The disaster in Texas

How does this sort of thing happen? Not just one race, but up and down the board an absolute beat down. I have a few theories about what is likely to end up being a 20-25% swing in only two years.

1. ICE - regardless of whether people think they are doing a good job or not, the perception, especially by Hispanics is that they are targeting minorities regardless of whether they are legally in the country. Trump won with Hispanics because he talked about closing the border, something that they want. The Rs lost majorly with Hispanics because of ICE’s treatment of people in their communities.

2 - Trump wins because people like him and he tends to try and run on policy. The right nominated some unlikable people and ran on what the Dems were doing to hurt you “transing kids”, “sharia law”, etc. and not how they were actually going to help people.

3. The top Dems (Talarico, Hinojosa) ran on unity and not division. Both of them in their speeches tonight mentioned how they are going to be the representative for all Texans, not just those that vote and look like them. Both have talked about keeping the Democratic Party accountable, because on party rule has hurt Texans. I think that resonates.

4. Bo French - I think his tweet after the Texas/OSU game was disastrous and did not help with non-white voters in the slightest.

5. War on Iran - probably should go higher, but I’m tired at this point

6. No debates from Abbott, Paxton, or Patrick - it’s incredibly embarrassing that the top 3 people up for office in this election refused to debate their opponents. They didn’t think it would matter and they’d coast to victory. I think they regret it now.

Obviously there is a lot more about individual races. I could talk about the Republicans deciding to nominate Paxton with all his baggage for a while, but I tried to keep this more general.

I know a blue wave as a whole made a difference, but curious if anyone has an any additional thoughts here.