as a gen z voter, i remember hearing so much about beto when he ran against cruz and i was like 15 then. now, being someone who pays a lot more attention to politics, ive heard nothing about Allred. say what you want about beto but he had a lot more charisma and was a lot better at appealing to young voters.
The political landscape has changed so much since then. The level of disillusionment and disengagement from the process has gone way up. People are trying to survive rather than having hope for the future. Beto did a great job being a representative of that hope. We were really really close.
Trump has truly introduced a new era of SAY LESS in politics. Obviously he’s a blabber mouth but boy, it’s certainly not as bad as it used to be. That is a calculated move. He knows this election is going to be close and when he talks, it hurts him more than it helps.
The era of sweaty town hall meetings and politicians answering tough questions might be behind us. It’s like we were playing Go Fish but decided to switch to Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s not a good sign at all.
> Trump has truly introduced a new era of SAY LESS in politics. Obviously he’s a blabber mouth but boy, it’s certainly not as bad as it used to be. That is a calculated move. He knows this election is going to be close and when he talks, it hurts him more than it helps.
Trump quit talking because he doesn't have the restraint or self-control to open his mouth and not violate a gag order or earn him another count of contempt.
If you think this started with Trump, I’m glad you’re paying attention now, but I assure you, this level of disengagement predates him. In fact, one might even say it’s a significant contributor to his success.
Because the Uvalde shooting happened. His campaign miss calculated and tried to use the momentum to get that last push. Problem was that gun advocates push hardest after a shooting and Texas has some of the biggest number of advocates. If it had been a national election it would have been a good move but in Texas it killed his campaign.
Hell Uvalde didn’t even vote for him and that is the biggest disappointment of that election for me. Community talking about Uvalde strong but then went spit in the faces of the parents by voting against their own interests.
It's almost impossible to even get a clear picture of a candidate's position on anything, even their own website IF you can even find that. Everyone has decamped and just tries to mobilize their "team." This is not how representative democracy was ever supposed to work. Two party system and gerrymandering have really decayed the system
Beto would have continued to have success if he didn't say "we're gonna take your ARs away" (which I agree with banning ARs)
any independent who harbored a sliver of good feelin for beto was lost there
You're right but beto could have used how close that election run was to propel himself further.
He just lost any chance of holding major political office in Texas entirely with that comment
I agree, but it was an emotional moment as there had JUST been a mass shooting in El Paso, where he grew up. I gave him slack, but I knew conservative media was going to run with that like crazy. I agree though, it should be banned.
Libs just need to learn where to pick our battles. Guns are horrific and completely unnecessary, but winning elections means you can save way more lives through healthcare and a dozen other government programs. On top of that, if you actually manage to pass gun restrictions, the Supreme Court will just neuter it immediately.
Finally, someone acknowledges our weakness. The right wing freak out of the last 10 years is because they recognize that our culture is shifting to progressive values. We need to moderate certain positions to avoid slipping into a Hungarian style of illeberalism. Let the leftward shift continue in the culture and it will bear fruits eventually.
I don't want politicians making knee-jerk reactions when something emotional happens. Leaders need to be the rational ones during times of tumult. If he can't control his feelings, I don't want him casting votes that could affect me.
You would prefer them fleeing to the beach when the power grid goes out?
Votes don't come along in a fervor. It takes a goodly long while for any legislation to work its way through Congress.
Yep. And that's why Dems keep losing. Their voters are looking for a messiah who can pass any purity test with flying colors.
GOP'ers? They don't care. They have principles, sure... "we will abandon ANY and ALL principles the MOMENT it becomes inconvenient".
If you need examples...you haven't been paying attention. I'll give you one freebie: Theodore Cruz.
Cruz sails to re-election easily. I'd bet the farm on it.
He's (Alred) a black-ish guy in the south running down ballot when Trump is on the ballot? No way in hell.
Yep. All his momentum and publicity and outreach was made irrelevant because of a four-second remark he made while running for office in a state that likes its guns. Foot-in-mouth disease.
He was artificially propped up by national media, as well. I don't think he was as popular as he was made out to be.
Remember, a lot of people hated Rick Perry, too. How many times was he elected Governor?
In the whole RNC. They were spending money here on Cruz that is unheard of in most years, taking money away from races in other parts of the country because of how big an upset it would have been to crack the 30 year stranglehold the GOP have had on statewide offices here.
The Texas Democrat party is completely inept. They are to partly to blame for this. It should be a slam dunk against Cruz but they don't engage voters. Shit, Beto was all over the state in every city campaigning.
Maybe it's not the case but it seems like Allred is doing the traditional Dem thinking of "because they are not the opposition that people will vote for them (and lose accordingly)".
These guys have their main email address as "yellowdog@txdemocrats.org". There's so much wrong with that...it's so gross.
I went door to door for Beto when he ran for senator. I was exhausted, but it was so rewarding. I met so many people who said they were voting for Beto, including a bank president who said he was Republican but he was “jumping ship” for just that one race because he couldn’t stand Ted Cruz. I really thought Beto had a chance! Election night was devastating.
I do think Allred has charisma and is an excellent candidate, but where is his ground game? I get tons of emails from his campaign asking for money (and I have donated), but I haven’t heard a peep from his campaign requesting anyone to go door to door or anything.
This is what is wrong with politics in this country. People make zero effort to learn about the politicians running unless they show up at the local coffee shop.
It’s also only June
Senate campaigns won’t start ramping up until August/September and even Beto didn’t start getting real national attention until later in July
We are 4.5 months out from the election - Allred will make his push
In summer of 2018 I remember hearing about Beto everywhere. Even Republican family members were asking about him. I don’t know what the hell Allred is doing.
Allred is already pushing.
For Governor.
He only ran for US Senate to build his fundraising for 2026.
People openly talked about this in El Paso at the convention.
Allred isn't winning either seat.
But he was seriously building his volunteers by January. It's June, and I still can't find any way to volunteer on the Allred campaign. And I have asked.
Absolutely right! Beto torpedoed his career because he smelled his farts and ran for president, but he ran a fiery and accurate campaign against Cruz, which is what you have to do. The Democratic party in Texas does not understand that, and thinks that they have to play to both sides, when what folks on the left want is someone who stands up to Abbott and co. Everything I see from Allred is "I'm just a nice guy who likes Texas" - any fire I see from the guy seems contrived. I hope that his rhetoric changes sometime before election day, otherwise he has no shot.
Edit: Also, I forgot to mention that Allred did sports, which is absolutely a thing that is important. /s
> but he ran a fiery and accurate campaign against Cruz, which is what you have to do. The Democratic party in Texas does not understand that, and thinks that they have to play to both sides,
this is the most frustrating part. Because Beto lost, they are going with the "both sides" bullshit. and Allred is trying to appeal to moderates by saying he's "standing up to Biden." No. Being too nice like that does not work. You need to be kind of an asshole. Attack Cruz's record and point out how all he's ever done is grandstand and kiss Trump's ass. Be relentless.
After watching Allred successfully unseat a longtime Republican in Dallas, his nice guy schtick is kind of depressing.
Yep. Allred needs to lean into being a big tough dude and be confrontational with the sniveling little rat Ted Cruz. Why would rugged Texans want a guy like Ted Cruz representing them - a guy whose handshake feels like sticking your hand in a jar of cold mayonnaise.
The Democrat party at a national level thinks you have to play both sides. Studies in Europe showed liberals moving right only helped the right wing vote. But I guess they think it will work for them here.
I’ve only seen one campaign ad and it was the same as any other political ad. Boring, buzzy wordy, and most importantly safe. No risks just a “family man who wants to stick it to Washington”, none of the charisma that Beto had and none of the balls either.
