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

[Spectator]

Scott Kelly or Colin Allred

Colin Allred would be a great pick, he literally won a D +1 district in suburban DFW by over 20 points this year. Insane.

Agreed, Allred could indeed give Cruz a run for his money. Appeal in suburbs is key for any Dem to win statewide in TX.

More like Cruz’s unappeal would give Dems a shot here. Cruz will do worse than Trump if he runs. Only question is by how much.

[Spectator]

I agree, Colin Allred would be a very decent candidate.

Not sure whether it's not too early for Hidalgo, although I believe she has great potential. Maybe she can get a House seat first and run for senate in the 2030s or perhaps 2026 during a Republican midterm. Especially if Cornyn potentially retires.

Changed the thread title now

Lina Hidalgo nearly lost a Biden +12 mega county, twice. Nominating her would be one way to foreclose any possibility of beating Cruz, which probably requires a moderate yet charismatic Democrat challenger. Scott Kelly may be the most intriguing. Or that retired Navy SEAL Admiral.

[Spectator]

I expect 2024 Tx Senate to be in line with the presidential result and I don't see who the Democrats put up that attracts people who are voting Trump or DeSantis at the same time.

Extremely likely R.

Democrats should be wary on throwing money here instead of max spending in WI and AZ.

This seat is what 8th, 9th, most likely to flip next cycle?   

Because Cruz is so uniquely hated in his own right he almost inevitably does worse than whoever the Republican presidential nominee is. I think it’s almost a given provided Dems don’t nominate someone like Hidalgo. It’s only a question of how much the Democrat can capitalize on that hatred.

[Spectator]

Cruz is in fact running for a third term, possibly with a vanity presidential run as well:

https://www.texastribune.org/2022/11/19/ted-cruz-third-term-senate/

His candidacy is step one in what Democrats need in terms of everything going right for them to win.

1. Hope Cruz runs again, preferably after another presidential run humiliation
2. Get a strong Dem with crossover appeal like William McRaven or Scott Kelly in
3. Hope for a Trump-Biden rematch

[Spectator]

All I know is whoever is the nominee needs to pound the pavement as hard if not harder than Beto did.

I've come to the conclution that Texas is one of those states that it doesn't really matter.

Conservatives have always had a pretty stable lead before and after Bush W. due to the size of Texas's rural population which has mostly kept up with the state's population growth in the past 50 years.

It's the reverse of the West Coast.

Texas rurals are stagnant or declining. Trump in 2020 just juiced literally every vote he could out of them:

https://worldpopulationreview.com/states/texas/counties

[Spectator]

Texas is such an electoral handjob for Democrats. It's always almost there but it never quite gets the result we're looking for.

They hit a ceiling and it seems to be getting progressively worse each cycle.

They’ll still dump 50 million here for no reason and the end result will be the same. Better to win where you actually can.

There is absolutely no evidence that they’ve hit a ceiling and also where else are they supposed to spend? West Virginia is gone, Ohio is getting there, and Montana is still an uphill battle.

They have hit a ceiling as long as a democrat is in the White House . It’s probably gonna only trend one point democratic at most which really isn’t enough to make the seat winnable .

Yes it is. Cruz is a disaster.

[Spectator]

I sincerely doubt that Ted Cruz of all people is gonna outrun Trump

He won’t. He’s probably the safest bet of any Republican Senator to underperform.

[Spectator]

I sincerely doubt that Ted Cruz of all people is gonna outrun Trump

He won’t. He’s probably the safest bet of any Republican Senator to underperform.

Unfortunately, that's likely far from enough to even make him not well-favored for re-election. But your post here is intuitively correct to me.

All it would take is Biden to lose Texas by around 3% or so, and I think that would be enough for someone like Scott Kelly or any random Democrat veteran to topple Cruz. I think in a Biden v. Trump rematch, -3% is well within the range of likely outcomes.

I don’t think the accelerating trends in DFW and Austin are showing any signs of stopping. Houston is the big wild card.

[Spectator]

I sincerely doubt that Ted Cruz of all people is gonna outrun Trump

He won’t. He’s probably the safest bet of any Republican Senator to underperform.

Unfortunately, that's likely far from enough to even make him not well-favored for re-election. But your post here is intuitively correct to me.

All it would take is Biden to lose Texas by around 3% or so, and I think that would be enough for someone like Scott Kelly or any random Democrat veteran to topple Cruz. I think in a Biden v. Trump rematch, -3% is well within the range of likely outcomes.

I don’t think the accelerating trends in DFW and Austin are showing any signs of stopping. Houston is the big wild card.

