TX-SEN 2024 megathread: The Hunt for the Zodiac Killer

[Spectator]

I'm not too beat up about Allred being out either. I never thought Democrats had much of a chance here yet barring a Cruz-O'Rourke rematch if Beto hadn't run for President and Governor.

I still think Democrats' best strategy is to go all-in on defense and pray that they somehow don't lose more than one seat, especially among the Trump state Senators.

Well I have to remind you that this is the only realistic opportunity for a pickup for the Democrats, so giving up on this race would be a bad idea and there are plenty of other reasons why it'd be bad to pass this up.

The main reason it’s dumb is that there’s a solid case to be made that TX-Sen is more likely to go Democrat than either MT-Sen or OH-Sen, and like you said, it’s the only real pickup opportunity for the DSCC.

Plus a Democrat win in the Senate race, even if Trump narrowly took the state at the presidential level, squarely puts the state on the board for 2028 and going forward.

Ted Cruz is not that unpopular like these Democrats here on Atlas are claiming.

So with 16 months left until the election; Dems should not bother trying to flip Senate seat in a southern state that's trending their way, where they badly need to lay down some party infrastructure and which represents its only reasonable Senate pickup because the Senator doesn't seem comparatively unpopular?

Where have I heard that before in the last few years?

The Republican denialism about Texas reminds me a lot of the things people said about Georgia leading up to 2020. “It’s not there yet!” “Abrams couldn’t win in a D+8 year!”

If Gutierrez raises the kind of money that O’Rourke did, plus has national Dems backing him (they’d be stupid not to given how limited the Senate map is), he very well could win this race. Six more years of trends since 2018 aren’t beneficial to Cruz whatsoever. He will do worse in the DFW area than he did in 2018, and probably worse in the San Antonio and Houston areas too. The question is whether that is enough/if Cruz can make up votes like Trump did in south Texas. That’s why a Hispanic Democrat representing a border area could be so lethal to Cruz. He could in theory staunch those gains to an extent and push those border areas closer to O’Rourke 2018 numbers.

The presidential race probably leans Trump by a small margin, but there’s good reason to think that there will be more Trump/Gutierrez or Trump/abstain voters than Biden/Cruz.

1.) Cruz is consistently the least popular statewide official in Texas
2.) Cruz set the modern day record low for a Republican candidate already
3.) Cruz is vulnerable to a number of attacks that have potency to cut across party lines:
a.) his excursion to Cancun in the middle of the biggest snowstorm in Texas in living memory
b.) his hypocrisy on term limits as he’s running for a third term
c.) his general dislikability. This matters a lot more than people give credit to.

On the other hand, who would these fictitious Biden/Cruz voters be? In the real world, anyone disgusted by Trump enough to vote Biden already is not going to be voting for Ted Cruz of all people.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I'm not too beat up about Allred being out either. I never thought Democrats had much of a chance here yet barring a Cruz-O'Rourke rematch if Beto hadn't run for President and Governor.

I still think Democrats' best strategy is to go all-in on defense and pray that they somehow don't lose more than one seat, especially among the Trump state Senators.

Well I have to remind you that this is the only realistic opportunity for a pickup for the Democrats, so giving up on this race would be a bad idea and there are plenty of other reasons why it'd be bad to pass this up.

The main reason it’s dumb is that there’s a solid case to be made that TX-Sen is more likely to go Democrat than either MT-Sen or OH-Sen, and like you said, it’s the only real pickup opportunity for the DSCC.

Plus a Democrat win in the Senate race, even if Trump narrowly took the state at the presidential level, squarely puts the state on the board for 2028 and going forward.

Ted Cruz is not that unpopular like these Democrats here on Atlas are claiming.

So with 16 months left until the election; Dems should not bother trying to flip a seat in a southern state that's trending their way, where they badly need to lay down some party infrastructure and which represents its only reasonable Senate pickup because the Senator doesn't seem all that unpopular?

Where have I heard that before in the last few years?