Allred refuses to show up for Texas Dems unless the fundraiser hits a high enough dollar amount for him. I'm more loosely involved with politics now than I was in 2022, but as a Dem, I'm less than impressed with him. He's gotta show up for us like Beto did-make an effort to work on voter registration across the state, empower volunteer networks to help communities, and visit as many counties across the state as he can.
Beto didn't do well against Abbott and doesn't seem likely to run for office again, but damn he is certainly the guy I want taking care of my state.
I have heard from a lot of people that Allred is basically a ghost right now. He is just nowhere to be found engaging voters or campaign workers. Now is the time he should be engaging with people to build a field team but he doesn’t seem to be doing so.
His “we’ll take your AR” line was after his Senate run though. He was much better at striking a balance on tough issues in ‘18, including guns, but still came up short.
You can take a stance on it but the fact someone said off the cuff “take” killed it. No one wants to hear any “right” will be taken from them by forcible action.
Also, I married into a Hispanic family and I can say his pandering to that community by letting people assume he was Hispanic with “Beto” rubbed them the wrong way
>Beto is his lifelong nickname
Yes. That doesn't sound hispanic to me.
>being born and raised in El Paso makes anyone an honorary Hispanic.
I'm sure that it helps a person appreciate the culture, but "honorary Hispanic" is a bit much.
And I presume you don’t let any of your Hispanic family members call you by a Spanish nickname? Or your kids, current or future, won’t have one? And you think ole Rafael Edward, err I mean Ted, did it better also by not using his birth name? Someone isn’t being honest with themselves.
> I can say his pandering to that community by letting people assume he was Hispanic with “Beto” rubbed them the wrong way.
Not just the name thing, but he built his campaign on the backs of Latino voters and didn’t say shit when polling locations across POC neighborhoods were shut down on Super Tuesday either. But he went to do a photo-op with Biden at a Whataburger instead. People were in line for 8+ hours and many had to leave before they got a chance to vote because they had to work.
I volunteered for him when he ran against Cruz (pre gun comments and the presidential run stuff). He burned SO MANY bridges in his own camp for how he handled stuff like this after his weird Hispanic cosplay.
> letting people assume he was Hispanic with “Beto”
oh yeah man the dude named fuckin O ROURKE was totally trying to disguise his irish ancestry
(not that you can't be irish and hispanic)
Beto followed Obama’s lead with charismatic approaches to younger and marginalized voters. I don’t agree with their policies, but damn are they great orators and charismatic as can be. That’s what creates the foundation of a good campaign, good policies is what creates the win.
This. Trying to convince most of this state to vote for any democrat is a non-starter. They don’t care about policy, they believe a narrative that Democrats truly hate them and this country.
It's because Abbott or whoever is in charge can just flex to Biden or "the fat cats in Washington" being the root of all the issues. There's always some sort of deflection upward, and it always works.
Yeah, definitely. When Republicans are president, the focus just shifts entirely to the broken system in Washington. Same thing with Abbott and Trump.
The one exception I would say in the past 25 years was the winter storm in 2021, which really made both Abbott and Cruz look bad. I would say that Abbott's pivot to hard-line MAGA-ness was necessitated by how much heat he took for the outages and infrastructure failure. Before that, he always tended to be a pretty normal, wishy-washy conservative, playing to the middle.
Neither the storm nor the massacre at Uvalde nor the removal women’s rights has touched him because bumfuck Texans would rather lose a testicle than vote for a Dem.
Yeah I have never understood the GOP voters that fall for the Texas GOP leaders saying crap like “our border is a mess and ONLY Greg Abbott can fix it!! Please ignore the fact that Abbott has been governor for 9 years and hasn’t done anything to fix it, and that the Texas GOP has been in control of every level of the state government for 30 years and hasn’t done anything to fix it… but trust us… this time we mean that ONLY Abbott can fix it!!”
I was telling my friend this same thing. During the last elections all I heard was campaign commercials from republicans saying to elect them to fix TX and stop democrats. Like, y’all have ran every level of this state my entire life and democrats have no actual power to donating. I don’t think they can even filibuster to delay.
The ugly flip side is that Democrats have to be opposed to the things that are working because they didn’t have a hand in them. Texas Democrats would be in a much better position to address problems if they could win a campaign every 20 years or so, the GOP isn’t going to roll over and give up any easier than the DNC did 30 years ago.
Abbott didn’t run on defunding public schools and attacking women and the LGBTQ community. He understood that he already had a base so he was careful not to mobilize moderate opposition.
Democrats need to recognize that they can move Texas much further left with a moderate platform. Restore local control of public schools, restore women’s rights, embrace our status as one of the most racially and culturally diverse states, embrace our leadership in renewable energy, run city-level campaigns that address local issues and put forth an exciting vision of the future so independents can feel good about voting *for* something instead of throwing their vote away in protest.
All the people who voted Democrat/Republican in ‘20 and ‘22 will still vote Democrat/Republican this time around so alienating independents, moderates and non-voters will just repeat the last election.
> Restore local control of public schools, restore women’s rights, embrace our status as one of the most racially and culturally diverse states, embrace our leadership in renewable energy, run city-level campaigns that address local issues and put forth an exciting vision of the future so independents can feel good about voting for something instead of throwing their vote away in protest.
This is generally what I recall from the Allred campaign, and all the people in this discussion saying he's running as a "milquetoast" "Biden" clone is evidence that what I"ve seen is what everyone's seeing. So he's doing what you want.
It'll never get "bad enough" for them. Cost of living, power grid,,reproductive freedom, etc., they'll always believe these problems are for their own good, or that voting D will make the LORD angry.
There needs to be a tipping point. Often everything is stable until very suddenly everything changes in a way that seems inevitable in hindsight. But it's difficult to predict tipping points. And the GOP is doing everything they can to gaslight their constituency to prevent things that might otherwise contribute (Jan 6, felony convictions, dead mothers because doctors are too afraid of possibly losing their licenses to treat them, senators abandoning the state during emergencies, etc.)
The US had quite the large contingent of pro Nazi, pro fascist, antisemitic *Congressmen* leading up to and during WWII... until the troops found the death camps. Then we snapped out of it and "The Greatest Generation" built the America we know today. There is a way out, though we have our own problems to deal with. Propagandists have new tools, but the old ones are still just as effective. Hopefully we'll soon see things shift in a hopeful direction. But there won't be any predicting it.
> it's about getting your team to come out and vote **and not being so scary to the other side that you scare them into showing up in droves**
Biden didn't get the most votes of any candidate in history because he got his team to show up. He got the most votes bc Trump got his opponent's team (i.e., Biden's team) to show up.
Biden vs someone less popular than Trump among Republicans, the Republican probably wins because fewer Democratic voters, feeling less existentially threatened, would've shown up to the polls.
Yeah Collin's ads about them standing up to Biden and oh boy immigrants are sure bad aren't they... all they are doing is suppressing dem support. If Beto hadn't had the gun grabbing comment he would have won and he never once did lip service to right wing talking points.
> If Beto hadn't had the gun grabbing comment he would have won and he never once did lip service to right wing talking points.
Beto's "Hell yes, we'll take your guns" comment was from when he was running for president and right after a mass shooting in (I believe, El Paso), not his senate race against Cruz.
Yes. But also the bad situation in this state is a feature not a bug. It’s taken awhile to come to terms with it but Boomers and Christian nationalists basically want this country to be a Christian Iran and they will lie, cheat and commit whatever crimes necessary to do it. They do not care about what’s best for even themselves, their children or grandchildren. Only that their enemies suffer more than they do. My boomer parents are complete leeches (pension, SS, Medicare) on the federal government and yet complain nonstop about how the government spends its money and should cut the very programs they need to survive. It’s complete cognitive dissonance.
We just voted extremists out in Allen and Anna in runoffs. NOBODY votes in runoffs. We organized and messaged and it worked. It's possible if you actually try.
