The closest race no one was paying attention to.
Rep. Kenny Marchant
Last week’s midterm elections showed that the Texas electorate is changing dramatically, and even Republicans who survived found themselves with surprisingly close calls after coasting to reelection for years.
One U.S. representative who saw the ground shift was Kenny Marchant. The Coppell Republican won his eighth term by 3.2 percentage points — about 8,400 votes out of 262,000 cast.
That’s a far cry from his landslide victories in the last three elections: a 61-36 margin in 2012, and 65-32 two years later. Against the same opponent in 2016, Democrat Jan McDowell, Marchant coasted to a 56-39 win.
For this year’s rematch, McDowell raised just $100,000 against the incumbent’s $1.1 million.
The contest was never on the radar as a potential toss-up, overlooked by independent congressional handicappers and both parties’ House campaign strategists.
“Kenny Marchant is one in a cast of thousands who saw margins shrink and should be alert to danger going forward,” said Cal Jillson, a political science professor at Southern Methodist University.
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Marchant was elected to the Texas House in 1986 and rose to chairman of the Republican caucus before moving to Congress.
If he wants to keep that seat, Riddlesperger said, he’ll need to respond to changing demographics in the district and do more to connect with suburban voters. “He can read the numbers,” the professor said. “He is going to move a little more to the moderate side of things if he wants to be successful moving forward.”
Jillson said Republicans should look to the Sessions loss for lessons in staying in closer contact with constituents.
“It’s not so much they need to change their issues,” he said, but “whether that is being involved in Rotary Club or community Republican meetings, they need to assess their presence and what they are doing.”
See here for some background. As I recall, Tom DeLay basically drew this seat for Marchant back in 2003, and going all the way back to the first election in 2004, it’s never been remotely competitive. Demography and Donald Trump caught up with the district this year, and I have to think that one of the many candidates that raised a ton of money and generated an equivalent amount of excitement elsewhere might have had a real shot at winning CD24 this year. We’ll have another shot in 2020, though this time we won’t be sneaking up on anyone. Marchant is who he is at this point – I doubt any feints towards “moderation”, whatever that might even mean in this context, or attendance at local events will change the voters’ perception of him. Either the conditions and the opponent are sufficient to usher him back to the private sector, or they’re not. We have limited control over the former, but we can sure take care of the latter.
Bingo.
I think Beto won this seat by a couple points. NW Dallas County and SE Denton demographics have changed a ton since 2002. Lots of office park moms and dads, increasingly minority. Large asian and indian population in Irving, Carrollton. Hispanic pop in Farmers Branch and increasingly Lewisville. Coppell is the lone GOP stronghold on the NW Dallas county side. Julie Johnson, Michelle Beckley, and John Turner now represent state house seats partially or wholly within CD24, Nathan Johnson has a ton of this area in SD16. NE Tarrant kept Marchant from an embarrasing upset. McDowell if she’s the nominee will be better funded and the GOP is on the wrong side of what’s happening here politically as these areas get more diverse and they continue to lose college educated suburbanites. He needs NE Tarrant to bail him out again, but even Stickland in the Euless area will face another tough challenge.
It doesn’t get easier for the GOP in DFW. Van Taylor in CD3 may have an interesting rematch in 2020.
CD-23, CD-24, CD-10 will all be majorly contested by both parties next election with a good chance for pickups by dems in an electoral makeup similar to 2018. CD-21, CD-31, CD-22, and CD-02 are also possible dem pickups but will require the electorate to become at least a little more Democratic.