They aren't laying out the money in wave insurance it's called online donations from Center Street Pac and Poor people campaign and Union dues and Act blue like Brown get plenty of auto Union dues he is chair of the auto S committee, I am donating to Kunce so they get million from online donations like Ryan did in 22 but DeWine pulled Vance out of the fire

We already have 50/50 S Brown and Tester @50 TX, FL and MO are wave insurance it's Act blue that gets wave insurance map


We have a better shot in TX than FL because there is no Demings and we have plenty of Ds in Dallas TX and we only had Demings in FLORIDA

Union dues come out of workers paycheck and donate to all Ds that's why it's no shortage of money that's why I am not R whenever I work they take Union dues for Ds anyways

[brucejoel99]

https://twitter.com/JarrodCox9/status/1648864010056474626

[RussFeingoldWasRobbed]

Hot Take- If Trump is not the nominee, the GOP nominee for President will outperform Cruz by at least 9 points

[Spectator]

Hot Take- If Trump is not the nominee, the GOP nominee for President will outperform Cruz by at least 9 points

You think another Republican would win Texas by double digits? I think the days of double digit GOP presidential wins in Texas are over. Cronyn only won by 10 points against someone pretty underfunded.

[S019]

Hot Take- If Trump is not the nominee, the GOP nominee for President will outperform Cruz by at least 9 points

You think another Republican would win Texas by double digits? I think the days of double digit GOP presidential wins in Texas are over. Cronyn only won by 10 points against someone pretty underfunded.

Abbott actually did worse than Cornyn is several metropolitan counties and that was with pretty terrible D turnout as has been noted elsewhere. (CNN's exit poll had the electorate at Trump+9 and the final result was Abbott+11)

[Spectator]

Hot Take- If Trump is not the nominee, the GOP nominee for President will outperform Cruz by at least 9 points

You think another Republican would win Texas by double digits? I think the days of double digit GOP presidential wins in Texas are over. Cronyn only won by 10 points against someone pretty underfunded.

Abbott actually did worse than Cornyn is several metropolitan counties and that was with pretty terrible D turnout as has been noted elsewhere. (CNN's exit poll had the electorate at Trump+9 and the final result was Abbott+11)

Abbott did really bad in the metro counties all things considered. No way he should have only won Tarrant by 4 and Collin by 10. He was basically running against the Stacey Abrams of Texas.

I think Collin flipping in 2024 is basically a given. More of a question is by how much.

[No War, but the War on Christmas]

Hot Take- If Trump is not the nominee, the GOP nominee for President will outperform Cruz by at least 9 points

You think another Republican would win Texas by double digits? I think the days of double digit GOP presidential wins in Texas are over. Cronyn only won by 10 points against someone pretty underfunded.

Abbott actually did worse than Cornyn is several metropolitan counties and that was with pretty terrible D turnout as has been noted elsewhere. (CNN's exit poll had the electorate at Trump+9 and the final result was Abbott+11)

Abbott did really bad in the metro counties all things considered. No way he should have only won Tarrant by 4 and Collin by 10. He was basically running against the Stacey Abrams of Texas.

I think Collin flipping in 2024 is basically a given. More of a question is by how much.

I hope to God you're right; and while I don't have much more than anecdotal evidence I definitely believe even Abbott's 10 point win mostly came down to turnout.

The organizing efforts from Democrats in 2022 was also dwarfed by local Republicans in terms of signs on highways and such, although it's arguable whether that makes a difference or not... I think it can definitely affect the enthusiasm of your supporters to see GOP propaganda all over the place with like one or two Beto signs in between. Although (also very anecdotally, of course) I always noticed way more Beto signs in actual neighborhoods and in front of people's houses than Abbott.

Local democrats really need to pickup our game. Collin (and Denton to a lesser extent) is key to breaking through in Texas.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Hot Take- If Trump is not the nominee, the GOP nominee for President will outperform Cruz by at least 9 points

You think another Republican would win Texas by double digits? I think the days of double digit GOP presidential wins in Texas are over. Cronyn only won by 10 points against someone pretty underfunded.

Abbott actually did worse than Cornyn is several metropolitan counties and that was with pretty terrible D turnout as has been noted elsewhere. (CNN's exit poll had the electorate at Trump+9 and the final result was Abbott+11)

Abbott did really bad in the metro counties all things considered. No way he should have only won Tarrant by 4 and Collin by 10. He was basically running against the Stacey Abrams of Texas.

I think Collin flipping in 2024 is basically a given. More of a question is by how much.