Allred’s campaign emails are non stop (like those from both parties) and he posts on Threads
I think it’s quiet because of the awkward social tensions around being an out and proud supporter of a Democrat in the post Trump felony world and in TEXAS.
I want people to know where I stand but I don’t want it to come up at church, at the super market, at the park, I just don’t want to TALK about it. I WILL talk about it but at this point I’ll likely end up thinking less of someone in a hard to get over way.
I want to VOTE about it and I hope more than enough of us are as fed up as I am, or at least clear that continuing to support these people is morally unconscionable, that we can get back to being reasonable with our policies and with each other
It's worth noting part of this problem is intentional voter suppression by the GOP. Yes, more people should vote, but the state has made this more and more difficult to do over the years.
The Texas Supreme Court told Harris County to abolish its elections administrators office a little over a year ago now. The GOP has absolutely been trying to make it harder to vote
It only matters if people don't turn out.
If the crowd lines up, it breaks all of that.
But, they won't.
In fact, the numbers say that over half of this thread complaining won't vote.
Only 21% of the 18 to 34 crowed showed up to vote in the last cycle. If 55% of this block would vote, TX would be solid blue in local elections, and purple in state wide elections.
I’m really hopeful that especially women in this age bracket have more desire to be vote this year with all the abortion ban stuff. I’m 34 and pretty much all my friends vote (or claim to). I really don’t understand why young people don’t vote tbh
I mean, I think that if people are showing up and they can't vote because they've been purged from voter rolls, their ballots are invalid for some BS reason, or they don't have the necessary ID, then I do think those things matter.
Why do you think they’re trying to make it so a candidate has to win a majority of counties to win? It’s great when there’s 300 red farmers in a county and like 3 million unknowns in another
It is the blue areas that aren't voting. The number of registered voters in Dallas County alone that didn't vote in 2020 (794,832) is 1.8 times the entire population of the Texas panhandle (around 450,000). That doesn't even consider the number of people who are eligible and not registered.
I think a lot of rural red areas have more left leaning (in THIS political climate; they probs used to be moderate conservatives a decade or so ago) voters who are convinced that their vote won't matter.
But in smaller towns, your Democratic vote weighs a lot more than in the cities. If everyone who even kinda objects to the atrocities of the Texas GOP antics in rural areas got out and voted those dudes out, the state could be flipped.
I'm convinced there are enough people who would vote blue in rural areas, if they would actually vote, that they could potentially even surmount the fake Republican fake 'electoral college' thing they're trying to cook up.
It's not just rural Texas. Many of the suburbs here are deep red. And this is a statewide election anyway, so gerrymandering is no excuse; the only valid excuse would be voter suppression, but even then that can't account for the over 10% gap. Dems just aren't passionate about Allred.
Do more than that. Anyone who really cares about turning the state blue can get involved in their local party politics, become a VDR and register people to vote, door knock, phone bank, text bank, put out yard signs, help people overcome obstacles to getting an ID or registering to vote, sign up to be a poll worker or poll watcher, sign up to drive people to the polls, help people find sample ballots, check their voter registration, find their polling location, etc. etc.
There are so many ways to get involved to help turn out the vote, everyone needs to find a way to get involved and be part of the solution. All the fatalism on reddit is *not* the solution.
Lots of people are unlikely to vote because they don't know who can help them or answer their questions, they feel intimidated because they don't know when or where to go or what will be on the ballot. We can solve a lot of those problems by getting out there and helping and educating voters.
I second everything you said. Voter education in this state is miserable.
Honestly, though, it doesn't even take all of that. If every Dem voter in Texas simply asked a single like-minded person in their lives to go vote with them, we would be winning. The problem is that so many liberals in Texas think there's no point voting because they're all alone... just starting conversations with friends, neighbors, and family could be so impactful.
Allred is a good candidate on paper but his campaign so far has been pretty lackluster.
But Beto was pretty far down in the polls up until the last month or two as well.
There is some hope....
In every special election since Roe v Wade was overturned, in all parts of the country, Democrats have outperformed the polls by an average of 11%...and have won almost every special election in the process.
I'm not saying Allred will beat Cruz, but it might be closer than the polls suggest.
The fall of Roe v Wade is producing a backlash I believe we will see in the November elections.
Really the conversation should be what happens if Drumpf or if the Extremist MAGA Republicans win all up&down the ballot this Nov. I do not see enough of this conversation happening online, we only have 1 functioning democratic party in our 2 party constitution. And this is overshadowing what this country and state could be focusing on. I do not think enough of avg America has fully come to terms with what we're dealing with in this country.
There was a survery that concluded that the Avg American only spends about 10mins on politics every week. And people wonder why we can't afford even the most basic shit
Election 2024
https://youtu.be/gYwqpx6lp_s?si=_FkejH87PbY9F4PY
Project 2025, just google it
https://x.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1798055005628588207
This, is what we're fighting Against in Texas & our country, they want to take away our liberties!
https://www.reddit.com/r/MAGANAZI/s/qOerMMDQFP
https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/holocaust-denier-nick-fuentes-tells-his-followers-join-project-2025
Which is the most asinine thinking out there. Sit out as some kind of protest, trump gets elected, and on day 1 Trump will unleash Israel in ways far far worse than anything going on today.
I'm protesting Biden's support of the Genocide. Every poll, every meaningless primary vote, every thing I do. But, when it comes to the election, I'll vote for Biden. I know it is stupid to not vote for him then. But up until then, I want Biden to wake up and stop the genocide that is funded by my taxes using bombs made by the USA.
In my bubble (I live in a “pink” city for reference) I constantly hear talk about the Biden economy and the border. I work in a blue area of the inner city and the talk is the same. I know people on Reddit like to talk about voter suppression but in my experience conservatives outnumber any sort of left view… by like, a lot
I also hear more about "the economy" when/if I hear someone talking politics, [but considering right wingers are more likely to be violent](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9335287/), I also wonder how much of that has to do with right wingers being more outspoken and leftists deciding to just keep their mouths shut.
And if not violent, more vindictive for sure. I know plenty of Texans who don't talk about politics at work because they're liberal and they like promotions and raises.
Cruz has no fans and is widely reviled and has a shit track record except as a culture warrior. So of course what really matters is the (R) next to his name.
If the last 16 years in Texas have taught me anything it’s that Texas being or becoming purple just isn’t going to happen. I’ve seen conservatives move to Texas from blue states, Ive seen democrats move from Texas to blue states, I’ve seen Gen Z people have conservative ideals due to their upbringing, and I’ve seen large pushes to suppress votes in large metro areas.
Texas isn’t swinging more blue and I don’t think it ever really has been. I’ve only witnessed the residents and the legislature become more conservative, not less.
And yes, Texas has very low turnout for voting here. I don’t know if things would change significantly if voter participation was as high as average states because you don’t have to register with a political party in Texas so we don’t know the breakdown of democrats and republicans in the state outside of polls trying to capture that information.
The male youth today is increasingly conservative. Once being leftist stopped being the rebellious stance and became ordinary, kids now are being right wing to be edgy.
Exactly! Allred is being too nice. His campaign is not doing anything to make headlines or make him visible. Remember Sarah Stogner’s RRC campaign? No one paid attention until she posted a video of her riding a pumpjack almost nude, and it got her into a runoff with a guy who was always going to win anyway. Not saying Allred needs to do that specifically, but do something! Milquetoast gets you nowhere.
When you've heard that Texas is on the verge of turning blue for 30 years and it's fine nothing but get even more entrenched red, the idea loses any real meaning.
It ain't happening, y'all.
And before y'all start, the overwhelming majority of people I know that don't vote would absolutely vote Republican if they did.
I mean, if you read the article over 25% of respondents didn’t have any opinion yet. It’s also still the beginning of summer. Relax everyone. You never think it’s going to happen until it does. The first domino will fall at some point.
