Ford Bend special election emblematic of polarized 2020 vote cycle

The special election in Texas House District 28 is special indeed, according to leaders from both parties.

It’s offered us all a dreary preview of what to expect in 2020, as Republicans and Democrats battle for control of the Texas House, and the state more generally.

Republicans, apparently, are going to cast all Democrats as socialists. Democrats are going to cast all Republicans as — well, as Republicans, and pawns of a president, Donald Trump, who has successfully staged a hostile takeover of their entire party.

Those lines of argument could have been predicted. Last week’s vote in the U.S. House concerning the rules that will govern the next phase of its impeachment inquiry was yet another reminder of how deeply divided we are.

But the special election in House District 28 should remind us that we don’t have to be.

The district, which covers the northern third of Fort Bend County, has long been a reliably red one. In 2018, its voters reelected Republican John Zerwas over Democratic challenger Meghan Scoggins by an 8-point margin, despite the “blue wave” that swept that diverse county.

But U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz carried the district by just 3 points in that same cycle. Fort Bend, more generally, is rapidly changing. And Zerwas, a physician who was first elected to the Texas House in 2006, stepped down at the end of September. That means educator Eliz Markowitz, the sole Democrat vying to replace him, has an opportunity to flip the district this year.

Markowitz, who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the State Board of Education last year, launched a bid for the House seat before Zerwas decided to retire and is now facing six Republican candidates, none of whom has consolidated the support of conservatives.

Markowitz also raised some $294,000 between Sept. 27 and Oct. 26, compared with the roughly $66,000 raised by anesthesiologist Anna Allred of Katy,

the top fundraiser among her Republican rivals. And Markowitz’s bid for the seat has been buoyed by a wave of support from national Democratic leaders as well as organizations such as the Human Rights Campaign, which recently endorsed her candidacy.

The special election in HD 28 is one of three on the ballot this year.

Democrat Jessica Farrar, the longtime representative for House District 148 in Houston, stepped down in September as well. And House District 100, in Dallas, has been vacant since Democrat Eric Johnson was elected mayor of that city this year. But neither of those seats is seen as a pickup opportunity for the Texas GOP, much less a potential bellwether for the entire state.

“The last gasp for Republicans in Fort Bend County is evident,” says Ali Hasanali, secretary of the Fort Bend Young Democrats and treasurer of the Houston chapter of the Asian American Democrats of Texas.

Hasanali noted that it’s difficult for a Democrat to win a special election in an off year in a traditionally Republican district, so the fact that we’re even having a conversation about Markowitz’s prospects is telling.

Many Republicans would agree, at least tacitly.

“If Dems win it, it will be a discouraging signal for 2020 and could lead to more GOP retirements in the Texas House,” said Matt Mackowiak, a longtime Republican consultant based in Austin.

“Sometimes we overinterpret special elections,” he continued. “But this really should be a GOP seat.”

Mackowiak is right, in more ways than one. And although he predicts that the GOP will prevail eventually, some of his fellow Republicans are less sanguine.

In a recent email to supporters, Linda Howell, the chair of the Fort Bend County GOP, described HD 28 as “our Alamo.” Mailers that have been strewn across the district and were paid for by an outside group accuse Markowitz of hoping to bring socialism to Texas.

For Republicans to lose this special election would potentially have an outsized impact on the next regular session of the Texas Legislature, in 2021, as well as be a demoralizing defeat.

If Markowitz prevails in the special election — or the runoff that appears likely, given the number of candidates in the race — she’ll go on to face a regular election cycle in 2020. But Democrats would have a better chance of holding the seat next year if they flip it this year, and they need to pick up only nine seats throughout the cycle to retake control of the Texas House before legislative boundaries are redrawn in 2021.

What’s getting lost in all the political foofaraw, though, is that it’s not a coincidence that Zerwas won his bid for reelection in 2018.

The former state representative earned the respect of voters on both sides of the aisle during his years in the Texas Legislature and retired on his own terms after serving in recent years as the chair of the House Appropriations Committee.

Zerwas outperformed Cruz in part because the latter is polarizing, with relatively high disapproval ratings, even among Republicans. There are some voters in this traditionally red district who would have cast a vote for Cruz’s Democratic challenger, Beto O’Rourke, before skipping the comparatively low-profile down-ballot races.

But there are also plenty of voters in Fort Bend County who split the ticket in 2018, supporting Republicans such as Zerwas or Gov. Greg. Abbott, as well as Democrats such as O’Rourke or Brian Middleton, who succeeded a long-serving Republican as district attorney.

Those voters resisted the temptation to paint political leaders with an overly broad brush, even in an era of intense — and possibly consequential — political polarization.

If only our political leaders felt the same way.