Texas Isn't Turning Purple. What Happened?
It's early October, right before the start of early voting in Texas's elections. Rosales, Pena, and a few dozen other people who'd grudgingly shown up to support Carlos Cascos, a Cameron County judge who'd recently been winning elections as a Republican. The county, which runs along the Mexican border to the Gulf, is nearly 90 percent Hispanic. In the 2012 election, Barack Obama won it by 31 points. But when I ask him what he thinks of the president, Pena sounds like this year's ever-growing posse of squirming Democratic Senate candidates.
"Obama 2008 or Obama now?" he says with a laugh. "Man, don't get me started on that." He switches the subject to Hillary Clinton, whom he'd be happy to support, because she's always seemed competent. Over plates of brisket and tortillas, Rosales tries to convince Pena that Clinton's past her prime. They finally reach an accord on the upcoming gubernatorial race between Republican Attorney General Greg Abbott and Democratic State Sen. Wendy Davis.
"All I know about Davis is that she made that stand in the Capitol," says Pena. He shrugs. "That got my interest, I guess."
Neither is excited about that Democrat. They're intrigued by Abbott. At a table nearby, Cascos is showing off photos of the pachanga he held this year, the one where Abbott showed up and stayed late. "Ninety percent of the people there were Democrats," says Cascos, "but they see themselves as independents, and Abbott reached out to them."
This was not supposed to happen in Texas - not this year, not to Wendy Davis. Twenty-one months after Obama campaign veterans launched Battleground Texas, on the theory that a majority-minority state could become competitive for Democrats, Davis is running far behind Abbott. A University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released this week found Davis trailing Abbott by 16 points. Among Hispanic voters, the race was almost tied: 48 for Davis, 46 for the Republican.
Davis had risen to national prominence with an epic, and briefly successful, filibuster of an abortion restriction bill. Republicans had numbers, including a 2013 Wilson Perkins Allen survey that found Latinos in the states identifying strongly as "pro-life," by a 2-1 margin. When he traveled to the valley, Abbott started reminding voters that he, too, was "pro-life and Catholic." According to strategist Dave Carney, a veteran of Perry's campaigns, the brain trust looked at the lost Davis counties and identified more than 1 million Hispanic voters who might be receptive to a social, economic conservative message.
Since the primary in March, Abbott has spent seven days in the Rio Grande Valley, with three visits alone to the small sprawl town of Edinburg. Abbott's three valley organizers are triple the number that Rick Perry dispatched for his winning campaigns. Drivers who crane their necks from the highway have been seeing billboards that feature Abbott and his Latino wife, Cecilia - "Nosotros con Abbott" - or the candidate and his Latino mother-in-law. "I love having Greg Abbott as my son-in-law," she says in one ad, as Abbott beams at her. "Texas will love having him as Governor."Also read:
Latinos Turn Away from Democrats But Few are 'Angry' over Immigration Reform Delay
Conservative Hispanic Group Attacks Dems On ObamaCare
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