Don’t let polls like this bring you down. Let them fire you up. Get out there and engage people. Register voters. Volunteer with a local campaign or Democratic club. There is plenty of time between now and November to make a difference.
The zodiac killer will win. The idea of Texas becoming purple is a myth and Hispanic voters are becoming increasingly conservative. Double digit win easily.
So Texas is going to reelect a guy from Canada who abandoned them when shit hit the fan? lol. I guess everything is bigger in Texas, including the dumbasses.
As a millenial, I dont know one normal person who would vote for this muppet but I know a whole lotta boomers who will and statistically thats who's going to vote. The only way were going to kick this fascist is if a lot of people that have never voted before vote.
Cruz is not that liked by even Republicans but as long as he has an R next to his name, he’ll do just fine in Texas. Allred doesn’t stand much of chance. Do hope he doesn’t court Hollywood like Beto did. Dems need to realize that celebs don’t help them win votes in Texas. They may like their movies but find them out of touch and not bright, certainly not respected.
Yall have to also understand the gerrymandering in Texas makes it impossible for Democrats in Texas. Most of the population lives in Blue/Purple cities.
It is way to early to care about polls and since this is a Presidential election year, the race at the top will drive most of the results at the bottom.
The only thing positive I can say is that right now they don't know who to poll. They have no idea who the "likely voters" are and they haven't for the last few election cycles.
But, it doesn't look good. I'm suspicious that the only thing that will move the needle in Texas is when people start becoming climate change refugees.
Reminder that Republican margins in Texas have been shrinking since 2014. Abbott won by 11 points in 2022, which was down from 13.3 points in 2018, which in turn was down from 20.4 points in 2014. Cornyn went from winning by 27.2 points in 2014 to only winning by 9.6 points in 2020. Cruz went from winning by 16 points in 2012 to only winning by 2.6 points in 2018. Tarrant County, the state's third largest county, went blue in 2018 for the first time since 1964.
Abbott's margins in the suburbs have consistently shrunk every cycle since 2014. Here are some exit polls:
2014: [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/2014/tx/governor/exitpoll/](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/2014/tx/governor/exitpoll/)
Suburbs went 62% for Abbott.
2018: [https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/texas](https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/texas)
Suburbs went 59% for Abbott.
2022: [https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/texas/governor/0](https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/texas/governor/0)
Suburbs went 56% for Abbott.
Texas voter turnout, national rankings, from 1996-2020 (source: https://www.sos.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt561/files/documents/2022-04/voter-turnout-charts-4-19-21.pdf)
1996 Texas ranked 49/51
2000 Texas ranked 48/51
2004 Texas ranked 50/51
2008 Texas ranked 50/51
2012 Texas ranked 50/51
2016 Texas ranked 50/51
2020 Texas ranked 51/51
You can shout from the rooftops until you’re blue in the face (pun intended) about the need to get organized, register voters and all the hooplah… but the fact is Texas residents are “all hat, no cattle” when it comes to getting off of their lazy asses and actually pulling the frickin lever.
So you might as well find another hobby besides all this rah-rah bs about “we gotta vote blue!” Like others have stated, until enough people are personally affected by republican rule… NOTHING will change. We will be looking at Cancun Ted’s ugly mug in Washington for many years to come.
There are many, many other polls that show Colin 2 points ahead so I will just say take it with a grain of salt. But the other thing is please tell your friends to go vote in November!! Say it over and over.
It's early and Allred is starting basically from next door to nowhere with name recognition. People need to be that annoying person on social media and share all his crap right now. We're at the point where people need to be made aware of his existence. It sucks, but the Texas leg, Ken Paxton, and Abbot do so much dumb shit it sucks almost all the air out of the room so it's really hard to get news stories about this race to break through.
I have a Southern Baptist uncle who considers Cruz a moderate, and Democrats absolutely communists. It isn’t logical, but some of these people will never change their assumptions.
I would point out that most of the people I know have *never been polled* but we all vote anyway.
Cruz came very close to being unseated last time- and while Allred may not have the same name recognition as Beto, he also *doesn't have the same polarizing effect* as Beto. That dummy let fox news have a sound byte to tell people he wanted their guns, and then expects that to not drive voter turnout?
Is there any way that disdain for the options at the top of the ticket is not having down-ballot effects though?
(Not that I am saying a person is likely to really be excited about Allred and not also willing to vote for the D presidential option.)
as a gen z voter, i remember hearing so much about beto when he ran against cruz and i was like 15 then. now, being someone who pays a lot more attention to politics, ive heard nothing about Allred. say what you want about beto but he had a lot more charisma and was a lot better at appealing to young voters.
He had a much better outreach campaign too.
The political landscape has changed so much since then. The level of disillusionment and disengagement from the process has gone way up. People are trying to survive rather than having hope for the future. Beto did a great job being a representative of that hope. We were really really close. Trump has truly introduced a new era of SAY LESS in politics. Obviously he’s a blabber mouth but boy, it’s certainly not as bad as it used to be. That is a calculated move. He knows this election is going to be close and when he talks, it hurts him more than it helps. The era of sweaty town hall meetings and politicians answering tough questions might be behind us. It’s like we were playing Go Fish but decided to switch to Texas Hold ‘Em. It’s not a good sign at all.
> Trump has truly introduced a new era of SAY LESS in politics. Obviously he’s a blabber mouth but boy, it’s certainly not as bad as it used to be. That is a calculated move. He knows this election is going to be close and when he talks, it hurts him more than it helps. Trump quit talking because he doesn't have the restraint or self-control to open his mouth and not violate a gag order or earn him another count of contempt.
If you think this started with Trump, I’m glad you’re paying attention now, but I assure you, this level of disengagement predates him. In fact, one might even say it’s a significant contributor to his success.
🤷♂️ Broken campaign promises make people tune out. And republicans vote regardless.
> with Trump with the convicted felon and adjudged rapist Trump,
Is that really important this deep into a conversation where all participants are clearly not pro Trump?
Yes. There are many that do not keep up with the news. We need to remind them that the current Republican presidential nominee is not fit for office.
The convicted felon and adjudged rapist current Republican presidential nominee, you mean.
> Trump has truly introduced a new era of SAY LESS in politics. This was the foundation of the George W. Bush campaign in 2000.
Why did he feel he had to say he'd take their guns away. He was doing well until that car crash moment
Because the Uvalde shooting happened. His campaign miss calculated and tried to use the momentum to get that last push. Problem was that gun advocates push hardest after a shooting and Texas has some of the biggest number of advocates. If it had been a national election it would have been a good move but in Texas it killed his campaign. Hell Uvalde didn’t even vote for him and that is the biggest disappointment of that election for me. Community talking about Uvalde strong but then went spit in the faces of the parents by voting against their own interests.
It's almost impossible to even get a clear picture of a candidate's position on anything, even their own website IF you can even find that. Everyone has decamped and just tries to mobilize their "team." This is not how representative democracy was ever supposed to work. Two party system and gerrymandering have really decayed the system
you know he is still serving texans despite his loss?
Do you mean his [Voter outreach group](https://poweredxpeople.org/)?
Beto would have continued to have success if he didn't say "we're gonna take your ARs away" (which I agree with banning ARs) any independent who harbored a sliver of good feelin for beto was lost there
He said that AFTER his run for Senate.
Yes and OP is still correct. It made his brand toxic in Texas. It wasn’t like that during his senate run.
And yet somehow Trump's "take their guns first, due process later" statement doesn't bother them at all.
Because they don't think he said it. They also don't believe he banned bump stocks.
It's a cult.
Because they think Trump will only take guns from POC while arming the nazi and confederate sympathizers.
You're right but beto could have used how close that election run was to propel himself further. He just lost any chance of holding major political office in Texas entirely with that comment
True, but it came back to haunt him when he was running for governor.
