Cruz's Failures in Texas: The Trump Toxin

One interesting senate race to watch in the midterms this year comes from Texas, a traditionally conservative, red state, where Senator Ted Cruz’s seat is being challenged by an up-and-coming member of the Democratic Party, Beto O’Rourke. O’Rourke, who by all accounts should be losing badly given Cruz’s experience, is instead only trailing Cruz by single digits. That may not seem like a lot, but remember that Cruz won against Paul Sadler in 2012 with a 16% margin. Cruz, needless to say, is very popular in Texas. So, why is he losing? Well, to answer that, we can look to the 2016 election, and the aftermath. Donald Trump had a 54% approval rating in January 2017, and in September 2018, he had a 51% approval rating. Clearly, Texans didn’t change their opinion by much. Why does O’Rourke have so much traction?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, one of Trump’s penchants is to cruelly and immaturely nickname his opponents. (See: Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, Pocahontas Elizabeth Warren, et al.) “Lyin’ Ted” was a staple of most Trump campaign speeches, and it can be argued that the nickname and Cruz’s ineffective defenses against it contributed greatly to his own eventual loss. Even Beto has started using it in his speeches.

The Texan people don’t hate Trump. They never have. But in 2016, Cruz’s favorability was 47%. In 2017, it was 38%. In February 2018, it was 40%, but that’s still not as large as 47%. My point is that Cruz’s favorability has been declining in Texas since the 2016 election. Trump really did a number on Cruz’s reputation, and now Cruz is feeling the effects of the Trump toxin. But that’s not the only reason why the gap between him and O’Rourke is so small.

Beto’s campaign is a rare one  in today’s political climate, because for every real, trustworthy grassroots campaign, there are a hundred PAC-funded, generic campaigns with little connection to their base or their voters. But Beto’s pulling it off. He has $70 million dollars all from fundraising. That’s absolutely crazy, especially considering that he doesn’t accept donations from PACs, or funnel any of his own money into his campaign. For any politician, that’s an impressive feat.

For a Democrat running in Texas, it means much more. While Beto may be losing, his people trust him. Texans clearly believe in Beto. If the Democrats can play their hand right, they could gain a foothold in Texas, something that would have been unthinkable five or ten years ago. While Beto gave up his Senate seat to run against Cruz, even if he loses, there is still the question of his followers.

The other Texas senator, John Cornyn, is up for re-election in 2020, and while he says he is going to run again, two years won’t be that long of a wait for any potential Democratic candidates in Texas. The real takeaway from Beto’s senate race is that the political climate in Texas has fundamentally changed after the 2016 election, and not only the Democrats should take note of this.

The fervor of Beto’s followers is present in almost every neighborhood, city, and county in America. For example, in Georgia, there are a group of African-Americans—mostly women—who are trying to convince other African-Americans to vote, as they believe that African-American votes can tilt the balance of the vote one way or the other. And they’re right, too. Only 59% of black voters voted in 2016, as opposed to 66% in 2012. The group, called Color of Change PAC, is one of a handful of other PACs dedicated to the African-American vote that have arisen recently. Others include BlackPAC and Collective PAC, each working in multiple states, including Virginia, Washington and the Deep South.

If Democrats around the country, not just Democratic leadership, are able to mobilize and help convince less-inclined voters all over the country, such as immigrants and 18-25 year olds, they will have a much more powerful and well-built base in all the states, including major battleground states. We’re already beginning to see inklings of this as the November midterms approach, but they are still only inklings.

Democrats have certainly moved away from the lax attitude they had coming into the 2016 election, and now it is their responsibility to take charge of their base as is occurring in Texas, play their cards well, and maybe in the future, some semblance of normalcy can return to the free world.