Poll, Senate loss dampen Democrat wave
Flores’ win , O’Rourke trailing Cruz show not all Latinos blue
In a stretch of a few hours on Tuesday, Texas Democrats got sobering reminders that the national blue wave faces barriers here that few other states can match.
First came a deflating new poll of likely voters that showed despite all of the energy surrounding the U.S. Senate campaign of Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat still could be as much as 9 percentage points behind incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz.
Then Republicans stunned them by winning in a once-safely Democratic state Senate district in South Texas, dropping Democrats to their lowest level of senate representation in the history of the state. With Republican Pete Flores’ victory, the Texas Senate now has 21 Republicans and just 10 Democrats, putting them in an even tougher position to oppose any legislation backed by the Republicans.
“All this talk of a blue wave,” Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said on Tuesday night. “Well, the tide is out.”
The Senate victory and the polling data signal that Democrats have not yet managed to win over Latino voters in big enough numbers to make a difference in November.
In the Quinnipiac University Poll released Tuesday, O’Rourke was winning 54 percent of Hispanic voters. While that looks good at first glance, that is almost the same percentage of the Hispanic vote that 2014 Democratic candidate for governor Wendy Davis won in her race according, to exit polls. Davis lost by nearly 20 percentage points to Gov. Greg Abbott.
And Flores’ victory came in Senate District 19, where more than 60 percent of the voting-age population is Hispanic — more evidence that Democrats should not assume Hispanic voters are in their corner, Patrick said.
“If you think Hispanic Texans across this state are going to vote for abortion, open borders, take your guns away, raise your taxes, well the message was sent tonight. And that is no,” Patrick said.
The news gets tougher for Democrats in the Texas Senate. When they open the 2019 Legislative Session in January, their numbers could drop further, even if only temporarily.
In January, Houston Democrat Sylvia Garcia will likely resign from her seat in the Texas Senate to move over to the U.S. Congress. Garcia is heavily favored to win a Houston-based district in November. That vacancy could drop the Democrats’ numbers to just 9 in the Texas Senate, depending on how they fare in key midterm elections. A special election to replace Garcia is not likely to be completed before the start of the Legislature's session in January.
Democrats had visions of growing their numbers to 13 by next session — a critical number for them. With 13 Democrats, they would have enough votes to stop bills they oppose from getting to the Senate floor for a vote. But with just 9 members, Democrats would be largely powerless to stop the Republican majority from bringing any issue to the Senate floor.
There are still reasons for Democratic optimism. One or two polls don’t undo the core of what is driving Democratic energy nationwide, as a record numbers of voters —fueled by suburban, college educated women — has Democrats on the verge of taking back the U.S. House.
Already another poll by Reuters, Ipsos and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics shows O’Rourke leading Cruz among 992 likely Texas voters. That poll, released on Wednesday morning, showed O’Rourke with a 2 percentage point lead over Cruz.
That has Larry Sabato at the Center for Politics declaring O’Rourke has a shot at being the first Democrat to represent Texas in the Senate since Lloyd Bentsen won his last term in office in 1988.
“There’s a possibility it could happen,” Sabato said. “I’m not saying probable. But it’s possible.”