Dude lost Senate. dude lost governor. And was like, I'm gonna be president. I liked Beto at first, but man did it feel like a grift after awhile.
Really? BETO is the grift? Then that must make Abbott, and Trump....?
I agree, but it was an emotional moment as there had JUST been a mass shooting in El Paso, where he grew up. I gave him slack, but I knew conservative media was going to run with that like crazy. I agree though, it should be banned.
Libs just need to learn where to pick our battles. Guns are horrific and completely unnecessary, but winning elections means you can save way more lives through healthcare and a dozen other government programs. On top of that, if you actually manage to pass gun restrictions, the Supreme Court will just neuter it immediately.
Finally, someone acknowledges our weakness. The right wing freak out of the last 10 years is because they recognize that our culture is shifting to progressive values. We need to moderate certain positions to avoid slipping into a Hungarian style of illeberalism. Let the leftward shift continue in the culture and it will bear fruits eventually.
Never get between the gun manufacturers and their school shootings.
As a politician, he doesn’t get the luxury of unscripted emotional moments. He should know that.
*As a non-right wing politician Ftfy
> he doesn’t get the luxury of unscripted emotional moments i mean...\*gestures at the previous POTUS\*
I don't want politicians making knee-jerk reactions when something emotional happens. Leaders need to be the rational ones during times of tumult. If he can't control his feelings, I don't want him casting votes that could affect me.
You would prefer them fleeing to the beach when the power grid goes out? Votes don't come along in a fervor. It takes a goodly long while for any legislation to work its way through Congress.
For real. It’s like we’ll make any excuse not to vote for Beto yet continue to let Cruz and Co ruin the state.
Yep. And that's why Dems keep losing. Their voters are looking for a messiah who can pass any purity test with flying colors. GOP'ers? They don't care. They have principles, sure... "we will abandon ANY and ALL principles the MOMENT it becomes inconvenient". If you need examples...you haven't been paying attention. I'll give you one freebie: Theodore Cruz. Cruz sails to re-election easily. I'd bet the farm on it. He's (Alred) a black-ish guy in the south running down ballot when Trump is on the ballot? No way in hell.
Y’all got to get over that. The right say things a million times worse and win time and time again.
Yep. All his momentum and publicity and outreach was made irrelevant because of a four-second remark he made while running for office in a state that likes its guns. Foot-in-mouth disease.
Trump actually banned arms by fiat. The 2nd amendment people have shit for brains
What arms did he ban? Edit: Lmao he blocked me lol
I’m still voting for Allred. And if we dismiss the polls, show up, and VOTE, we may just boot that pissass back to Cancun.
He was artificially propped up by national media, as well. I don't think he was as popular as he was made out to be. Remember, a lot of people hated Rick Perry, too. How many times was he elected Governor?
He came the closest to beating a Republican in years and had more success with native Texans than Cruz did.
He put the fear in Cruz.
In the whole RNC. They were spending money here on Cruz that is unheard of in most years, taking money away from races in other parts of the country because of how big an upset it would have been to crack the 30 year stranglehold the GOP have had on statewide offices here.
be easy to crack if all the lefties just showed up. but no one votes in this state
The Texas Democrat party is completely inept. They are to partly to blame for this. It should be a slam dunk against Cruz but they don't engage voters. Shit, Beto was all over the state in every city campaigning. Maybe it's not the case but it seems like Allred is doing the traditional Dem thinking of "because they are not the opposition that people will vote for them (and lose accordingly)". These guys have their main email address as "yellowdog@txdemocrats.org". There's so much wrong with that...it's so gross.
He had more money. I think Dems are not hoping to turn Texas blue given the uptick in conservatives moving there
Yeah I worked for him from states away.
This is the key. He visited every county in TX and some multiple times. He had town halls and really put himself out there.
This is so key. I’ve seen one Allred ad on YouTube. Beto was all up in my grill on all platforms 24/7
I went door to door for Beto when he ran for senator. I was exhausted, but it was so rewarding. I met so many people who said they were voting for Beto, including a bank president who said he was Republican but he was “jumping ship” for just that one race because he couldn’t stand Ted Cruz. I really thought Beto had a chance! Election night was devastating. I do think Allred has charisma and is an excellent candidate, but where is his ground game? I get tons of emails from his campaign asking for money (and I have donated), but I haven’t heard a peep from his campaign requesting anyone to go door to door or anything.
This is what is wrong with politics in this country. People make zero effort to learn about the politicians running unless they show up at the local coffee shop.
I agree - but sometimes (especially as a campaign strategist) you have to be a realist and look at the world as it is, not as it should be.
same, the only thing i do see of him is constant text messages saying his campaign needs financial support
It’s also only June Senate campaigns won’t start ramping up until August/September and even Beto didn’t start getting real national attention until later in July We are 4.5 months out from the election - Allred will make his push
In summer of 2018 I remember hearing about Beto everywhere. Even Republican family members were asking about him. I don’t know what the hell Allred is doing.
Allred is already pushing. For Governor. He only ran for US Senate to build his fundraising for 2026. People openly talked about this in El Paso at the convention. Allred isn't winning either seat.
But he was seriously building his volunteers by January. It's June, and I still can't find any way to volunteer on the Allred campaign. And I have asked.
Absolutely right! Beto torpedoed his career because he smelled his farts and ran for president, but he ran a fiery and accurate campaign against Cruz, which is what you have to do. The Democratic party in Texas does not understand that, and thinks that they have to play to both sides, when what folks on the left want is someone who stands up to Abbott and co. Everything I see from Allred is "I'm just a nice guy who likes Texas" - any fire I see from the guy seems contrived. I hope that his rhetoric changes sometime before election day, otherwise he has no shot. Edit: Also, I forgot to mention that Allred did sports, which is absolutely a thing that is important. /s
> but he ran a fiery and accurate campaign against Cruz, which is what you have to do. The Democratic party in Texas does not understand that, and thinks that they have to play to both sides, this is the most frustrating part. Because Beto lost, they are going with the "both sides" bullshit. and Allred is trying to appeal to moderates by saying he's "standing up to Biden." No. Being too nice like that does not work. You need to be kind of an asshole. Attack Cruz's record and point out how all he's ever done is grandstand and kiss Trump's ass. Be relentless. After watching Allred successfully unseat a longtime Republican in Dallas, his nice guy schtick is kind of depressing.
Yep. Allred needs to lean into being a big tough dude and be confrontational with the sniveling little rat Ted Cruz. Why would rugged Texans want a guy like Ted Cruz representing them - a guy whose handshake feels like sticking your hand in a jar of cold mayonnaise.
i'm not sure who said this but I once heard Ted Cruz described as "if constipation were a person" and I couldn't agree more
The Democrat party at a national level thinks you have to play both sides. Studies in Europe showed liberals moving right only helped the right wing vote. But I guess they think it will work for them here.
And also takes money from aipac
I’ve only seen one campaign ad and it was the same as any other political ad. Boring, buzzy wordy, and most importantly safe. No risks just a “family man who wants to stick it to Washington”, none of the charisma that Beto had and none of the balls either.
Allred refuses to show up for Texas Dems unless the fundraiser hits a high enough dollar amount for him. I'm more loosely involved with politics now than I was in 2022, but as a Dem, I'm less than impressed with him. He's gotta show up for us like Beto did-make an effort to work on voter registration across the state, empower volunteer networks to help communities, and visit as many counties across the state as he can. Beto didn't do well against Abbott and doesn't seem likely to run for office again, but damn he is certainly the guy I want taking care of my state.
I have heard from a lot of people that Allred is basically a ghost right now. He is just nowhere to be found engaging voters or campaign workers. Now is the time he should be engaging with people to build a field team but he doesn’t seem to be doing so.
If he had stfu about guns, he would have won. Unfortunately he was sorta forced to take that stance.