(I wrote this in November, but will repost because I think it is relevant)

Instead of comparing with Trump 2020, I find it more useful to compare with Cornyn 2020 since both he and Abbott are much more of the generic R breed and won by similar margins.


Margins in key counties (slightly rounded to the nearest 0.5% for cleanliness)
Bolded counties show where Abbott did better than Cornyn
DFW
TX GOV 2022 vs TX SEN 2020
Dallas: O'Rourke +27, Hegar +25
Tarrant: Abbott +5, Cornyn +5
Collin: Abbott +10, Cornyn+12
Denton: Abbott+13, Cornyn+14.5

Houston
Harris: O'Rourke +9.5, Hegar +8.5
Fort Bend: O'Rourke +4.5, Hegar +5

Austin
Travis: O'Rourke +47, Hegar +39
Williamson: Abbott +0.5%, Cornyn +3%
Hays: O'Rourke +11, Hegar+5.5

San Antonio
Bexar: O'Rourke +16.5, Hegar +12

El Paso: O'Rourke +28,5, Hegar +33

So Abbott basically underperformed Cornyn in every key metro/suburban county besides El Paso and slightly in Fort Bend. However he did a little over 1 point better, winning by 11 instead of of 9.7. So how did he do this?

Was it the RGV? Let's take a look.
RGV
Zapata: Abbott +6.5, Hegar +11
Starr: O'Rourke +18, Hegar +16
Hidalgo: O'Rourke +18, Hegar +15
Cameron: O'Rourke +9.5, Hegar+13.5
Webb: O'Rourke +25, Hegar+26.5
Jim Hogg: O'Rourke +14.5, Hegar+26

It looks he did a little bit, but Hidalgo is the most populated county in the area and got worse for Abbott. Meanwhile almost no one lives in Jim Hogg and Zapata so I doubt they had a significant impact. So overall it's a mixed bag and I doubt the RGV helped Abbott that much?

So where did the shift come from?
Rural Texas of course!

Abbott squeezed out a few more % in rural counties than Cornyn's margins. Since a decent amount of people live in TX it all adds up and that was enough to expand his margin over Cornyn.

So overall even though the urban parts of TX are continuing to shift left, Rs are continuing to rack up higher and higher margins in the rural parts to make up for it. It will be interesting to see how this dynamic continues in the future.

TLDR The problem for Dems in Texas is they will likely continue to gain in Austin and probably in the DFW area. However, they are struggling a great deal in the Houston area. Harris county is the 3rd largest county in the country, and is <28% non-hispanic white. However, it's only voting like D+10 and its nearly impossible to flip the state with those margins. (Also Harris has really bad turnout, Dems can continue to gain with white suburban voters but their base is still the urban minorities and their turnout in fullforce is the prerequisite to winning statewide) 

[Spectator]

Hot Take- If Trump is not the nominee, the GOP nominee for President will outperform Cruz by at least 9 points

You think another Republican would win Texas by double digits? I think the days of double digit GOP presidential wins in Texas are over. Cronyn only won by 10 points against someone pretty underfunded.

Abbott actually did worse than Cornyn is several metropolitan counties and that was with pretty terrible D turnout as has been noted elsewhere. (CNN's exit poll had the electorate at Trump+9 and the final result was Abbott+11)

Abbott did really bad in the metro counties all things considered. No way he should have only won Tarrant by 4 and Collin by 10. He was basically running against the Stacey Abrams of Texas.

I think Collin flipping in 2024 is basically a given. More of a question is by how much.

(I wrote this in November, but will repost because I think it is relevant)

Instead of comparing with Trump 2020, I find it more useful to compare with Cornyn 2020 since both he and Abbott are much more of the generic R breed and won by similar margins.


