Texas 2022 megathread

[S019]

NYT did a deep dive style article on the TX GOP in general with some interesting details on this race and other TX 2022 races: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/04/magazine/texas-republicans.html


Notable tidbits: Ken Paxton does not believe Abbott supports him, and he doesn't support him, either. Also Ag Commish Sid Miller is mulling a primary challenge to Abbott, and Dan Patrick says he does not want to challenge Abbott. Also, this isn't in the article, iirc, but has been in numerous others, Land Commish George P Bush is mulling a primary challenge to Paxton. It seems like all out civil war in the Texas GOP. 

[S019]

This race strikes me as a bit of fools gold, and Democrats should focus on LG/AG instead.

[S019]

The most interesting thing about this race (other than the RGV/South TX & Hispanic trends) will be whether Abbott wins by a narrower margin than DeSantis and whether this marks the beginning of a long-term shift in which TX becomes less Republican than FL both in terms of likelihood and margin (unfortunately, there’s no Senate race in TX in 2022 to compare to FL). I’m expecting Abbott to win by high single digits, but TX Republicans are very lucky that Trump lost in 2020.

More or less where I am, I want to see if he can do better than Hillary, which would already be an improvement from Hegar's 2020 performance, also I want to see if the massive inroads that Democrats made in the suburbs from 2016-2020 will continue in a Republican leaning year. I do still think Republicans have more upside in TX than FL, and personally I don't expect that to reverse until either 2024-2028. Anyways let's just say if O'Rourke can do better than Hillary, that'd be a good sign, especially against a Republican not-named Trump, if he can match Biden (unlikely, but I guess could happen if trends accelerate or Abbott's issues weigh him down), that should send alarm bells at Ted Cruz HQ as well as the RNC, because that'd show a. Texas is trending D and it's not just b/c of Trump and b. It'd put in a range where it'd be very winnable for Dems in 2024, this will be an interesting race to watch, even if the outcome is (likely) decided, margins and swings are going to tell the real stories in this one.

[S019]

The goal isn't for him to win it's just to keep it close enough so that Democrats don't get destroyed up and down the ticket a la Nevada 2014.

[S019]

If Beto O'Rourke ever holds elected office again in my life, I will send my Social Security Number to each of the next ten people to post in this thread. You can quote this comment if it's ever relevant (which it won't be).

Hi

Bold, gutsy. Never change, Dule!

Well O'Rourke's path is uphill but he surely has one and if he outperforms expectations yet again, you can expect that he's going to get a lot of calls to challenge Cruz in 2024 or Cornyn in 2026.

[S019]

Well it seems Democrats have learned from the Virginia disaster:

https://twitter.com/BetoORourke/status/1461137623221735433

So much for them having "bad political instincts," don't get me wrong I expect him to lose, but definitely a sign that Democrats have learned the right lessons from Virginia and not the wrong ones.

[S019]

It's only Democrats who come up with these galaxy brained schemes of thinking that left-leaning independents would take equally from both sides, or even take more from the right than the left, and then people wonder why Democrats lose elections. It isn't because of being "out of touch" or anything (whatever that means), it's because of dumb consultant brain, such as these galaxy-brained ideas, let me just say I'm very glad neither ibizzbee nor BRTD are DNC strategists.