Today is a rough day to be a Texas Democrat. That blue wave we’ve heard about for months was more of a ripple.
Months of wish casting, hoping, dreaming, pretending a blue wave was cresting in the Lone Star State, only to be clobbered by Republicans in voter turnout.
Piece after piece was written about record Democrat turnout in early voting. The predictions had Texas Republicans rattled and Governor Abbott encouraging Republicans to get to the polls.
But those numbers weren’t accurate for two reasons — those early voting tallies were taken from the 15 most populous counties which are coincidentally the bluest counties. Further, the calculations were based on a percentage of increase in turnout from previous years, which fails to factor in total number of votes cast for this election cycle. If an uptick in percentage is met with an increase in total voters, then no increase or surge exists.
When all the votes were cast, almost twice as many Republicans cast early ballots than Democrats. Bonus: this is a banner year for Democrat primary turnout.
Which should make anyone reading fantastical pieces heralding the possibility a Sen. Cruz upset raise an eyebrow…
Because again, piece after piece coming from Austin-based sources have promised coastal media compadres that Texas has purple potential and Democrat challenger Rep. Beto O’Rourke can pull off an upset!
SPOILER: He won’t. At least not this year.
A look at the numbers:
1,037,779 voters cast ballots in the Democrat Senate primary. O’Rourke only pulled in 61% of the vote for a total of 641,324 votes. That breakdown:
Meanwhile, on the Republican Senate ballot, Cruz garnered 85% of the vote for a total of 1,317,450 total votes. More than twice as many votes as O’Rourke received and more than the total of votes cast for Democrat Senate contenders total:
An uncontested Republican race vs. the Democrat’s best hope for flipping a Senate seat and the Republican pulled in more than twice as many votes. Sen. O’Rourke ain’t happening. Not anytime soon.
Game on:
There are several truisms of Texas Republicans:
1) They are not Trump Republicans
2) They are devoutly conservative, crimson red Republicans
3) They never take living in a solid red state for granted
4) Races in Texas will never (mark my words, never) serve as bellwethers for other national races.
5) Harris County does not dictate the course of state elections because…
6) Rural Texans (barring the Valley) are even more conservative than the rest of us. They’re incredibly politically active and they mean business.
But none of these facts make good media narratives, nor do they interest a media more interested in creating stories than reporting them.
I mean, come on, Wendy Davis, anyone? Coastal media hurled her onto the national stage where she was a horrendous failure come election day. But, some folks never learn.
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