Just because Texas hasn’t voted a Democrat into statewide office in 20 years — and just because Lone Star voters haven’t selected anyone but the Republican candidate for the White House for 40 years — doesn’t mean the donkey flag can’t figuratively fly above the Capitol once again, optimistic liberals say.
Failure breeds success, and in that regard, Democrats are due, they say.
“It’s inevitable,” said Matt Angle, a Democratic consultant trying to chip at the Republican presence in the state. “But only with a lot of hard work.”
The Democratic efforts are focusing on boosting black and Latino voter turnout at the polls, the Los Angeles Times reported. Those tactics have worked well in Ohio and Virginia, as well as Colorado and Nevada. Now Democratic activists are trying to replicate the successes seen in those states with a ground-level strategy that calls for lots of door-knocking in minority neighborhoods, the L.A. Times reported.
And they’re in it for the long haul. Democrats say the morphing of Texas from red to purple to blue could take years — but it’ll happen.
“It will occur sooner if we steadily keep at it,” said James Aldrete, an Austin, Texas-based political consultant, in the L.A. Times.
Demographics have shifted in the state dramatically in recent years. Now, two-thirds of the state’s growth can be attributed to Latinos. Soon enough, Latinos will surpass whites. Asian-Americans, meanwhile, are gaining ground in the population count, too.
“If you could get people to turn out [at the polls] at a rate that reflects their percentage of the electorate … we’d be neck-and-neck right now,” said Julie Martinez Ortega, a San Antonio pollster hoping the state goes Democratic, the L.A. Times reported.
• Cheryl K. Chumley can be reached at cchumley@washingtontimes.com.
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