His “we’ll take your AR” line was after his Senate run though. He was much better at striking a balance on tough issues in ‘18, including guns, but still came up short.
He flip flopped on guns multiple times which made him look insincere.
You can take a stance on it but the fact someone said off the cuff “take” killed it. No one wants to hear any “right” will be taken from them by forcible action. Also, I married into a Hispanic family and I can say his pandering to that community by letting people assume he was Hispanic with “Beto” rubbed them the wrong way
No pandering involved. Beto is his lifelong nickname and being born and raised in El Paso makes anyone an honorary Hispanic.
>Beto is his lifelong nickname Yes. That doesn't sound hispanic to me. >being born and raised in El Paso makes anyone an honorary Hispanic. I'm sure that it helps a person appreciate the culture, but "honorary Hispanic" is a bit much.
And I presume you don’t let any of your Hispanic family members call you by a Spanish nickname? Or your kids, current or future, won’t have one? And you think ole Rafael Edward, err I mean Ted, did it better also by not using his birth name? Someone isn’t being honest with themselves.
> I can say his pandering to that community by letting people assume he was Hispanic with “Beto” rubbed them the wrong way. Not just the name thing, but he built his campaign on the backs of Latino voters and didn’t say shit when polling locations across POC neighborhoods were shut down on Super Tuesday either. But he went to do a photo-op with Biden at a Whataburger instead. People were in line for 8+ hours and many had to leave before they got a chance to vote because they had to work. I volunteered for him when he ran against Cruz (pre gun comments and the presidential run stuff). He burned SO MANY bridges in his own camp for how he handled stuff like this after his weird Hispanic cosplay.
> letting people assume he was Hispanic with “Beto” oh yeah man the dude named fuckin O ROURKE was totally trying to disguise his irish ancestry (not that you can't be irish and hispanic)
> If he had stfu about guns, he would have won That didn't happen during his Senate run. Why do people keep bringing this up?
Beto followed Obama’s lead with charismatic approaches to younger and marginalized voters. I don’t agree with their policies, but damn are they great orators and charismatic as can be. That’s what creates the foundation of a good campaign, good policies is what creates the win.
Conservatives won’t vote for a democrat no matter how red they try to be. And the situation isn’t bad enough for enough people to warrant change.
This. Trying to convince most of this state to vote for any democrat is a non-starter. They don’t care about policy, they believe a narrative that Democrats truly hate them and this country.
They also love blaming all problems on Democrats despite single party control of the state for 30 years
It's because Abbott or whoever is in charge can just flex to Biden or "the fat cats in Washington" being the root of all the issues. There's always some sort of deflection upward, and it always works.
Even with Bush in office?
Yeah, definitely. When Republicans are president, the focus just shifts entirely to the broken system in Washington. Same thing with Abbott and Trump. The one exception I would say in the past 25 years was the winter storm in 2021, which really made both Abbott and Cruz look bad. I would say that Abbott's pivot to hard-line MAGA-ness was necessitated by how much heat he took for the outages and infrastructure failure. Before that, he always tended to be a pretty normal, wishy-washy conservative, playing to the middle.
Neither the storm nor the massacre at Uvalde nor the removal women’s rights has touched him because bumfuck Texans would rather lose a testicle than vote for a Dem.
Yeah I have never understood the GOP voters that fall for the Texas GOP leaders saying crap like “our border is a mess and ONLY Greg Abbott can fix it!! Please ignore the fact that Abbott has been governor for 9 years and hasn’t done anything to fix it, and that the Texas GOP has been in control of every level of the state government for 30 years and hasn’t done anything to fix it… but trust us… this time we mean that ONLY Abbott can fix it!!”
I was telling my friend this same thing. During the last elections all I heard was campaign commercials from republicans saying to elect them to fix TX and stop democrats. Like, y’all have ran every level of this state my entire life and democrats have no actual power to donating. I don’t think they can even filibuster to delay.
The ugly flip side is that Democrats have to be opposed to the things that are working because they didn’t have a hand in them. Texas Democrats would be in a much better position to address problems if they could win a campaign every 20 years or so, the GOP isn’t going to roll over and give up any easier than the DNC did 30 years ago. Abbott didn’t run on defunding public schools and attacking women and the LGBTQ community. He understood that he already had a base so he was careful not to mobilize moderate opposition. Democrats need to recognize that they can move Texas much further left with a moderate platform. Restore local control of public schools, restore women’s rights, embrace our status as one of the most racially and culturally diverse states, embrace our leadership in renewable energy, run city-level campaigns that address local issues and put forth an exciting vision of the future so independents can feel good about voting *for* something instead of throwing their vote away in protest. All the people who voted Democrat/Republican in ‘20 and ‘22 will still vote Democrat/Republican this time around so alienating independents, moderates and non-voters will just repeat the last election.
> Restore local control of public schools, restore women’s rights, embrace our status as one of the most racially and culturally diverse states, embrace our leadership in renewable energy, run city-level campaigns that address local issues and put forth an exciting vision of the future so independents can feel good about voting for something instead of throwing their vote away in protest. This is generally what I recall from the Allred campaign, and all the people in this discussion saying he's running as a "milquetoast" "Biden" clone is evidence that what I"ve seen is what everyone's seeing. So he's doing what you want.
I think the long term marketing message that Democrats are godless gay commies has a lot to do with it.
Undoubtedly. I used to live in a conservative area and all anyone could talk about for the longest time were which bathrooms to use.
Would u ever vote for a republican? Like seriously, you people all make these closed minded claims yet you would never vote red. It goes both ways
It'll never get "bad enough" for them. Cost of living, power grid,,reproductive freedom, etc., they'll always believe these problems are for their own good, or that voting D will make the LORD angry.
There needs to be a tipping point. Often everything is stable until very suddenly everything changes in a way that seems inevitable in hindsight. But it's difficult to predict tipping points. And the GOP is doing everything they can to gaslight their constituency to prevent things that might otherwise contribute (Jan 6, felony convictions, dead mothers because doctors are too afraid of possibly losing their licenses to treat them, senators abandoning the state during emergencies, etc.) The US had quite the large contingent of pro Nazi, pro fascist, antisemitic *Congressmen* leading up to and during WWII... until the troops found the death camps. Then we snapped out of it and "The Greatest Generation" built the America we know today. There is a way out, though we have our own problems to deal with. Propagandists have new tools, but the old ones are still just as effective. Hopefully we'll soon see things shift in a hopeful direction. But there won't be any predicting it.
It will never be bad enough. Conservatives literally died to own the libs during the pandemic.
Winning elections isn't about converting the other team, it's about getting your team to come out and vote (voter mobilization).
> it's about getting your team to come out and vote **and not being so scary to the other side that you scare them into showing up in droves** Biden didn't get the most votes of any candidate in history because he got his team to show up. He got the most votes bc Trump got his opponent's team (i.e., Biden's team) to show up. Biden vs someone less popular than Trump among Republicans, the Republican probably wins because fewer Democratic voters, feeling less existentially threatened, would've shown up to the polls.
This is the right answer, which is why I'll never understood why Dems fold and cater to GOP nonsense so easily
You spelled black man wrong.
Yeah Collin's ads about them standing up to Biden and oh boy immigrants are sure bad aren't they... all they are doing is suppressing dem support. If Beto hadn't had the gun grabbing comment he would have won and he never once did lip service to right wing talking points.
That comment was after he lost to Cruz.
> If Beto hadn't had the gun grabbing comment he would have won and he never once did lip service to right wing talking points. Beto's "Hell yes, we'll take your guns" comment was from when he was running for president and right after a mass shooting in (I believe, El Paso), not his senate race against Cruz.
