AUSTIN (KXAN) — Texas Democrats have long claimed the state is within reach of flipping, yet no Democrat has won statewide here in 30 years. However, a late shakeup on the top of the ticket is raising hopes this year, and one familiar leader went viral this week for arguing Texas could be more competitive than ever.
During a recent appearance on MSNBC, Beto O’Rourke said he believed Texas is a “sleeper battleground state,” citing how Kamala Harris could fire up Democrats there since she became the party’s presidential nominee. He also said elections in recent years have showed a narrowing margin between Republicans and Democrats.
For instance in 2020, O’Rourke pointed out how Joe Biden performed better than Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama did in the state when he lost to former President Donald Trump by 5.6 percentage points. Clinton lost Texas in 2016 by nine percentage points, while it was 16 percentage points for Obama in 2012.
“If at a minimum, we can get Trump to play defense here because of this changing dynamic, it’s going to open up other possibilities in other states,” O’Rourke said on MSNBC, “and someday sooner than later, and maybe it’s 2024, we win Texas.”
James Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project, said this is an increasingly common refrain that Democrats are making without much success.
“This has been the dog that hasn’t barked for a long time,” Henson said. “We hear this from Democrats most election cycles for the last several years, and this year is going to be no exception.”
He said much more would have to happen for Texas to become a true battleground.
“The state’s undoubtedly becoming more competitive between Democrats and Republicans at the presidential level,” Henson said. “Whether we’ve crossed the threshold that will attract effort, volunteers, enthusiasm, and, maybe most importantly, money, I think is still a little bit of an open question.”
On Wednesday, Republicans questioned whether O’Rourke is worth listening to still since he famously lost two statewide races — the U.S. Senate seat in 2018 and the governor’s mansion in 2022. Matt Mackowiak, the chairman for the Travis County Republican Party, said the presidential race is undoubtedly more competitive since Harris became the candidate facing Trump, but he doesn’t expect Texas to be among the small mix of states that will ultimately decide who sits in the White House next.
“As of now, I don’t think most smart people are looking at Texas and believing it will be a battleground state,” Mackowiak said Wednesday. “In the end, it’ll be the seven states that we’ve all been focused on for more than a year, and in the end, it might even be more simple than that: whoever wins Pennsylvania will likely be the next president of the United States.”
There’s not much polling available yet to see how well Harris is performing against Trump in Texas since she became the Democratic nominee. However, the Texas Politics Project and the University of Texas are working to collect new opinions from voters, and they should be able to share a look at those results in early September.
What a first-time voter thinks
The election this November will be different for Caleb Brizuela, a 21-year-old senior studying education at Huston-Tillotson University in Austin. He finally gets to cast a ballot for president, and he said Wednesday he plans to vote for Harris.
“I think my friends are really excited about the election, simply because I have never seen them this engaged in any type of politics,” Brizuela said.
Upholding democracy is what’s motivating him most to vote in his first presidential election, he said. When the new school year starts next week, Brizuela said he plans to work on registering his fellow students to vote and organizing rides to the polls in November.
“We’re just making sure people want to come and engage in that opportunity to vote,” he said, “so that’s what we’re going to be focusing on.”
According to the Texas Secretary of State’s Office, the last day to register to vote in time for the November election is Oct. 7. The in-person early voting period begins on Oct. 21, while the last day to apply for ballot by mail is Oct. 25. Election Day is Nov. 5.