It’s about 10:30 PM as I write this, and I don’t care to stay up any longer. The national situation looks dicey, but it’s not yet clear what will happen. I’ll put that off for now.
It was bad here in Texas. One of the national story lines is that the polls that predicted a tight tossup Presidential race were accurate. Except here in Texas, where the polls that suggested fairly close statewide races were badly wrong. As I write this, Trump is leading statewide with Mitt-Romney-in-2012 numbers. No poll I saw suggested anything like that. There’s a lot of the Election Day vote to be counted, and I suppose it could be that Dems did more of their voting on Tuesday, because they sure didn’t do it early. But this was a lot less competitive than we had any reason to think, and it really sets things back.
It also means that not only were there no pickups to be had, Dems are right now losing three seats in the House and one in the Senate and SBOE, with several South Texas races not having reported anything yet. (Not even the early vote on the SOS page.) Even Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in CD34 was trailing, which would be a big loss and would make it that much harder for Dems to take the House, which was still a possibility. Just a disaster, top to bottom.
Here in Harris County, Kamala Harris was leading Trump 52-46, with Colin Allred up over Ted Cruz 54-44. At least the polls got that Allred was outperforming Harris. The Democratic candidates for executive countywide offices were all leading, though only Sheriff Ed Gonzalez could be called comfortably ahead. Several judges were trailing, with all of the Appellate Court incumbents on their way to defeat. Some of this could be salvaged if Dems carry Election Day. If not, it could get worse.
The Harris County Flood Control District proposition was narrowly ahead, while the two HISD bonds were going down by a 60-40 margin. That at least was no surprise to me.
The one bit of good news is that the city of Amarillo soundly defeated the abortion travel ban referendum. I don’t know how much that will matter given the bigger picture, but it’s a nice win anyway and a testament to the hard work the organizers did there. Kudos to them all.
I don’t have the energy to write anything more at this time. I’ll update this post as needed and will have more to say later. For now, take care of yourself. It’s going to be a rough ride, whatever happens next.
UPDATE: Overnight, Rep. Vicente Gonzalez came back to win in CD34 and Dems won the SBOE seat they had trailed in, but Sen. Morgan LaMantia lost in SD27. Dems lost two seats in the House. Overall turnout was 11,255,951, a tiny bit less than it was in 2020.
In Harris County, it was a bit like 2022 in that Dems held on to all of the executive offices but lost some judges. Election Day was modestly Democratic, with turnout of just over 300K, for about 1.44 million overall. Republicans basically hit their 2020 turnout marks, Dems fell short of theirs. Just a lousy day.
It got worse.
The GOP flat out promised to tank the economy (with mass deportations and tariffs and billionaire tax cuts and Elon’s austerity measures) and people signed up for it.
IMHO, I think progressives have pushed the Democratic Party too far to the left. Transgenders in women sports, open borders, defund the police, soft-on-crime policies, etc. While racism may have also played a part, I don’t think racism was the biggest factor in Harris’ defeat – Obama won twice, remember. Democrats have just lost touch with mainstream voters.
Locally, Democratic judges greatly underperformed Harris and Allred. There’s a message there – citizens don’t want career criminals running loose on bond.
Well, now it’s time to display how true Americans respond to an election defeat. As Democrats, we congratulate the winners, learn from the experience, and prepare for the next election cycle. We don’t storm the capital and act like extremist nuts.
Greg, that may be true here in Harris County, but not everywhere. Trump ran on one issue: deportation, deportation, deportation. Undoubtedly, that will be one of the first things he does. Here in Texas, they added Transgender.
Harris will win the popular vote, so you are not right unless the majority of Americans are not mainstream.
Don’t forget one of the most corrupt Mayors this city has seen is once again elected to office. The Democrat party has huge problems they tend to want to ignore.
David Whitmire is still mayor. I guess Trump and Paxton are squeaky clean?
Americans may not have gotten the President they wanted but they certainly got the President they deserved.
Can’t remember where I read it, but there was a poll somewhere showing that a majority favored Trump’s mass deportation idea. This is squarely on the voters.
Fly, I know some people here illegally that don’t want any more people coming in illegally. Some writers are now realizing that immigration is the number one issue. This is an issue that Democrats were afraid to address.
I don’t think it will happen, but there will be many shows about raiding workplaces.
The Republicans depend on them for cheap labor. Who is going to build the homes? Build our roads? Work at the Chicken plants?
I mean, Democrats (and Republicans) did address it! But DJT told the GOP to spike it to help him win the election.
