Personally, I usually prefer to vote on Election Day, perhaps because I started voting before there was anything available called early voting. Besides, there can be some late-breaking news that may change a vote or two at the last minute.
This time around, I consulted my calendar to make my voting plan and discovered that Election Day was the only day next week when I had nothing planned. One of the advantages of this stage of my life is the ability to schedule at least one day each week to do nothing. I did not want to put on a face just to get out and vote, so I planned to early vote this week when I had already done hair and makeup.
We happen to live in a part of Dallas that has a partisan split that is roughly 50/50, which put us on the chopping block when the Republicans did their redistricting to dilute Democratic votes by putting them in Republican districts so as to create more Republican members of Congress. So quite literally, our side of the street is now in a district that is majority white and includes a swath of East Texas running all the way down to Palestine, which is over a hundred miles away. Our neighbors across the street are in a different district. You get the picture?
Anyway, the races drawing the most attention, both inside and outside Texas, seem to be for that seat in the U. S. Senate currently held by John Cornyn. He’s facing a battle to even get the nomination to make it to the general election from current Texas AG Ken Paxton. The Democrats running, current U. S. representative Jasmine Crockett and current Texas state representative James Talarico, are putting on quite a show of their own. On that side, the show is coming less from the candidates themselves and their campaigns and more from their various supporters. So much so, that I’m beginning to wonder who’s angling to get their preferred candidate more votes and who’s trying to get a job in Washington.
Flipping Texas. Turning Texas blue. All that. Like Miss Faye Dunaway as Miss Joan Crawford, this isn’t my first time at the rodeo, even if the rodeo is looking more like a circus. Election Day next week may not even determine who’s going to be performing on the high wire from now until November.
All indicators point to the probability of a runoff in that Republican race and the possibility of one for the Democrats. Conventional political wisdom holds that avoiding a runoff is best. But is that the case here?
If both parties go to a runoff, we’ll have almost three more months of the same back and forth we’re having now. But if either Crockett or Talarico secure the nomination from the Democrats next week, the Republicans will know who they’ll be running against. There is ample evidence that they are at least concerned, if not downright scared, of both of the possible Democratic candidates, even if that worry is coming from very different sources. Will that allow Republicans to play the “electability” game that has enthralled the Democrats so far this primary season?
A little political history here. When Dallas County flipped blue back in 2006, that success had many mothers. In fact, that seismic shift had little to do with a massively successful get out the vote effort or a stellar list of candidates, some of whom were downright mediocre. The county flipped because the voters had a bellyful of Republican governance.
In my own congressional district, Pete Sessions easily won reelection in 2016 despite Hillary Clinton having won that same district in her presidential campaign. Why? The Democrats didn’t even field a candidate, setting the stage for Colin Allred to flip that seat two years later. In all likelihood, it would have flipped before, even if the Democrats had run Mickey Mouse. Or better, Minnie Mouse.
Speculations about electability and its implied coded message are about as useless as tits on a boar hog. What Texas voters will do when they have had enough ends up surprising both parties when it happens. That’s been true at the county and congressional level, and I suspect the same will be true when it comes to a statewide race. It is very much in question whether or not this is the year.
In football, we’re not even in the third quarter. But I am so looking forward to the half-time show.
