TX-SEN 2020 Megathread: Early Voting

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Seven suggestions for Senate 2020

More detail than I can put in the quote can be found by clicking the link:

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IMO if Beto doesn't run for Senate again, Hegar is perhaps the best candidate for this. TX-31 is generally a bit more Republican than TX overall, and she did very well in TX-31.

I think Joaquin Castro probably just wants to get seniority in the House, and I doubt he will want to risk his safe seat for an uphill, potentially career-ending run for the Senate. But Joaquin Castro could have good potential if he wants to run. Julian Castro seems to be set on running for President, which I doubt will go very far for him. There is a possibility that he starts running for President and then drops out when it is clear it isn't going anywhere for him and tries to run for Senate, but by that time there will probably be another established candidate for the Senate race.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

One person who is apparently already running is Sema Hernandez, who ran in 2018 also and lost the Dem Primary to Beto (she got 24% and won some Hispanic border counties probably mostly because of her Spanish surname). She does not seem to be the most serious of potential candidates, but she might win the primary if nobody else with more of a chance runs:

https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/388237/sema-hernandez/updates/2982?source_code=campaign-update-link-2982

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

both the castros don't seem like good candidates and are frankly overrated to me IMO
I want to see beto's margin in the 22nd and the 31st to see how strong MJ Hegar and Kulkarni were as Beto was the strongest liberal Texas democrat since Ann Richards.
I think hegar and Beto would be the strongest 2. Both of them severely outperformed expectations. Garbage nyt poll killed Hegar(I doubt she had a last minute surge considering her hype died after that poll)

Yeah, that NYT poll was an unfortunate own-goal for Hegar. She tweeted it out and got her supporters to vote for TX-31, which is how it got polled in the first place. Otherwise it wouldn't have been polled and she may have ended up doing a teeny bit better from getting a few more donations perhaps.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I would say Beto again would be the best bet.

One person who is apparently already running is Sema Hernandez, who ran in 2018 also and lost the Dem Primary to Beto (she got 24% and won some Hispanic border counties probably mostly because of her Spanish surname). She does not seem to be the most serious of potential candidates, but she might win the primary if nobody else with more of a chance runs:

https://www.crowdpac.com/campaigns/388237/sema-hernandez/updates/2982?source_code=campaign-update-link-2982

If democrats screw up a golden oppurtunity in Texas with Donald Trump on the ballot(at this point Im writing off a double digit Texas win and Hays county 95 percent flips in 2020(even Valdez won it).
They need to focus on a suburban candidate to boost turnout to win that state house. Anything else would be political malpractice after having the most energized democratic base in Texas for 30 years.

No sane person could disagree with either of you, I don't think. Beto is clearly the best option if he wants to run, and the TX Democratic Party should basically just disband if the best they can do is Sema Hernandez (surely someone else will run).

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Serious question.... how does someone get up for this race?

If Beto couldn’t do it against CRUZ. How is someone else gonna do it against Cornyn?

The main advantage would be that it is a Presidential year, which means higher turnout. If Beto had better turnout in the Rio Grande Valley in particular, he would have come even closer (and maybe even won, though I still probably think lost narrowly).

Also Beto will have confirmed that TX can indeed be competitive, so that means whoever runs (Beto or not) is more likely to be taken seriously early, and voters will pay more attention and be more likely to think that the race actually is competitive.

With Beto the last time around, for some marginal propensity voters who normally don't vote because they don't think it is competitive, actually voting for him was something of an act of faith. But in the future, they have more reason to think races could be close enough for their votes to actually matter.

I am not saying that this would necessarily be enough to win or that it would necessarily be easier than beating Cruz in 2018, just that these are factors that would help relative to 2018.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Also, Cornyn has similar approvals to Cruz (albeit Cornyn is a bit more unknown)

Yeah, I would be really interested in seeing some early polls of TX-SEN at the moment. It is possible Beto might be tied or even leading against Cornyn at the moment simply because he probably has slightly higher name recognition. I could see a Cornyn lead, but I wouldn't be shocked if there were not one in a current high quality poll that had a turnout model that took into account that it was a Presidential year and how high turnout was in 2018.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

It sounds like the early speculation is that Beto probably won't run for Senate. He at least "has not expressed interest" in it.

