Greg Abbott and Beto O'Rourke

 

Every time I read something about Texas in this Trump era, I get a stab in my heart, because I grew up there and still have connections. There's no earthly excuse for my native land to be so cussedly, dangerously backward.

I came across this yesterday

The Lincoln Project, an American political action committee formed in 2019, made up of former and current Republicans, issued a statement questioning why their TV ad [blasting Gov. Greg Abbott for his bad handling of COVID], funded for $25,000, did not run on ESPN during the nationally televised Texas vs. Rice college football game. The group said the ad was pulled 10 minutes before it was expected to run, despite ESPN's legal team clearing it beforehand.

The ad was pulled, citing a "university-made" decision. And a spokesman for Abbott told The Dallas Morning News he had nothing to do with the decision. Still, the Lincoln Project asserts that Abbott, a Texas graduate who appoints members of the school’s board of regents, played a part in the ad not running and said it plans to file a public records request to determine that. [USA Today]

So I found the ad: 

You might be forgiven for thinking that Gov. Abbott might could maybe be beaten in 2022 by a good, well funded Democrat. You would think that already perhaps, before seeing the Lincoln Project silent condemnation of his criminal ineptness. For Abbott's been a visible and willing advocate for backwardness of a shocking stripe, the curtailing of ballot access and the ending of legal abortion. The abrasive impact on independent voters of these policies perhaps accounts for the University of Texas poll that found Abbott moving underwater for the first time this summer, his approval rating sinking to 41% with 50% disapproving.

Could Beto O'Rourke be The One? 'Cause he's running, have no doubt. Hans Nichols at Axios wrote:

O'Rourke's entry would give Democrats a high-profile candidate with a national fundraising network to challenge Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — and give O’Rourke, a former three-term congressman from El Paso and 2020 presidential candidate and voting rights activist, a path to a political comeback.

"Comeback"? O'Rourke lost the Texas Senate race to Ted Cruz in 2018 (O'Rourke got a respectable 48.3% of the vote),  and then his presidential bid fizzled in 2020. So less than four years later, yes, we're talking "comeback"? Though it's not as though O'Rourke retired to a monastery. He's been active and out there on voting rights especially and he's lent his name and sweat equity to Democratic candidates for the Texas state legislature. Plus he's a proven, exceptional money magnet. Who else would have a better chance, taking it to Greg Abbott? Abbott pushes many buttons on the negative partisanship consol, and money will flow to any star Democrat willing to challenge him. Beto might have the appeal to pull it off. (Hope springs.)

July 17, 2021: 

Look Who's Running for Congress in Texas

Wendy Davis got nationally well known for double-digit hours in 2013 spent filibustering a Texas abortion bill. Texans know how to do extreme, and Wendy Davis was up for fighting them. She was a member of the Texas Senate representing District 10 (Tarrant County, i.e., Fort Worth), in her second term, and she was what Texas men traditionally label "a handful." She became an instant media star in her pink running shoes.

She opted not to run for her Senate seat again in 2014 and instead went after the governorship against Republican Greg Abbott (who's currently still in that office), and that project turned out to have been unwise, because she did very poorly, losing to Abbott by 960,952 votes. Plus she earned much criticism for running a desperation TV ad that made politics out of the wheelchair to which Abbott is permanently confined. Ouch.

She lives now in Austin where she started a non-profit, Deeds Not Words, and she's just announced a bid for Congress in the 21st House District. The 21st is a fantastic extrusion of fine-grained gerrymandering. It begins in Austin, takes in neighborhoods on the south and southwest sides of town, then runs south along the western side of Interstate 35 into San Antonio's northern neighborhoods and into Alamo Heights. It then juts out west into the Hill Country, taking in Fredericksburg and Kerrville. The district includes Bandera, Blanco, Gillespie, Kendall, Kerr, and Real counties as well as areas of Bexar, Comal, Hays, and Travis counties. The most recent updated Cook Political Report rates it "lean Republican." It used to be Lyndon Baines Johnson's seat of power.

Davis is high-profile, and she can raise money the way a dust devil raises dust. She's going up against a first-term Republican in Chip Roy, who's made himself a Washington pariah in just a year-and-a-half. In May Roy single-handedly blocked $19 billion in disaster aid (much of which would have come to Texas). He was carrying water for Twitterman who was mad because the disaster aid bill didn't include money to build more wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. "The spending bill ultimately passed, but not before Roy's delay frustrated lawmakers on both sides" (Paul J. Weber).

The grotesquely gerrymandered 21st Congressional District of Texas 

If she's going to win this district, Davis is going to have to do at least passably well in those hill-country counties where the population is sparser and the opinions run strongly to the right. Don't know if this cosmopolitan star is going to shine as brightly out there to the west. That's ranching country.