Republicans really are worried about 2018

Some of them, anyway.

In a private memo to Abbott’s aides, senior political adviser Dave Carney cautions that despite the fact that Texas is solid red in recent statewide voting patterns, suburban voters could pose significant problems for Republicans in next year’s mid-term elections.

“It would be easy for us to say Texas is not Virginia. It would be easy for us to say the Democrats in Texas aren’t that well organized,” wrote Carney, a New Hampshire-based political consultant who has served as an adviser to Rick Perry and Abbott and was the White House political director for George H.W. Bush.

“That would be a huge mistake.”

[…]

In the memo, Carney asserts that Republican losses in the recent Virginia elections “were not caused by Republicans running a bad campaign.” Instead, he insists that the GOP got more votes for governor of Virginia than they ever had — but still lost.”

“Republican voters showed up but were overwhelmed by Democrat enthusiasm,” the memo states. “This wasn’t a case of a great Democrat turning out the vote.”

In fact, he says, Ralph Northam, the Democrat who won the governorship, “is no Barack Obama. In fact, most observers consider Northam a bad candidate,” so bad that progressive organizations stopped mobilizing voter turnout on his behalf before the election because of his opposition to sanctuary cities.

“The Northern Virginia suburbs saw turnout increase substantially while the rest of the state turned out at historic levels,” Carney wrote.

Texas Republicans, he reasons, could face a similar turnout by Democrats — especially among suburban voters in areas where Democrats have recently registered enthusiasm, such as Houston and Dallas.

“We will have to deal with these very same problems (and they could be much worse in another year) during our reelection,” Carney warned. “No matter who the Democrat candidate is, Democrats will turn out to vote in higher numbers than ever before to voice their displeasure with President Trump. Without Hillary Clinton to push them away suburban voters will lean Democratic in reaction to the national political environment.”

“Like Virginia, Texas is growing and in doing so it is becoming more suburban, more independent and more easily influenced by the national political environment,” the memo states, noting that that Republicans lost their 66-to-34 advantage in the Virginia House of Delegates.

With three races still too close to call, Democrats now hold a 49-to-48 advantage.

“The enthusiasm gap that we face is real,” Carney cautions. “It is going to take a concerted effort by the campaign to overcome it, not just for ourselves, but for the down ballot races that will be depending on us to pull them over the line.”

Personally, I think their main problem has the initials DJT and a Twitter addiction, but there’s not much you can do about that in a memo. How much will the national environment affect them, and what if anything can they do to ameliorate it? Just as Dems can’t do anything about Republican engagement, the Rs can’t do anything about Democratic enthisiasm, but if they can turn out at normal levels, they can largely avoid ill effects. Their turnout was depressed in 2006 and 2008, and their results reflected that. They have more to lose this time around. Outside of those two years, Republicans have done a very good job getting their people to the polls. They’ve never faced a challenge like now before. Let’s hope they’re not up to it.

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