However, M.J. Hegar is saying she has been encouraged to run for a "VARIETY" of different offices, which I would guess means she is thinking of either running for TX-31 again or else maybe running for TX-SEN against Cornyn instead.

https://www.texastribune.org/2018/11/19/beto-orourke-julian-castro-john-cornyn-texas-2020/

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Also, a quote from DNC chair Tom Perez from that article:

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I would be very happy with Hegar running for Senate and Beto running for President. If Beto were on the Presidential ticket, it doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility that Dems could both win TX-SEN and carry TX in the Presidential election. Not easy, to be sure, but also not impossible like it seemed just a few years ago.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Here's another article, this one suggesting that Beto may run either for President or for Senate against Cornyn.

Beto O'Rourke's donors and supporters are prodding him to run for president or against GOP Sen. John Cornyn in 2020

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[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Although I don't think Castro would necessarily be the best candidate for TX-SEN (I lean towards thinking Hegar would be better if Beto doesn't run for Senate), if Castro ran for Senate while Beto ran for President, Castro could help juice Hispanic turnout and it is not too hard to see the possibility of Beto at the top of the ticket and Castro running for Senate both ending up winning, if Beto is the Presidential nominee (or VP) and Dems beat Trump.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Cornyn says he thinks TX is becoming a purple state, but Beto will run for President rather than for Senate again.

Cornyn: Texas On Verge Of Becoming "Purple" State, Will Face Tough Re-Election

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Cornyn: Texas is no longer a ‘reliably red state’

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[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Apparently TX Law allows Beto to run both for the Presidency and for the Senate at the same time... So there we go!

Legally, Beto O’Rourke Can Run for President and Senate in 2020]Legally, Beto O’Rourke Can Run for President and Senate in 2020

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[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Cornyn claims to be taking his re-election seriously, and sounds like he may try to distance himself from Trump somewhat...

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/john-cornyn-says-donald-trump-will-no-texas-coattails-2020-election/

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[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

What do you guys think about Lt. Gov. candidate Mike Collier? He seems okay on charisma, and outperformed Beto in 171 counties that I assume are mostly white and mostly rural. Could he make it competitive vs. Cornyn? If you combine his minimal inroads with rural whites (which admittedly will be fleeting) with juiced up Latino turnout in the Rio Grande valley, and Beto at the very top of the ticket, I would say he could get pretty close if TX Dems start chipping early, like Pollster said.

Or, is Kim Olson the one for that? Running women everywhere seems like a safe bet.

It is pretty silly to focus on the 171 counties where Collier overperformed Beto, given that Beto overperformed Collier substantially overall. Those 171 counties have very few people, in comparison to the ones where Beto did better. Dems should want a candidate who can get Beto+ performance in the Urban/Suburban counties where Beto did well. Keep Beto's gains and expand on them.

Elections are won by votes, not by counties. Votes are cast by people, not by land.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

What do you guys think about Lt. Gov. candidate Mike Collier? He seems okay on charisma, and outperformed Beto in 171 counties that I assume are mostly white and mostly rural. Could he make it competitive vs. Cornyn? If you combine his minimal inroads with rural whites (which admittedly will be fleeting) with juiced up Latino turnout in the Rio Grande valley, and Beto at the very top of the ticket, I would say he could get pretty close if TX Dems start chipping early, like Pollster said.

Or, is Kim Olson the one for that? Running women everywhere seems like a safe bet.

It is pretty silly to focus on the 171 counties where Collier overperformed Beto, given that Beto overperformed Collier substantially overall. Those 171 counties have very few people, in comparison to the ones where Beto did better. Dems should want a candidate who can get Beto+ performance in the Urban/Suburban counties where Beto did well. Keep Beto's gains and expand on them.

Elections are won by votes, not by counties. Votes are cast by people, not by land.

President Hillary Rodham Clinton and Justice Merrick Garland heartily agree

We are talking about a statewide vote here, not the electoral college. In a statewide vote, the votes of people in urban and suburban areas count for just as much as the votes of people in rural areas. And in TX, there are many more voters in urban and suburban areas than in rural areas.

It is true though that in the electoral college, land does vote rather than people, which is why it is an illegitimately undemocratic institution, much like the US Senate.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Anchia's district also partly overlaps with TX-24 (but most of it is not in TX-24), so he is also at least a possible candidate for TX-24.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Off topic, but if you had told me before the election that O’Rourke would get 57% in Hays, 51% in Williamson, won Tarrant and Nueces, only lost Denton by 8% and Collin by 6%, AND got about 200k more votes than clinton, I would have predicted he would have narrowly won statewide.

