Huge Voter Turnout For State’s Primaries

Texas has always been a conservative bastion, but the much stronger turnout in the primary races to select nominees from their own party shows Democratic voters are highly motivated, threatening Republican control of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives in midterm elections in November. Despite Estes’ long record of conservative leadership, he irked Patrick after being the only Republican to vote against changing the threshold required to take up legislation. That was double the Democratic primary turnout in the last midterm.

Right now, Republicans cling to power in the Senate by a slender 51-to-49 seat majority. Axios finds that if the election were held today, Democrats would lose in Missouri, Indiana, West Virginia, Montana, and North Dakota.

“They are mobilizing in a powerful way”, warned Cruz after the polls closed in an interview with the CBS affiliate in Dallas. Another is a sprawling district that runs along the Texas-Mexico border, where Gina Ortiz-Jones advanced to a May runoff and another woman, Judy Canales, was battling to join her. “Congressman O’Rourke’s campaign is benefiting from left-wing rage”, Cruz said in a conference call with reporters.

“House Republicans understand and share the frustration that our public school teachers are experiencing, and we remain committed to finding a way to increase teacher pay this session”.

Some key races in Texas Tuesday are at the state level.

In the March 2010 Texas primaries, turnout was about the same among Republican primary voters in 2018, but significantly lower among Democrats compared to 2018.

Kevin Hoar, a spokesman for the state Republican party, said he thought that the Tax Cuts and Jobs act – a tax overhaul advanced by the president in 2017 – would attract voters to the party. None of the 25 Republican seats are rated as lean Democrat. “It’s a uniquely anti-Trump state, because it has a rare combination of diversity and a suburban professional class”.

Democrats fielded 111 congressional candidates Tuesday, including at least one for each of the 36 House districts in the state. Greg Abbott put his own campaign money and clout on the line, he mostly came up empty-handed, failing to defeat maverick Republican Reps. And he’s the biggest draw on a Democratic ballot that is otherwise littered with little-known candidates for statewide office who’ve struggled to raise attention and money.

While 2002 was a high water mark for Democratic turnout in Texas it also showed the limits of the exuberance for turning the state blue. The victor will face Sessions in November.

Republican incumbents who dared to buck their party leaders or supposedly influential activist groups had a target on their backs in the 2018 primaries.

Texas has a runoff primary system, meaning that if any candidate fails to win a majority of the votes, the top two will face a runoff election on May 22.

Cruz said the “extreme left” could turn out in big numbers, motivated to fight the agenda of President Donald Trump.

Democratic legislators now hold 17 out of 30 seats in the chamber, only one short of the three-fifths majority required to pass revenue increases. “They hate the president”. “And I share some of those frustrations”. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee published opposition research on congressional candidate Laura Moser, highlighting that she wrote she wouldn’t want to live in Paris, Texas, again.

GOP operatives have gleefully watched the drama unfold. A lot of average Texas voters had not heard the names of any of the people running for the Senate nomination on the Democratic side. No Democrat has won a race for either since.

“I think what we need to do as Democrats-what we do at the DNC is we don’t get involved in heavily contested primaries, and the DCCC does and I respect the fact that they do endorse in primaries”, Perez said.

Tensions between the party and the progressive movement are threatening to bleed beyond this year’s midterms into the 2020 presidential race.