Big names for Texas Dems’ convention
Former presidential hopefuls among those to speak as event goes online only
WASHINGTON — The Texas Democratic Party on Monday kicks off its first-ever online convention, with a schedule packed with some of the Democratic Party’s biggest names — and its presumptive presidential candidate — as the party works to make Texas the biggest battleground in the nation this November.
While Democrats haven’t won statewide in decades, they say the lineup — which includes Joe Biden, giving what the party says is the first address by a presumptive presidential nominee in recent memory — is a sign of how seriously Democrats outside the state are now taking Texas.
Slated to speak are Biden’s former presidential rivals U.S. Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris, as well as Texans Beto O’Rourke and former San Antonio Mayor and U.S. Housing Secretary Julián Castro. As are House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez and U.S. Rep. Cheri Bustos, who leads congressional Democrats’ campaign arm.
“When you see top U.S. senators and former presidential candidates and the nominee and all of these national committees — it’s a who’s who of Democratic leadership from across the country, and they’re joining Texas Democrats in this fight,” said Manny Garcia, the state party’s executive director.
The party, meanwhile, shifted the convention online amid the coronavirus outbreak and plans to livestream the majority of sessions, a move it says will make the convention more accessible than it ever has been.
Republicans — who are holding their convention next month at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston — have been fundraising aggressively off the national interest in Texas Democrats.
“Amid a worldwide pandemic, national Democrats are ratcheting up their efforts to flip the Senate blue. They’re directing millions of dollars into red states with the dream of turning them solidly blue,” U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas wrote last week in a fundraising email for fellow Texan and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, saying Democrats are starting to “train their eyes on Texas like never before.”
The Democrats vying to take on Cornyn — former Air Force pilot MJ Hegar and longtime state Sen. Royce West — are slated to appear at the convention at 6 p.m. Saturday in a debate set to be broadcast statewide. The two emerged from a crowded primary field and are facing off in a July 14 runoff.
In Cruz’s fundraising email, meanwhile, he highlighted a virtual rally for Biden hosted in May by O’Rourke, whose narrow loss to Cruz in 2018 sparked Democrats’ hopes of flipping the state this year.
Cornyn wrote in a followup email to supporters that “the fact that failed Senate AND presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke thought he could parade Joe Biden around Texas blows my mind.” He also said that “from what Ted and I are hearing from our colleagues, the Far-Left thinks they can cross the finish line in November with the House, Senate, AND White House in their grip.”
While many political analysts believe that Cornyn is likely to win in November, he is just one of several Republicans across the state whom Democrats hope to unseat as they pour fresh investments into the state. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee opened an office in Austin this year and is targeting seven Republican congressional seats across the state after flipping two in 2018.
And while Hillary Clinton lost Texas to President Donald Trump by nine points in 2016, Trump already has spent more time and money in Texas than many past Republican presidential contenders, a sign of how seriously his re-election campaign is taking the state.
“If Texas flips, there is no pathway for a Republican to the White House. Yet you can increase your congressional majority, you could flip a state chamber,” Garcia said. “There are few other states in the country that offer the kind of opportunity that Texas has.”