Kamala Harris will campaign in the Lone Star State, not because she expects to win Texas, but because she wants to shine a light on Texas’ abortion ban.
Kamala Harris will campaign in the Lone Star State, not because she expects to win Texas, but because she wants to shine a light on Texas’ abortion ban.
Wouldn't that be the most amazing form of this election? Kamala wins, and the reason the Dems are able to get a trifecta - is because Ted fuckin' Cruz loses his seat.
Nobody likes Ted Cruz and frankly I feel like the Republicans would blame Cruz for being a fuck up before anything else. Like obviously theyll claim it was stolen but before that narrative gets going the ractuon will be blaming Ted Cruz.
Clinton lost by ~800,000 votes (5% of registered voters) and Biden lost by ~640,000 votes (~3.5% of registered voters). This year, TX is breaking records for early voting turnout, and, historically speaking, Democrats win with high turnout. In just 4 days, TX has cast almost 1/4 as many votes as the entire 2020 election and that's during the first week of early voting when the polls are only required to be open 9 hours a day. We still haven't seen the turnout for this weekend or next week, when polls are open at least 12 hours a day.
Lupe Valdez's 3.5M votes in 2018 was about the same number of votes Beto received in 2022. The shrinking gulf is largely coming from a sag in Republican turnout year-over-year. And GOP favorables aren't so bad that the party doesn't consistently beat Democrats in high turnout races.
Maybe this year will be a game changer, but Dems would have to beat a 5-7 pt pad for Trump and at least a 4 pt pad for Cruz. Not holding my breath.
For the curious, this "Pro American Rally" Nazi rally occurred in 1939
At Madison Square Garden, the rally opened with the Pledge of Allegiance to the American flag. The mood was jubilant. Attendees wore Nazi armbands, waved American flags and held aloft posters with slogans like "Stop Jewish Domination of Christian America." There were storm troopers in the aisles, their uniforms almost identical to those of Nazi Germany. "It looked like any political rally — only with a Nazi twist," said Arnie Bernstein, author of Swastika Nation.
The speeches were explicitly anti-Semitic, and tirades against "job-taking Jewish refugees" were met with thunderous applause. "They demanded a white gentile America. They denounced Roosevelt as 'Rosenfeld,' to say that Roosevelt was in the pocket of rich Jews," said Sarah Churchwell, author of Behold, America. In equal measure to the xenophobia, the speeches were loaded with American boosterism.
More because Houston is one of the most lucrative fundraising locations in the country for Democrats. Same reason Trump will periodically schlep down to California or out to New York for rallies.
California voted for Biden almost 2 to 1 in 2020, a margin of over 5 million votes. There is no amount of gerrymandering (or un-gerrymandering) that would make California red.
Texas, on the other hand, went for Trump by 600,000 votes (out of 11 million). Solid blue is definitely not in the realm of possibility, but it could swing blue by a small margin.
I mean... California has had quite a few Republican governors before, mostly moderate. But this current Republican party is not the Republican party. I don't know what this is. It's chaos. It's stupid.
California is probably one of the least gerrymandered states. In 2008 there was an initiative to form a non-partisan redistricting commission to draw districts. All federal and state districts have been set using this process for more than 10 years.
California also has an open primary system where all candidates run against each other in a combined primary vote regardless of party affiliation (except president and some local offices). The top 2 from the primary advance to the general election. So, the general election could feature 2 democrats or 2 republicans.
Additionally, following the pandemic, California moved to automatically mailing a ballot to every active registered voter. They also have automatic voter registration at the DMV.
Altogether, it would be unfair to compare California to Texas or any other red state, all of whom actively gerrymander and work to suppress voter participation.