Kamala hasn’t gotten the popular vote yet. I’m disappointed, I was looking forward to the whole ‘get rid of the electoral college’ argument again from a party who manipulates their own. Kamala wouldn’t have made it to her candidacy without the electorates, and the Democrat Party Inc. that gave the Gestapo steel boot kick to a sitting U.S. President. Cannot say they’re communists, though, because obviously Kamala came with the left over campaign $ from Biden, very capitalist elite performance. Kamala did a great job with what she was given at the last minute. She argued change when she really didn’t have an argument for it, arguing there is an immigration issue when before her candidacy any mention of an immigration problem was racism, she tried to distance herself from a president who gave her the gift of candidacy, strange situation. She got up and ran with it, got to give her credit for that. I’m sure she’ll be the 2028 candidate and her message would ring a little more true then.
One GOOD thing from where I sit. Eddie Espinoza broke 2 percent in the RRC race, so Greens are guaranteed party-line ballot access for another 5 cycles. Needed next? A good gubernatorial candidate. I will have a longer wrap at my blog later today.
I think David is partially right (but less than 50 percent) but fails to mention the word “Gaza” along with Harris moving right on immigration. And, while she might be Democrats’ 2028 candidate, I’d by no means guarantee that. And, I’ll have a blame game wrap at my blog tomorrow or Friday.
Let’s add: States like Missouri APPROVED abortion protection amendments and referenda. (Missouri’s is up to 24 weeks.) And, it did Harris, and the Dem candidate for governor, not a bit of good.
Democrats can either recognize this was about bad candidates plus bad analysis, including on Hispanic voters, and not people rejecting their issues, with ticket-splitting like that (contra wingnut talking heads who claimed Harris focused too much on Roe/Dobbs), or not recognize it and have the same problem in future years.
Agree as to how she became nominee, topic was corruption. Typical fascist to switch topic.
To anyone who claims to care about Gaza, Trump back in the White House (or Vance becoming 48, which I think will happen sooner rather than later) gives Bibi a green light to do as he pleases. My prediction: Gaza will be ethnically cleansed.
When a head of lettuce and an apple costs $15/apiece, folks will understand what they voted for…and that’d be an Certified-American Farm Laborer who eschewed sitting on Mom’s couch while trolling the interweb/OnlyFans and decided to go to Central California and work 12-14 hour shifts picking cashews off the ground.
The increase in housing costs will be offset by the million homes now vacant (’cause the owner was deported or jailed) and back on the market.
A Brave New World.
I agree with you, CL, but I don’t think they will do it. They should just put on a show for the audience. They have had since 1987 to make E-Verify the law of the land, and they haven’t. They had a chance to get a National ID, but they didn’t.
Fly, I don’t think she went far enough to the middle on illegal immigration, other than a few progressives and bleeding hearts.
SocFly, the Greens would have done better if those issues were so critical. I agree that Harris was not the right candidate; I almost did not vote for her because they forced Biden out.
The campaign’s that Allred and Harris ran to the right on immigration, and criminal Justice. Beto did better and was more to the left. The right is going to paint Democrats as pro-transgender surgeries for pre-schools without parental consent if they think it will work, even if it isn’t true.
Beto did much better with Latinos; go no further than Gonzalez, Ramirez, and Cantu. Latinos split their votes.
The progressives could not get past the primary in the Senate. Why do you think going left will help if even the Democratic primary voters don’t vote for them?
Trump and Cruz carried South Texas.
They estimate that 45% of Latino voters voted for Trump.
Kennedy got 92%
Carter got 84%
Biden got 60%
Beto ran a better campaign.
https://ballotpedia.org/United_States_Senate_election_in_Texas,_2024_(March_5_Democratic_primary)
Virtually every ad I saw during the course of the campaign failed to tell me what the candidate was going to do for me, to make my life better in some fashion – the vast majority were solely designed to demonize the opponent. One need look no futher than Allred v. Cruz to see what I’m talking about. Those were just painful.
Liberals, for the most part, aren’t happy with folks flooding across the border and then disappearing into the night while they await an immigration hearing, but neither shit-kicking party has any plan to resolve the problem save for shutting down the border and deporting those that are here illegally. Faced with nothing being done, or something being done, most chose the something…regardless of the ass clown who came up with the idea or the future consequences of the plan. Now if Orange Jesus had said he was going to deport the illegals and use the govt’s welfare money, Medicare $’s, SSI disability payments, and farm subsidies to do it, there might have been some second guessing going on.
Some federal employees may have to start looking for new jobs.
DACA persons better be careful this time. They will do away with the program.
TPS card holders, you are a target also.
Transgender, for sure.
Same-sex marriage may go the way of Roe v Wade.
Affirmative action will go away.
Federal money for schools is probably on the chopping block.
If you have seen the 2025 project, I suggest you do.
Living through the 50s, I feel it will be like the good old days.
I will probably post less often as they intend to monitor communications critical of the government.
just here to say that he won the popular vote by several million as well.