GOP facing major uphill battle in Texas after Dem takeover, expensive mess in Lone Star state
Everything is bigger in Texas.And that now includes the epic repudiation of Donald Trump by the American voters in the midterm elections. Yes, Republicans got pummeled in several conservative redoubts, including the loss of Senate seats in Kansas and South Carolina.
But the biggest, most expensive and most stunning losses happened in the Lone Star State. After 32 years in the wilderness, Texas Democrats won eight statewide races in a single day, including the thumping of the incumbent governor and Trump ally, Greg Abbott, by Gina Hinojosa. They also won the lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller and three other offices, and flipped control of the Texas House of Representatives. Republicans weren’t the only ones who got pummeled.The other big losers include Texas resident Elon Musk and his friends in Big Tech, who are now wondering about the future of their data center projects.
Furthermore, by losing Texas, which will now have a Latina governor, it’s easy to see how Texas could rally Latino voters in future presidential elections and become reliably Democratic in 2028 and beyond. Before we get to that, it’s essential to understand what happened in the US Senate race.James Talarico defeated Ken Paxton, one of the most corrupt politicians in Texas history, in a landslide victory. Despite Paxton’s awful record, Trump endorsed him anyway, because he said the incumbent, Sen.
John Cornyn, a moderate Republican, “wasn’t particularly loyal to me.” Trump’s endorsement was the kiss of death.Why? Exit polls show that 90% of voters named corruption as a crucial or major issue. Talarico’s vote totals are gobsmacking.
He got more votes (5.4 million) than any other candidate on the Texas ballot.He also won his race by a larger margin, in both absolute and percentage terms, than any other Democrat.
He collected 1.2 million more votes than Paxton and beat him by 12.3%.By comparison, Hinojosa beat Abbott by about 700,000 votes, with a margi...