I'm not sure how Cruz will run behind Trump much in the suburbs. What kind of suburbanite in 2024 no less, will be able to stomach voting Trump again but Ted Cruz is a bridge too far? There is a lot of contrast between Cruz and Abbott in 2018 or Trump and Cornyn in 2020. Between Trump and Cruz, I don't see the logic behind significant ticket splitting in the suburban counties. Maybe in the RGV Cruz underperforms Trump but that won't change the end result unless Trump wins the state by like <1%. I think if DeSantis is the nominee though, Cruz would probably run quite a bit behind him, but DeSantis would win the state by a larger margin than Trump so Cruz probably still survives.

O’Rourke 2018 did better than Biden in every metropolitan area except for DFW where it was the same. The type of suburbanite who votes for Trump but not Cruz would be the same as in other parts of the state: someone who dislikes Biden and Trump, but just can’t stand Cruz’s nasty personality (personality matters a lot to voters) and Cruz’s many breaking of campaign promises like term limits. His trip to Mexico in the middle of the snowstorm would be another reason.

They don’t need to necessarily vote for the Democrat for Cruz to lose. Obviously it helps the Democrat more if they are to get a few percent of Trump voters though, so I do think candidate quality will be especially important for Democrats here. Someone who is a veteran, like McRaven or Kelly or even a Lucas Kunce type.  

[Spectator]

Did Beto 2018 really not match Biden 2020 in the wealthy white suburbs in places like the Galleria and University Park?

I would have thought he would have, or at least come close. I know Biden did better in Collin County than Beto circa 2018, but I would attribute that more to pop growth than any relative strength of Cruz over Trump in Collin County. I expect Cruz to lose Collin County in 2024 in any case unless Dems nominate someone bad like Lina Hidalgo.

[Spectator]

What's interesting about Texas Dems is starting in 2014 they started running dedicated liberal candidates instead of moderates. Wendy Davis, Lupe Valdez, MJ Hegar, and ofc Beto O'Rourke were pretty liberal on the issues of guns and abortion. This strategy worked to an extent and got them into single digits, but there seems to be a 3-5% wall they run into. Not saying they need to neccesarily be pro life but maybe support some late term restrictions? And they need to be visibly pro 2A and not be saying stuff like Beto's "hell yes" comment. Background checks are one thing but wanting to confiscate people's guns in Texas of all places is not smart politics. If they can tone down their rhetoric a little bit, they might peel off enough voters to crack that seemingly impenetrable ceiling. That's what Sinema did in AZ, she ran a very centrist general election campaign and managed to open the door for other Dems. Once a Democrat breaks through in Texas, they can start to become more liberal on policy but they need to win first.

I do think there’s some truth to that. I think the ideal person to face Cruz would be someone who is generally pro-gun, but avoids talking about it as much as possible and is pro-oil. A white male veteran, too? But then again, Sinema proved that wasn’t necessary in Arizona then, which was about as red pre-2018 as Texas is now. Once Democrats notch their first statewide victory in Texas, they can then start testing the waters more to see what they can get away with and whatnot.

[Spectator]

I did some math on how the Democratic challenger can erase Biden's 630,000 vote deficit statewide into a 100k vote lead by changing some variables only in the top 11 counties.

The turnout estimates I have in place I believe are very conservative and defensible in light of how fast these counties are growing, coupled with the fact that 2024 will feature a much more competitive Senate race than 2020 did. I didn't account for any changes in the rest of Texas's 200+ counties since that would be ridiculous, and I just assumed that any further turnout increases in red areas would be cancelled out by Cruz's D challenger doing better in most places than Biden '20, particularly in places along the border (as you can see in south Texas, the difference between 2018 and 2020 in places along the border was striking).

It is worth keeping in mind that much of rural Texas is stagnant or declining in population, so it remains an open question how many more raw R votes can be squeezed out of there. Combine that with the fact that most of the growth in conservative exurban counties like Montgomery, Comal, Guadalupe, Ellis, Rockwall, and Brazoria Counties have resulted in no to little net R gain in votes from '16 to '20, and I think the assumption that the other 200+ counties provide no to little net change in raw vote compared to 2020 is defensible.

My key takeaways from this are that Cruz's opponent essentially needs to get 60% of the vote in Harris County (iffy, but conceivable), and they need to narrowly flip Collin County (which I consider likely) and Denton County (iffier) while expanding the margins in Dallas, Tarrant, Travis, and Bexar counties. The math becomes a lot easier for the Democrat if they can also push the margins along the Texas border counties closer to Beto '18 and away from Biden '20. I played it relatively conservative though with El Paso County and Hidalgo County and assumed that the Democrat would do only marginally better than Biden '20 in those places:

Harris County
2018 Sen: D+17%
2020 Pres: D+13.2%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+21%
2020 Turnout: 1.641 million
2024 Turnout Target: 1.9 million
2020 Raw Margin: 217,500
2024 Proj Margin: 400,000
Difference '24 - '20: 182,500

