal life story or whatever (something similar to Kander's famous ad, perhaps) which will quickly go viral -- people will be all over it as it receives a ton of media coverage, her fundraising shoots up, etc.

3. Most of the "undecideds" (who were never going to vote for Cornyn in the first place) break Hegar’s way.

4. Cook and Sabato move it to Lean R even though it couldn’t be more obvious that it’s a Tossup.

5. On election night, Cornyn only very narrowly outperforms Trump and even underperforms some other vulnerable Republicans like Ernst. The era of Cornyn NUT maps has finally come to an end, who could have possibly seen it coming?

6. After the election, people unironically claim that the race was only close because of the Hegar effect/Hegar's unique strengths as a candidate.

"The Hegar effect" isn't real.

[TiltsAreUnderrated]

I've never bought into the "UT John Cornyn" schtick but he is at least doing outreach.

Combined with Royce West publicly rejecting Hegar, the incumbent is looking a bit more comfortable here than I'd first expected him to (relative to other Senate GOP candidates, that is).

edit: sorry for reposting that tweet above - it's what I was referring to