As Democratic White House hopefuls debate in Houston, party eyes
lower-tier gains in Texas
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[September 11, 2019]
By Ernest Scheyder and Joseph Ax
HOUSTON (Reuters) - While 10 Democratic
presidential contenders debate in Houston on Thursday, the party is
eyeing gains farther down the ballot in Texas next year in races for the
U.S. House of Representatives and state legislature, party strategists
and political experts say.
Texas has not elected a statewide Democrat in three decades, and
Republican President Donald Trump remains the odds-on favorite to win
the state in the November 2020 election.
It is not clear the national Democratic Party is willing to devote the
financial resources an all-in statewide effort would require, given
Texas' sheer size and the presence of more promising targets like
Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania.
Instead, Democrats see an opening in the Texas state House of
Representatives, where they flipped 12 seats in the 2018 elections,
mostly in suburban areas where voters have soured on Trump's divisive
rhetoric. The party needs to capture nine more seats next year to take
control for the first time since 2002. The state Senate is expected to
remain in Republican hands.
Taking over the state House would allow Democrats to block Republicans
from drawing a decade's worth of friendly state and federal district
maps after the 2020 U.S. Census.
"Texas is shaping up to be one of our top targets in 2020," said Jessica
Post, chairwoman of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
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The group has committed $100,000 in early money, out of more than $2.5
million for battleground states, to help the state party build a digital
fundraising operation and recruit candidates, Post said. It plans to
spend more than $50 million nationwide in 2020, five times the 2010
budget.
"Donald Trump puts Texas into play for Democrats. He's a liability for
Republican candidates," said Mark Jones, a political science professor
at Houston's Rice University. While he and other analysts do not expect
Trump to lose the state next year, which he won by 9 points in 2016,
they forecast a wave of Republican losses in smaller state races.
In what Democrats have gleefully termed the "Texodus," five Texas
Republican U.S. House incumbents have announced their retirement,
including Representative Will Hurd, the only Republican to represent a
district on the U.S. border with Mexico.
The Democratic speaker of the U.S. House, Nancy Pelosi, has said Texas
is "ground zero" for her party in 2020, and the party's congressional
campaign arm opened a field office in Austin, the state capital.
The independent electoral analysts at the Cook Political Report already
rate one vacant seat as likely to flip to Democrats, with two other
suburban Republican-held districts considered toss-ups.
Erica DiBella, a Houston-area librarian, is the kind of voter Democrats
are hoping to sway. A married mother of two, she has been a registered
Republican since her teenage years.
But she is opposed to Trump’s education and immigration policies and
said she ranked candidates by their affiliation with the president.
"For most candidates that say they align with Trump, that's going to be
a red flag for me," said DiBella, 43.
SUBURBAN SHIFT
Discontent with Trump in Texas' suburban areas, once a Republican
stronghold, coupled with the state's fast-growing Hispanic population
and an influx of college-educated liberals from other states, is paving
the way for Democratic gains, a dozen party officials, political
strategists and academics said in interviews.
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![](../images/091119PIX/news_b3.jpg)
Democratic 2020 U.S. presidential candidates stand on stage (L-R)
author Marianne Williamson, U.S., Rep. Tim Ryan, U.S. Senator Amy
Klobuchar, South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Senator Bernie
Sanders, U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren, former U.S. Rep. Beto
O'Rourke, former Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper, former U.S.
Rep. John Delaney, Montana Governor Steve Bullock on the first night
of the second 2020 Democratic U.S. presidential debate in Detroit,
Michigan, July 30, 2019. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson/File Photo
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"Because Texas Republicans are currently too lackadaisical ... it is
the down-ballot Republican officeholders who will likely suffer most
in 2020," said Ford O'Connell, a Republican strategist and a Texas
native.
In an ironic twist for Republicans, analysts say Texas is attracting
liberal state voters because of its low cost of living - it has no
state income tax, a feature long prized by conservatives.
The Texas secretary of state estimates 525,000 people have moved to
the state annually over the past eight years. The Democratic-leaning
Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas have each added more than a
million residents since the 2010 U.S. Census, according to
government estimates, more than any other cities in the country.
Some long-term demographic trends also appear to favor Democrats.
The rapidly growing Latino population will represent the majority of
the state's residents by 2022, state officials estimate. Only 20
percent of the state's Hispanics identify as Republican, according
to Reuters/Ipsos polling.
REPUBLICAN PUSHBACK
Republicans are mobilizing to push back against Democratic inroads.
The Republican State Leadership Committee said earlier this month it
would launch multimillion-dollar investments in Texas and other
states to retain control of state legislatures.
"If our friends at the DLCC believe that $50 million will buy them
legislative majorities in states they've been unable to win for the
last decade, we're confident we'll outraise them, outwork them and
beat them," said RSLC spokesman Dave Abrams.
Republicans say Trump, far from acting as a drag on his party's
fortunes, will energize base voters to come out in force.
Republican donors have formed Engage Texas, a super PAC focused on
registering new Republican voters. The group has raised more than
$9.6 million, according to federal elections records.
On Monday, the state Democratic Party said it would seek to register
2.6 million new voters in 2020.
Democrats can win by focusing on "kitchen table" issues, including
jobs and the economy, as well as criminal justice reform and climate
change, said Lina Hidalgo, who holds the top administrative post in
Harris County, the state's largest county.
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Hidalgo plans to meet with Democratic presidential campaign staff
members the day after the debate to share strategies from her 2018
race, when she ousted a popular Republican.
"If you show folks what government can do, they'll come out to
vote," Hidalgo said. "And it just so happens that the party
addressing people's needs is the Democratic Party."
(Reporting by Ernest Scheyder and Joseph Ax; Additional reporting by
Tim Reid in Los Angeles; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Peter
Cooney)
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