Harris goes to Valley in bid to boost turnout
Vice presidential candidate Kamala Harris used a trip to the Texas border Friday as evidence that she and Joe Biden are determined to represent every corner of America in the White House, particularly in the shadow of COVID-19.
“Our focus is on every state,” Harris said. “The reality is that Joe and I feel very strongly that we have to earn the vote of the American people. And that means being responsive to their needs and being everywhere we can possibly be to make the point that we are one country and we are all in it together.”
After a speech in Fort Worth earlier in the day, Harris headed to McAllen, which in itself is historic. While past presidential campaigns have visited the Texas border, it has been decades since either candidate on a Democratic ticket spent time in the area this close to a presidential election.
Harris said the reason for her visit is obvious: “There are people here who matter.”
She emphasized that the Rio Grande Valley has suffered more from the pandemic than almost any other region in the nation. More than 2,681 COVID-19 deaths have been reported between Hidalgo County, which Harris visited Friday, and neighboring Cameron County. That’s nearly twice as many coronavirus deaths as Bexar County in an area with 700,000 fewer resi
dents.
Yet President Donald Trump keeps saying we are “rounding the corner,” Harris said.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Harris said, stressing that Trump knew how dangerous the virus was but, in an interview, once admitted “playing it down” to the American people.
Politically, the reason for the trip was also obvious: to drive up turnout in a final push to compete in Texas.
The five counties from Brownsville to Laredo, covering about 200 miles, have nearly 800,000 voters. And it’s the bluest region of Texas, with counties where a Republican presidential candidate hasn’t won in 100 years. But the Valley also has a long history of low turnout. In the 2018 U.S. Senate race between Beto O’Rourke and Sen. Ted Cruz, that region reported 39 percent voter turnout as the rest of the state hit 53 percent.
Harris’ visit is the biggest signal yet that the Biden campaign and state Democrats are trying to change that. The Biden campaign has also hired full-time staff along the border, with a state director from Laredo, and had previously sent other surrogates such as Harris’ husband, Doug Emhoff, to campaign in the area.
Still, early voting data shows turnout for those five counties is lagging. In Hidalgo County, early voting turnout was at 44 percent, compared with the statewide average of 53 percent. In Webb County, where Laredo is the county seat, turnout is just 33 percent so far.
If the race between Trump and Biden in Texas is as close as some polls suggest, turnout in the five border counties might just dictate who wins the state
Tuesday.
Trump clearly took note of Harris’ visit Friday. At 2 a.m., he tweeted, “Way ahead in Texas!”
Plenty of Trump supporters were waiting for Harris when she arrived in McAllen. Despite details of her stop not being publicly released, hundreds of pickups with Trump banners lined the streets near the airport.
The president carried Texas by 9 percentage points over Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, the closest margin of victory for a presidential race in Texas since 1996.
The Trump campaign says it’s better prepared going into Tuesday’s election than four years ago, no matter what the polls say. Trump has cultivated a getout-the-vote ground game in Texas he didn’t have in 2016, and his message is reaching thousands of vot
ers who did not get to the polls last time.
“President Trump has accomplished more in 47 months than Joe Biden has in 47 years,” said Samantha Cotten, spokesperson for Trump’s re-election campaign in Texas. “Texans aren’t fooled by phony politicians like Kamala Harris who is making a last-ditch effort in the Lone Star State, and come November, voters will reject the Democrats’ radical agenda of eliminating the oil and gas industry, hiking our taxes and taking away our Second Amendment rights in favor of four more years of President Trump.”
No Democrat in a presidential election has won Texas since 1976, when the Watergate scandal was hanging over Republicans across the nation.
Yet a University of Houston poll released Thursday showed a virtual tie be
tween Biden and Trump.
A big reason for Biden’s success has been his popularity with Latino voters. About 57 percent in the poll said they backed Biden, while Trump was winning just 25 percent.
“Elections in Texas are becoming more competitive,” said Jeronimo Cortina, associate professor of political science at the University of Houston and associate director of the Center for Mexican American Studies. “Democrats have an opportunity to win the Latino vote and flip some key state-level races, but their challenge is to motivate and mobilize Latino voters to turn out.”
That’s why Harris’ stop was so important to many Texas Democrats who had been lobbying for her to visit the Valley. Former San Antonio Mayor Julián Castro, who campaigned with Harris in McAllen, has
been one of the most vocal about getting the Biden campaign to do more in the Valley.
“The Valley is so full of great potential,” Castro said Friday. “But too often, the Valley has been overlooked. It’s been dismissed. It’s been given short shrift.”
In her 30-minute speech, Harris also brought up child separations at the border and reminded the crowd of Trump’s decision to rescind the orders protecting Dreamers from deportation.
While Harris stopped in McAllen, neighboring border cities are also watching, said Jerry Thompson, a professor at Texas A&M International University in Laredo.
“It sends a signal across the rest of the state that we care about you,” Thompson said.