Margins in key counties (slightly rounded to the nearest 0.5% for cleanliness)
Bolded counties show where Abbott did better than Cornyn
DFW
TX GOV 2022 vs TX SEN 2020
Dallas: O'Rourke +27, Hegar +25
Tarrant: Abbott +5, Cornyn +5
Collin: Abbott +10, Cornyn+12
Denton: Abbott+13, Cornyn+14.5

Houston
Harris: O'Rourke +9.5, Hegar +8.5
Fort Bend: O'Rourke +4.5, Hegar +5

Austin
Travis: O'Rourke +47, Hegar +39
Williamson: Abbott +0.5%, Cornyn +3%
Hays: O'Rourke +11, Hegar+5.5

San Antonio
Bexar: O'Rourke +16.5, Hegar +12

El Paso: O'Rourke +28,5, Hegar +33

So Abbott basically underperformed Cornyn in every key metro/suburban county besides El Paso and slightly in Fort Bend. However he did a little over 1 point better, winning by 11 instead of of 9.7. So how did he do this?

Was it the RGV? Let's take a look.
RGV
Zapata: Abbott +6.5, Hegar +11
Starr: O'Rourke +18, Hegar +16
Hidalgo: O'Rourke +18, Hegar +15
Cameron: O'Rourke +9.5, Hegar+13.5
Webb: O'Rourke +25, Hegar+26.5
Jim Hogg: O'Rourke +14.5, Hegar+26

It looks he did a little bit, but Hidalgo is the most populated county in the area and got worse for Abbott. Meanwhile almost no one lives in Jim Hogg and Zapata so I doubt they had a significant impact. So overall it's a mixed bag and I doubt the RGV helped Abbott that much?

So where did the shift come from?
Rural Texas of course!

Abbott squeezed out a few more % in rural counties than Cornyn's margins. Since a decent amount of people live in TX it all adds up and that was enough to expand his margin over Cornyn.

So overall even though the urban parts of TX are continuing to shift left, Rs are continuing to rack up higher and higher margins in the rural parts to make up for it. It will be interesting to see how this dynamic continues in the future.

TLDR The problem for Dems in Texas is they will likely continue to gain in Austin and probably in the DFW area. However, they are struggling a great deal in the Houston area. Harris county is the 3rd largest county in the country, and is <28% non-hispanic white. However, it's only voting like D+10 and its nearly impossible to flip the state with those margins. (Also Harris has really bad turnout, Dems can continue to gain with white suburban voters but their base is still the urban minorities and their turnout in fullforce is the prerequisite to winning statewide) 

Yeah, Democrats’ biggest problem is Harris County. Given its demographic profile it should be voting something like D+30.

[SnowLabrador]

Gutierrez seems like as good a candidate as anyone, but there are still plenty of areas of Texas that are trending Republican. It's moving slightly leftward on balance, but it remains to be seen if the state's abortion ban will create enough of a brain drain to halt this trend.

[Kahane's Grave Is A Gender-Neutral Bathroom]

Gutierrez seems like as good a candidate as anyone, but there are still plenty of areas of Texas that are trending Republican. It's moving slightly leftward on balance, but it remains to be seen if the state's abortion ban will create enough of a brain drain to halt this trend.

"Abortion ban is bad for Dems" lol

[President Johnson]

Gutierrez seems like as good a candidate as anyone, but there are still plenty of areas of Texas that are trending Republican. It's moving slightly leftward on balance, but it remains to be seen if the state's abortion ban will create enough of a brain drain to halt this trend.

"Abortion ban is bad for Dems" lol

Keep in mind who you're responding to here. If he was around during the Watergate scandal, he would have predicted a red wave for the midterms in July/August 1974.

[Real Texan Politics]

Oh god, oh f**k...
/tweet

What's wrong?

He's not running for Senate if he's on the DCCC's leadership team.

Beto it is then...again...

/s

[Hindsight was 2020]

Find it weird some of the comments about the democrats not taking this seat seriously when on paper at least Gutierrez is as strong of a candidate as any

[Interlocutor is just not there yet]

Find it weird some of the comments about the democrats not taking this seat seriously when on paper at least Gutierrez is as strong of a candidate as any

I don't think folks know how to take to Gutierrez yet. Everyone seemed to be putting their eggs into the Colin Allred basket while Gutierrez seemed to drop from the sky a week ago.

Although I agree that on paper, he seems to be just as good a candidate anyone else such as Allred, arguably better.

