Texas Republicans are sounding the alarm as Democratic presidential candidates get ready for their debate next week in Houston, warning that the Lone Star State could become more purple if the party doesn’t treat it as a 2020 battleground.
Not so much Trump and the senate seat, mind:
Most in the GOP are confident President Trump will win Texas and its 38 electoral votes next year, and they think Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn will turn aside his Democratic challenger.
But they are worried they will lose more House seats a cycle after Democrats clawed back two districts as they retook their majority.
Five House Republicans have retired, including three in seats targeted by Democrats. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report rates them as either toss-ups or lean Democratic.
More broadly, Texas Republicans say the GOP can’t rest on its laurels in a state that is growing more competitive.
“We need all hands on deck and all Texans to pull together to make sure we don’t let the Democrats put an end to the longest successful run in Texas history,” said James Dickey, the chairman of the Texas Republican Party.
Ripples, man...ripples:
Top Texas GOP fundraisers who are used to exporting campaign cash to more competitive races elsewhere are looking to keep donor money in-state this cycle.
“There’s a lot of apathy and smugness and laziness here on the Republican side that’s got to be reversed or there will be a shock to the system at some point,” said George Seay, a Dallas businessman and top GOP fundraiser in Texas.
Whiiiiich could be alarm sounding to loosen purse strings and less about real concern.
But...
GOP support is eroding in the suburbs surrounding Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, four of the nation’s largest and fastest growing metro areas. That’s particularly worrisome to Republicans leery of Trump’s popularity with suburban voters.
A Democrat has not won statewide in Texas since 1994, the longest such streak in the nation.
But Trump won Texas by only 9 points in 2016, the worst showing for a Republican presidential candidate in 20 years. Jimmy Carter in 1976 was the last Democratic presidential nominee to win the state.
There are fears that further slippage at the top of the ticket will cost the GOP House seats and potentially a majority in the state house. Democrats defeated longtime GOP incumbents in Houston and Dallas in 2018 and six other Republican House members won reelection by 5 points or fewer. Of those, Reps. Will Hurd, Kenny Marchant and Pete Olson are retiring, while Reps. Michael McCaul, Chip Roy and John Carter face tough reelection battles.
“Our concern isn’t so much whether Trump or Cornyn wins in Texas, it’s their margins of victory that will help us keep those contested House seats,” said Corbin Casteel, a longtime Republican strategist in Austin.
Texas’s booming economy has attracted a young and diverse workforce from more liberal parts of the country, such as California, Illinois and New York.
The running joke in GOP circles is that Trump should build a wall along the northern border in Texas to keep the liberals out.