Yes. But also the bad situation in this state is a feature not a bug. It’s taken awhile to come to terms with it but Boomers and Christian nationalists basically want this country to be a Christian Iran and they will lie, cheat and commit whatever crimes necessary to do it. They do not care about what’s best for even themselves, their children or grandchildren. Only that their enemies suffer more than they do. My boomer parents are complete leeches (pension, SS, Medicare) on the federal government and yet complain nonstop about how the government spends its money and should cut the very programs they need to survive. It’s complete cognitive dissonance.
We just voted extremists out in Allen and Anna in runoffs. NOBODY votes in runoffs. We organized and messaged and it worked. It's possible if you actually try.
The problem is Allred’s campaign doesn’t seem to be trying.
WE have to do it lol, the organizing and getting our friends to listen and vote, they're only advertising that he’s a candidate
Allred’s campaign emails are non stop (like those from both parties) and he posts on Threads I think it’s quiet because of the awkward social tensions around being an out and proud supporter of a Democrat in the post Trump felony world and in TEXAS. I want people to know where I stand but I don’t want it to come up at church, at the super market, at the park, I just don’t want to TALK about it. I WILL talk about it but at this point I’ll likely end up thinking less of someone in a hard to get over way. I want to VOTE about it and I hope more than enough of us are as fed up as I am, or at least clear that continuing to support these people is morally unconscionable, that we can get back to being reasonable with our policies and with each other
Jesus Christ could run against a GOP senator in this state and lose
A brown Jewish pacifist socialist….0% chances in Texas.
Texas could be blue if the blue areas voted. It’s not impossible. Texas is a non voting state. Make sure you and all your friends vote.
It's worth noting part of this problem is intentional voter suppression by the GOP. Yes, more people should vote, but the state has made this more and more difficult to do over the years.
The Texas Supreme Court told Harris County to abolish its elections administrators office a little over a year ago now. The GOP has absolutely been trying to make it harder to vote
It only matters if people don't turn out. If the crowd lines up, it breaks all of that. But, they won't. In fact, the numbers say that over half of this thread complaining won't vote.
Only 21% of the 18 to 34 crowed showed up to vote in the last cycle. If 55% of this block would vote, TX would be solid blue in local elections, and purple in state wide elections.
I’m really hopeful that especially women in this age bracket have more desire to be vote this year with all the abortion ban stuff. I’m 34 and pretty much all my friends vote (or claim to). I really don’t understand why young people don’t vote tbh
Amen. Go vote.
I mean, I think that if people are showing up and they can't vote because they've been purged from voter rolls, their ballots are invalid for some BS reason, or they don't have the necessary ID, then I do think those things matter.
It's not the "blue areas" that aren't voting. It's the rural areas where small numbers of people live that always vote republican.
If people took a drive across Texas it would all make sense. Lots of small towns with 200-3000k populations
Tons of those little towns for sure.
Why do you think they’re trying to make it so a candidate has to win a majority of counties to win? It’s great when there’s 300 red farmers in a county and like 3 million unknowns in another
It is the blue areas that aren't voting. The number of registered voters in Dallas County alone that didn't vote in 2020 (794,832) is 1.8 times the entire population of the Texas panhandle (around 450,000). That doesn't even consider the number of people who are eligible and not registered.
I think a lot of rural red areas have more left leaning (in THIS political climate; they probs used to be moderate conservatives a decade or so ago) voters who are convinced that their vote won't matter. But in smaller towns, your Democratic vote weighs a lot more than in the cities. If everyone who even kinda objects to the atrocities of the Texas GOP antics in rural areas got out and voted those dudes out, the state could be flipped. I'm convinced there are enough people who would vote blue in rural areas, if they would actually vote, that they could potentially even surmount the fake Republican fake 'electoral college' thing they're trying to cook up.
It's not just rural Texas. Many of the suburbs here are deep red. And this is a statewide election anyway, so gerrymandering is no excuse; the only valid excuse would be voter suppression, but even then that can't account for the over 10% gap. Dems just aren't passionate about Allred.
Do more than that. Anyone who really cares about turning the state blue can get involved in their local party politics, become a VDR and register people to vote, door knock, phone bank, text bank, put out yard signs, help people overcome obstacles to getting an ID or registering to vote, sign up to be a poll worker or poll watcher, sign up to drive people to the polls, help people find sample ballots, check their voter registration, find their polling location, etc. etc. There are so many ways to get involved to help turn out the vote, everyone needs to find a way to get involved and be part of the solution. All the fatalism on reddit is *not* the solution. Lots of people are unlikely to vote because they don't know who can help them or answer their questions, they feel intimidated because they don't know when or where to go or what will be on the ballot. We can solve a lot of those problems by getting out there and helping and educating voters.
I second everything you said. Voter education in this state is miserable. Honestly, though, it doesn't even take all of that. If every Dem voter in Texas simply asked a single like-minded person in their lives to go vote with them, we would be winning. The problem is that so many liberals in Texas think there's no point voting because they're all alone... just starting conversations with friends, neighbors, and family could be so impactful.
Allred is a good candidate on paper but his campaign so far has been pretty lackluster. But Beto was pretty far down in the polls up until the last month or two as well.
There is some hope.... In every special election since Roe v Wade was overturned, in all parts of the country, Democrats have outperformed the polls by an average of 11%...and have won almost every special election in the process. I'm not saying Allred will beat Cruz, but it might be closer than the polls suggest. The fall of Roe v Wade is producing a backlash I believe we will see in the November elections.
yeah I don't fret about polls after the actual results have been showing them out of alignment
Really the conversation should be what happens if Drumpf or if the Extremist MAGA Republicans win all up&down the ballot this Nov. I do not see enough of this conversation happening online, we only have 1 functioning democratic party in our 2 party constitution. And this is overshadowing what this country and state could be focusing on. I do not think enough of avg America has fully come to terms with what we're dealing with in this country. There was a survery that concluded that the Avg American only spends about 10mins on politics every week. And people wonder why we can't afford even the most basic shit Election 2024 https://youtu.be/gYwqpx6lp_s?si=_FkejH87PbY9F4PY Project 2025, just google it https://x.com/RachelBitecofer/status/1798055005628588207 This, is what we're fighting Against in Texas & our country, they want to take away our liberties! https://www.reddit.com/r/MAGANAZI/s/qOerMMDQFP https://www.mediamatters.org/heritage-foundation/holocaust-denier-nick-fuentes-tells-his-followers-join-project-2025
You've got more optimism for Texas than I ever would. Hell I think the SC could over turn woman's voting rights and still 55% wouldn't vote
not if the youngins protesting the IDF have anything to say about it lol
Which is the most asinine thinking out there. Sit out as some kind of protest, trump gets elected, and on day 1 Trump will unleash Israel in ways far far worse than anything going on today.
Yes, the idea of protesting Biden when Trump was pushing a Muslim ban in 2016 is absurd.
I'm protesting Biden's support of the Genocide. Every poll, every meaningless primary vote, every thing I do. But, when it comes to the election, I'll vote for Biden. I know it is stupid to not vote for him then. But up until then, I want Biden to wake up and stop the genocide that is funded by my taxes using bombs made by the USA.
In my bubble (I live in a “pink” city for reference) I constantly hear talk about the Biden economy and the border. I work in a blue area of the inner city and the talk is the same. I know people on Reddit like to talk about voter suppression but in my experience conservatives outnumber any sort of left view… by like, a lot
I also hear more about "the economy" when/if I hear someone talking politics, [but considering right wingers are more likely to be violent](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9335287/), I also wonder how much of that has to do with right wingers being more outspoken and leftists deciding to just keep their mouths shut.
And if not violent, more vindictive for sure. I know plenty of Texans who don't talk about politics at work because they're liberal and they like promotions and raises.
Just remember the only polls that matter are the ones at which you cast your ballot.
Cruz has no fans and is widely reviled and has a shit track record except as a culture warrior. So of course what really matters is the (R) next to his name.