His numbers were quite close to the benchmarks I made before the election. He did very well especially in the Austin and Dallas metros. But he also underperformed by more in some places such as South TX and the Houston area.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I'd imagine McRaven would be more desirable for the party as a VP choice, but I could see him defeating Cornyn (possibly more easily than we imagine, though of course not by any means with ease) if he runs on his service record and takes some liberal domestic stances like Medicare for All or  $15 minimum wage to hold the base.

McRaven would be pretty much a god-tier level recruit, but is there any actual indication that he is interested in running and also that he REALLY is a Dem in the first place?

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

https://mobile.twitter.com/JohnCornyn/status/1077930336200417283

Lol imagine endorsing a carbon tax to own the libs. It seems cornyn wont be john culberson 2.0 atleast.

A carbon tax is basically a hidden sales tax

Carbon taxes are generally proposed to redistribute all the tax revenue immediately back out on an equal basis to the general population.

People and businesses who use less carbon/GHG than average will get back a net dividend, while people and businesses who use more get some of their income transferred to those who use less, thereby encouraging them to make changes to use less carbon.

In that sense it is really not a tax at all, but rather a system that redistributes of income from expenditures on things that create lots of greenhouse gas emissions to things that do not create lots of greenhouse gas emissions, thereby encouraging a transition to the economy creating less greenhouse gas emissions overall.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Unbeatable Titan John Cornyn at 43% approval in Q-Pac: https://poll.qu.edu/texas/release-detail?ReleaseID=2601

Sounds like a pretty good thread title.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Hegar attacks Cristina Tzintzún Ramiriez over Iran.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/01/13/the-texas-democratic-senate-race-against-john-cornyn-starting-to-show-spark/

Days later, former Air Force helicopter pilot MJ Hegar dropped a news release blasting incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn, while knocking Tzintzún Ramirez for a fundraising appeal based on Iran’s strike against American troops in Iraq after President Donald Trump’s strike that killed Iranian military leader Gen. Qasem Soleimani.

Tzintzún Ramirez didn’t respond to Hegar, and her aides said she was focused on promoting her criminal justice plan.

But a political action committee that’s supporting her issued a defense of the fundraising appeal on Twitter.

https://twitter.com/FlipTheSenate/status/1215720750574817280

...

The swipe against Tzintzún Ramirez could have been designed to show that she’ll battle Cornyn but is not from the liberal wing of the party. Supporters of Tzintzún Ramirez said Hegar is afraid of the Latina activist.

For her part, Tzintzún Ramirez, 37, must achieve her goal of winning over and driving young voters and minority voters to the polls. She wants to get half of younger voters and 60% of Hispanic voters, a tall order with activist Sema Hernandez of Pasadena and the largely unknown Annie Garcia of Houston also in the contest. Hernandez finished second to former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of El Paso in the 2018 Senate primary. In her favor, Tzintzún Ramirez is running a professional campaign and has the organizing experience to communicate with her base voters.

https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1215369564692910086

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

It would be hilarious if Hegar didn't make the runoff.

It being TX, that is entirely possible. I think it will most likely be 2 out of 3 of Hegar, Tzintzun-Ramirez, and West. But Hegar might not necessarily by one of the 2. Each candidate has different bases (and pretty much all of them overlap with some of the other candidates also):

Hegar - establishment vote & White suburbanites, probably some Austin-area regional support
Tzintzun-Ramirez - progressive vote and Hispanics
West - DFW vote and African Americans

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

From the Data for Progress poll, has Cornyn at 50 in the General Election. Which is OK, but not suggestive of his traditional dominating blowout victories.

Cornyn 50
Democratic candidate 42
No one 7
Would not vote 2

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

This element should make lose every credibility to this poll, there is no way that Cornyn will underperfom Trump.

Early TX polls are basically just name ID checks, and Cornyn has less name ID than Trump.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Hegar voted in the 2016 Republican Presidential primary, which I am not too hot on.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cJK_DzmnH6BwHkQ58V11lEQ-6hZjN6_xoysikbFg49E/edit?fbclid=IwAR2XYCdNjKBxBWaTvU_mN14Z-cRLVMoQ6Orjc9nIrLSK4ZGndAXnYDmy27U#gid=1593903482

I am also voting for Tzintzun-Ramirez.