[Real Texan Politics]

https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1652029715375333377?s=20

[Zedonathin2020]

https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1652029715375333377?s=20

I hope it’s what I think it is, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just rebranding for re-election to the House

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1652029715375333377?s=20

I hope it’s what I think it is, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just rebranding for re-election to the House

Honestly, while I certainly won’t complain if Allred is the nominee, I don’t think he’s the right guy for this race.  I think we’re better off running Roland Gutierrez.  While both would obviously be underdogs (to say the least), I think he would have a better chance of pulling off the upset than Allred.

[politicallefty]

https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1652029715375333377?s=20

I hope it’s what I think it is, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just rebranding for re-election to the House

Honestly, while I certainly won’t complain if Allred is the nominee, I don’t think he’s the right guy for this race.  I think we’re better off running Roland Gutierrez.  While both would obviously be underdogs (to say the least), I think he would have a better chance of pulling off the upset than Allred.

One of the biggest issues is money. We need a candidate that can easily break into nine-figures when all is said and done. That's basically the bare minimum to take out Cruz in a hideously expensive state. (Beto raised $80m in his campaign for Senate.) Of course, one thing to note is that the Texas Senate is one of only two legislative bodies in the country that have larger districts than their respective Congressional districts (the other being the California Senate). So, Gutierrez actually represents more people than Allred. I don't pretend to know who the best candidate is, but we really need to put this seat into play.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Does Ronald Gutierrez support gun control? That could be his Achilles heel in a state like Texas.

[Roll Roons]

https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1652029715375333377?s=20

I hope it’s what I think it is, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just rebranding for re-election to the House

Honestly, while I certainly won’t complain if Allred is the nominee, I don’t think he’s the right guy for this race.  I think we’re better off running Roland Gutierrez.  While both would obviously be underdogs (to say the least), I think he would have a better chance of pulling off the upset than Allred.

One of the biggest issues is money. We need a candidate that can easily break into nine-figures when all is said and done. That's basically the bare minimum to take out Cruz in a hideously expensive state. (Beto raised $80m in his campaign for Senate.) Of course, one thing to note is that the Texas Senate is one of only two legislative bodies in the country that have larger districts than their respective Congressional districts (the other being the California Senate). So, Gutierrez actually represents more people than Allred. I don't pretend to know who the best candidate is, but we really need to put this seat into play.

Unless the Democratic nominee ends up being a murderer or pedophile, I don't think they would have much trouble fundraising. No matter what, small dollar donors from around the country will be motivated to beat Ted Cruz. Look at how much Marcus Flowers or Amy McGrath raised in completely hopeless races. 

[Landslide Lyndon]

Does Ronald Gutierrez support gun control? That could be his Achilles heel in a state like Texas.

He is from Uvalde.

[politicallefty]

https://twitter.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1652029715375333377?s=20

I hope it’s what I think it is, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if he’s just rebranding for re-election to the House

Honestly, while I certainly won’t complain if Allred is the nominee, I don’t think he’s the right guy for this race.  I think we’re better off running Roland Gutierrez.  While both would obviously be underdogs (to say the least), I think he would have a better chance of pulling off the upset than Allred.

One of the biggest issues is money. We need a candidate that can easily break into nine-figures when all is said and done. That's basically the bare minimum to take out Cruz in a hideously expensive state. (Beto raised $80m in his campaign for Senate.) Of course, one thing to note is that the Texas Senate is one of only two legislative bodies in the country that have larger districts than their respective Congressional districts (the other being the California Senate). So, Gutierrez actually represents more people than Allred. I don't pretend to know who the best candidate is, but we really need to put this seat into play.

Unless the Democratic nominee ends up being a murderer or pedophile, I don't think they would have much trouble fundraising. No matter what, small dollar donors from around the country will be motivated to beat Ted Cruz. Look at how much Marcus Flowers or Amy McGrath raised in completely hopeless races.

Good point, though it is worth remembering that Beto was an exciting candidate in 2018. I try to put unwinnable races, like trying to beat McConnell or MTG, out of my mind because I just can't believe people are so willing to burn money like that. At least Ted Cruz is reviled and (potentially) beatable.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Does Ronald Gutierrez support gun control? That could be his Achilles heel in a state like Texas.

He is from Uvalde.

Not sure if that neccesarily helps him, remember Beto was from El Paso but his gun control stances still hurt him. It is very likely this is the issue Cruz will focus on against him assuming he becomes the nominee.