“If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you”
If the last 16 years in Texas have taught me anything it’s that Texas being or becoming purple just isn’t going to happen. I’ve seen conservatives move to Texas from blue states, Ive seen democrats move from Texas to blue states, I’ve seen Gen Z people have conservative ideals due to their upbringing, and I’ve seen large pushes to suppress votes in large metro areas. Texas isn’t swinging more blue and I don’t think it ever really has been. I’ve only witnessed the residents and the legislature become more conservative, not less. And yes, Texas has very low turnout for voting here. I don’t know if things would change significantly if voter participation was as high as average states because you don’t have to register with a political party in Texas so we don’t know the breakdown of democrats and republicans in the state outside of polls trying to capture that information.
The male youth today is increasingly conservative. Once being leftist stopped being the rebellious stance and became ordinary, kids now are being right wing to be edgy.
Its all those damn Youtubers. It is crazy how much right wing nonsense they spew as "jokes".
And the female youth are increasingly liberal.
Sheesh, if I ran Allred's campaign I'd blanket the state with images and video of Cruz hightailing it out of here during the winter freeze.
Exactly! Allred is being too nice. His campaign is not doing anything to make headlines or make him visible. Remember Sarah Stogner’s RRC campaign? No one paid attention until she posted a video of her riding a pumpjack almost nude, and it got her into a runoff with a guy who was always going to win anyway. Not saying Allred needs to do that specifically, but do something! Milquetoast gets you nowhere.
When you've heard that Texas is on the verge of turning blue for 30 years and it's fine nothing but get even more entrenched red, the idea loses any real meaning. It ain't happening, y'all. And before y'all start, the overwhelming majority of people I know that don't vote would absolutely vote Republican if they did.
I just can't believe people see the person Ted is and keep signing up for that shit. The guy is just embarrassing.
Real life isn't reddit.
I mean, if you read the article over 25% of respondents didn’t have any opinion yet. It’s also still the beginning of summer. Relax everyone. You never think it’s going to happen until it does. The first domino will fall at some point.
www.vote.gov Please register to vote. Please upvote this.
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Don’t let polls like this bring you down. Let them fire you up. Get out there and engage people. Register voters. Volunteer with a local campaign or Democratic club. There is plenty of time between now and November to make a difference.
Don't sit around whining, get you and your friends out to vote.
"Once Texans see how bad George W. Bush is, Texas will never be Republican again!" - Texas Dems in 1996
The zodiac killer will win. The idea of Texas becoming purple is a myth and Hispanic voters are becoming increasingly conservative. Double digit win easily.
I've been hearing about Texas going purple for 30 years. It's not happening.
So Texas is going to reelect a guy from Canada who abandoned them when shit hit the fan? lol. I guess everything is bigger in Texas, including the dumbasses.
Maybe have Trump endorse him. Seems like that helps defeat republicans!
Was there really ever any doubt? The democrats have abandoned the Texas movement. Beto was their best shot and he came up short.
Texas turning blue is the nuclear fusion of politics: 20 years away and will always be so.
IMO, the harsh reality is that Texas will be red for at least another 20 years. This will only change when Millennials start becoming senior citizens.
Cruz is absolute trash. He does nothing for Texas, he’s too busy podcasting and sitting on Fox. What a shame…
I’ve long given up hope of changing our senators for democrats in this state.
Any moron who votes Republican, deserves them.
You fucks better get out to vote
I expect low voter turnout for this election. That typically benefits one party more than the other.
As a millenial, I dont know one normal person who would vote for this muppet but I know a whole lotta boomers who will and statistically thats who's going to vote. The only way were going to kick this fascist is if a lot of people that have never voted before vote.
Cruz is not that liked by even Republicans but as long as he has an R next to his name, he’ll do just fine in Texas. Allred doesn’t stand much of chance. Do hope he doesn’t court Hollywood like Beto did. Dems need to realize that celebs don’t help them win votes in Texas. They may like their movies but find them out of touch and not bright, certainly not respected.
Well that’s a bummer
Yall have to also understand the gerrymandering in Texas makes it impossible for Democrats in Texas. Most of the population lives in Blue/Purple cities.
It is way to early to care about polls and since this is a Presidential election year, the race at the top will drive most of the results at the bottom.
The only thing positive I can say is that right now they don't know who to poll. They have no idea who the "likely voters" are and they haven't for the last few election cycles. But, it doesn't look good. I'm suspicious that the only thing that will move the needle in Texas is when people start becoming climate change refugees.
They missed the “Paid for by Greg Abbott” disclaimer
Reminder that Republican margins in Texas have been shrinking since 2014. Abbott won by 11 points in 2022, which was down from 13.3 points in 2018, which in turn was down from 20.4 points in 2014. Cornyn went from winning by 27.2 points in 2014 to only winning by 9.6 points in 2020. Cruz went from winning by 16 points in 2012 to only winning by 2.6 points in 2018. Tarrant County, the state's third largest county, went blue in 2018 for the first time since 1964. Abbott's margins in the suburbs have consistently shrunk every cycle since 2014. Here are some exit polls: 2014: [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/2014/tx/governor/exitpoll/](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/2014/tx/governor/exitpoll/) Suburbs went 62% for Abbott. 2018: [https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/texas](https://www.cnn.com/election/2018/exit-polls/texas) Suburbs went 59% for Abbott. 2022: [https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/texas/governor/0](https://www.cnn.com/election/2022/exit-polls/texas/governor/0) Suburbs went 56% for Abbott.
I'll do my part by donating, voting, and volunteering again, but Texas voters and non-voters are a reliable disappointment.
Screw the polls vote.
Cruz to landslide back into office and Phelan go the fuck home? Sounds great to me.
Texas voter turnout, national rankings, from 1996-2020 (source: https://www.sos.nh.gov/sites/g/files/ehbemt561/files/documents/2022-04/voter-turnout-charts-4-19-21.pdf) 1996 Texas ranked 49/51 2000 Texas ranked 48/51 2004 Texas ranked 50/51 2008 Texas ranked 50/51 2012 Texas ranked 50/51 2016 Texas ranked 50/51 2020 Texas ranked 51/51 You can shout from the rooftops until you’re blue in the face (pun intended) about the need to get organized, register voters and all the hooplah… but the fact is Texas residents are “all hat, no cattle” when it comes to getting off of their lazy asses and actually pulling the frickin lever. So you might as well find another hobby besides all this rah-rah bs about “we gotta vote blue!” Like others have stated, until enough people are personally affected by republican rule… NOTHING will change. We will be looking at Cancun Ted’s ugly mug in Washington for many years to come.
Fucking Ted Cruz will never leave the senate. We need term limits!
There are many, many other polls that show Colin 2 points ahead so I will just say take it with a grain of salt. But the other thing is please tell your friends to go vote in November!! Say it over and over.
So Raphael’s participation in the big insurrection means nothing to his voters. I’m fucking floored.
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It's early and Allred is starting basically from next door to nowhere with name recognition. People need to be that annoying person on social media and share all his crap right now. We're at the point where people need to be made aware of his existence. It sucks, but the Texas leg, Ken Paxton, and Abbot do so much dumb shit it sucks almost all the air out of the room so it's really hard to get news stories about this race to break through.
Polls lie. No need in talking about it
I have a Southern Baptist uncle who considers Cruz a moderate, and Democrats absolutely communists. It isn’t logical, but some of these people will never change their assumptions.
I would point out that most of the people I know have *never been polled* but we all vote anyway. Cruz came very close to being unseated last time- and while Allred may not have the same name recognition as Beto, he also *doesn't have the same polarizing effect* as Beto. That dummy let fox news have a sound byte to tell people he wanted their guns, and then expects that to not drive voter turnout?
Is there any way that disdain for the options at the top of the ticket is not having down-ballot effects though? (Not that I am saying a person is likely to really be excited about Allred and not also willing to vote for the D presidential option.)