Dallas County
2018 Sen: D+33%
2020 Pres: D+31.6%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+38%
2020 Turnout: 922K
2024 Turnout Target: 1 million
2020 Raw Margin: 291,500
2024 Proj Margin: 380,000
Difference '24 - '20: 88,500

Tarrant County
2018 Sen: D+1%
2020 Pres: D+0%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+10%
2020 Turnout: 835K
2024 Turnout Target: 900K
2020 Raw Margin: 2,000
2024 Proj Margin: 90,000
Difference '24 - '20: 88,000

Bexar County
2018 Sen: D+20%
2020 Pres: D+18%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+25%
2020 Turnout: 770K
2024 Turnout Target: 850K
2020 Raw Margin: 140,000
2024 Proj Margin: 212,500
Difference '24 - '20: 72,500

Travis County
2018 Sen: D+50%
2020 Pres: D+45%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+53%
2020 Turnout: 610K
2024 Turnout Target: 700K
2020 Raw Margin: 274,500
2024 Proj Margin: 371,000
Difference '24 - '20: 96,500

El Paso County
2018 Sen: D+50%
2020 Pres: D+35%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+40%
2020 Turnout: 267K
2024 Turnout Target: 300K
2020 Raw Margin: 94,000
2024 Proj Margin: 120,000
Difference '24 - '20: 26,000

Collin County
2018 Sen: R+6%
2020 Pres: R+4%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+4%
2020 Turnout: 492K
2024 Turnout Target: 600K
2020 Raw Margin: -21,500
2024 Proj Margin: 24,000
Difference '24 - '20: 45,500

Denton County
2018 Sen: R+8%
2020 Pres: R+8%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+1%
2020 Turnout: 418K
2024 Turnout Target: 500K
2020 Raw Margin: -34,000
2024 Proj Margin: 5,000
Difference '24 - '20: 39,000

Williamson County
2018 Sen: D+3%
2020 Pres: D+2%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+10%
2020 Turnout: 290K
2024 Target Turnout: 350K
2020 Raw Margin: 4,000
2024 Proj Margin: 35,000
Difference '24 - '20: 31,000

Fort Bend County
2018 Sen: D+12%
2020 Pres: D+11%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+17%
2020 Turnout: 358K
2024 Turnout Target: 400K
2020 Raw Margin: 38,000
2024 Proj Margin: 68,000
Difference '24 - '20: 30,000

Hidalgo County
2018 Sen: D+38%
2020 Pres: D+17%
2024 D Challenger Target: D+25%
2020 Turnout: 220K
2024 Turnout Target: 250K
2020 Raw Margin: 27,500
2024 Proj Margin: 62,500
Difference '24 - '20: 35,000

Assuming the raw vote margin in the rest of Texas remains relatively static (for the reasons laid out above), these changes would result in the Democrat challenger netting 734,500 votes out of these counties, and put them just over 100,000 votes ahead of Cruz.

[Spectator]

Not gonna quote 2016’s long post, but I think it’s funny to think that Ted Cruz is somehow more popular than he was in 2018. Did we just forget his Cancun vacation in the middle of the worst snowstorm in living memory all of a sudden?

That said, I don’t think a sitting House member would be the best D challenger to Cruz. I think it would be someone like McRaven or Kelly, but no idea if they are actually interested.

[Spectator]

How will Ted Cruz do compared to the GOP presidential nominee in 2024?

I don’t see any good argument for why he’d do better than Trump or DeSantis. It’s pretty clear in hindsight that the reason for his close call in 2018 was because of Cruz himself, not because of some O’Rourke stardom.

[Spectator]

I don’t think Allred is the person to take Cruz down. I think they need a veteran who looks like he can shoot a gun and doesn’t look out of place in cowboy boots to do it.

[Spectator]

Notice how Cruz has been underwater ever since the snow storm Cancun trip. His approvals are much worse now compared to what they were in October 2018.

https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/set/ted-cruz-job-approval-trend-0

[Spectator]

Notice how Cruz has been underwater ever since the snow storm Cancun trip. His approvals are much worse now compared to what they were in October 2018.

https://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/set/ted-cruz-job-approval-trend-0

So was Ron Johnson, in a less red state than Texas. And Johnson won. Approval ratings don't mean s**t for Senators.

His low approval rating was the reason WI-Sen ended up so close in the first place LOL. Although if you're predicting a Cruz win here, then this looks like a likely flip.

[Spectator]

A Hispanic Democrat that represents a large swath of the border is probably the best option

[Spectator]

The party went hard after Vicente Gonzalez here but he didn't bite - good to see that they didn't give up on the "Hispanic Democrat from the border" strategy as a result.

Probably the best profile for a Democrat hoping to outpace Biden

[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.

[Spectator]

Gutierrez would need something like this:

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.