The State Of The Race In Texas, Ctd

A reader flags the awful ad seen above:

After reading my fellow Texan’s rundown of this year’s elections, I thought you might be interested to know that Republican candidate for Lieutenant Governor, Dan Patrick, has been using ISIS as a weapon against his Democratic opponent, Leticia Van de Putte, in an attack ad this month. If I hadn’t already voted for Wendy Davis and Van de Putte, this ad, which I first saw this morning, would have surely energized me to vote AGAINST Dan Patrick. It’s almost comical how ridiculous the fear mongering is here. Almost. The Republicans in this state have zero shits to give anymore and, thanks to SCOTUS’s lack of a ruling on our new voter ID laws, that will likely continue through 2016.

Another Texan looks at the horizon:

There is some possible good news in this article.

What the rest of the country doesn’t understand is that a history of low voter turnout and a pathetic Texas Democratic Party organization has been as responsible for recent election results as the fact that, in some parts of the state, there are indeed voters who will elect Neanderthals like Louie Gohmert. But 1/3 of the state’s population lives in six counties – Bexar (San Antonio), Dallas and Harris (Houston), El Paso and Tarrant (Fort Worth), and Travis (Austin). Dallas, El Paso, and Travis are solidly “blue”. Every county-wide elected official in Dallas is a Democrat. Harris and Bexar are now purple, but turning bluer. The very popular, recently re-elected mayor of Houston is a lesbian. Tarrant is the only reliably red county on this list.

There are 254 counties in the state. I can think of 15-20 off the top of my head that have fewer people in them than my office building in downtown Dallas has in it on a typical day. ALL THOSE PEOPLE VOTE, and they vote in primaries. Increased turnout in the big cities and the Rio Grande Valley could make a huge difference. Maybe Battleground Texas (which has been very active for over a year) is having an impact. And there is a genuine lack of enthusiasm for the GOP ticket. Only the most partisan voters have bumper stickers and yard signs this year.

People I know back east are flabbergasted that Dallas, Texas is a reliably blue island in a sea of red suburban and rural counties, but it’s true. Change is coming, slowly, but inevitably.