Cuellar is a lloyd bentsen democrat. That's kind of what you need to win statewide. I mean if O'Rourke can win Williamson and Tarrant and still lose the state - that Texas is a tougher nut to crack than previously thought.
Or the electorate is still not quite there yet for Democrats. Let's not forget it's Texas we're talking about. The fact that it is where it is right now is pretty remarkable.
This reminds me of the classic red state moderate Democrat dilemma. Why do they still loose even when Democrats put up someone who gave in so much to conservatives? Because the voters don't care about ideology. They aren't sitting there carefully reviewing a politician's record. It's so much dumber than that. At this point, it's basically a numbers game. Either the electorate has enough Democrats and faux-Indies or it doesn't. Throw in a small sliver of voters who actually do switch between parties, and that is anywhere, USA in a nutshell.
