Lone Star State turns from Trump
Hair’s breadth separates Biden from president
Back in 2016, Katie Mellor faced a dilemma. A lifelong Republican but a “Never Trumper,” she was forced to hold her nose and vote for Hillary Clinton. It put the nurse from Houston firmly in the minority in the red state of Texas.
“I’d say 99 per cent of the people I know voted for Trump,” she said. “I lost friends because of it.”
This time around, she has noticed, those same people look to be having a change of heart. “I knew he was lying about what he would do for our country, and I think others have begun to realize that too,” the 39-year-old said.
The latest polling suggests that rather than being an anomaly, it speaks to a broader pattern, as discontent grows among Donald Trump’s once-faithful base in the South. A recent Quinnipiac University poll had Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden virtually neck-and-neck in the race for Texas — with 44 and 43 per cent respectively.
Nationally, Biden has been putting space between himself and Trump. A CNN poll released earlier this week had the former vice-president at 55 per cent and Trump at just 41 per cent.
The result of the poll apparently made Trump so angry his campaign team demanded an apology and a retraction from the station, which rejected the calls.
The Lone Star State, viewed as reliably Republican, has not gone blue since it helped elect Jimmy Carter in 1976. Now, Texas could become an unexpected battleground in one of the most consequential elections in modern American history.
Tim Malloy, a polling analyst at Quinnipiac, said it was “too tight to tell” what will happen in November. “One of the most important states of all is a toss-up,” he said, in disbelief.
The election comes amid turbulent times. Coronavirus has claimed the lives of more than 115,000 Americans. Protests have broken out across the country over the killing of African-american George Floyd. Trump has seen his approval ratings slip to as low as 43 per cent — figures not seen before for a sitting president.
Since the start of the pandemic in March, 1.6 million Texans have lost jobs and, as a result, their employer-based health coverage. The state partially reopened last month, but is seeing a resurgence of infections that could force it to close down again.
If the economy is halting and unemployment still high come Nov. 3, it will not reflect well on a president who campaigned on massive job creation. The race could come down to one simple question: “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?”
“Trump did exactly what I thought he would do,” said Mellor, a mother of two. “He failed miserably: he downplayed the virus for months and then he started making money for him and his friends when it came to supplies. Now he is blaming China and the World Health Organization for everything because he refuses to admit fault or apologize.”
Mellor says she has convinced her mother, who has also historically voted for the GOP, to join her in voting for Biden.
“She voted for Trump because he was the Republican nominee. I think she believed he would be like Ronald Reagan and George Bush Snr,” she said. “I showed her videos of what Trump promised during his speeches and what he is actually doing. He said he would build a border wall and that Mexico would pay for it. He said he would make every one of us tons of money because he was so rich. She listened to me and now she is shocked she voted for him.”
Incumbents have the advantage going into an election, particularly during times of unrest. Only three presidents have lost re-election since the Second World War. But voters also look for stability in a crisis. Some political experts point to Trump’s rambling and often incoherent addresses.
He had weeks of unlimited airtime on prime time television to address the U.S. on the administration’s coronavirus strategy. But rather than boosting his approval ratings, the exposure seemed to have the opposite effect in Texas.
After he recommended drinking bleach to cure COVID-19, his numbers dropped so significantly the president’s team advised him to cut down on appearances.” That’s when he lost my vote,” said Bill Childs, a mechanic from Dallas.
“Everyone said, ‘Of course he’s not being serious.’ But even if he wasn’t, you can’t joke around like that in the middle of a pandemic. It’s time for an adult.”
A huge state with 38 electoral votes — second only to California’s 55 — Texas is vital to Republicans trying to reach the 270-vote threshold. Trump is planning to hold rallies from next week in Texas and four other key states in which he has fallen behind, ignoring the advice of health experts.
Trump’s 52 per cent victory in Texas in 2016 was the tightest for a Republican presidential candidate in the state since 1996.
With an even narrower gap this time around, he will have to look outside his base to the state’s sizable African-american and Hispanic communities. As The New York Times put it recently: “The Black vote now defines American politics.”
Biden, 77, enjoys considerable support among minorities, which helped him romp to victory in the primaries. While Black residents of cities such as Houston, an ethnically diverse city, turned out in record numbers for Barack Obama, many stayed home when Hillary Clinton was on the ticket.
Cal Jillson, a professor of political science at Southern Methodist University, said that “If Texas is in play, it probably means Joe Biden has won 40 other states. It would be game over.”
He predicts Trump will take Texas, but he will have to work hard and it won’t be a convincing win. “We could be looking at just four percentage points, maybe less.”
Mellor says she will think about emigrating if that happens. “I’ve looked at Canada and New Zealand,” she said. “I can’t take four more years.”