Turn Texas Blue

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Forrest Wilder for The Texas Observer, interviewing Jeremy Bird: 

The insoluble dilemma for Texas Democrats has long been how to use Texas’ demographic change to break their epically long losing streak. Call it Waiting for Gomez.

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O: I think one of the things that has inarguably held back Democrats in a lot of respects is a really low turnout rate, among Latinos especially in certain areas. Is that something y’all are mindful of and what’s the thinking in terms of what to do about that?

JB: That is probably the Number 1 and 2 problems. No. 1 is low registration rates. Two is low turnout rates. They’re both equally important. It’s a full process of how do get people on the rolls and in the electorate. But then you’ve got to turn them out or otherwise it doesn’t matter. We’ve gotta figure out what works and then do some testing of that.

The biggest thing is that if you look at right after the election [Latino Decisions] asked voters all over the Southwest and the West and in the South were you talked to by a campaign, did somebody knock on your door, did somebody call you, was there any interaction. With voters in Colorado it was well over 60 percent of all voters—and you know how hard it is to get to some people—had been communicated with by a campaign.

The number was in the mid-20s, I think, in Texas. Part of it is people aren’t asking, people aren’t going out. If you look at what Andy Brown did with the 21-precinct project, they actually went out and talked to people and saw a difference. We know from every study we did in the campaign and every election I’ve been involved in, you see bigger turnout when people are actually asked for their vote… And so we know that works. The question is can you do that on a scale enough to move the needle.

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Emily Rimshaw for The Texas Tribune, cross posted at the NY Times as 

<nyt_headline version="1.0" type=" ">The Twin in the Background Takes Center Stage

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Castro, 38, is accustomed to being mistaken for his one-minute-older identical twin, Julián Castro, whose reputation as a rising political star was sealed last summer when President Obama made him the first Latino to deliver a keynote address at the Democratic National Convention. (His brother introduced him.)

But in the two months since Joaquin Castro, an attorney and former state legislator, was sworn into Congress, he has been the one getting the lion’s share of the attention.

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While there has been much public chatter about Julián Castro’s gubernatorial ambitions, speculation is already mounting that Joaquin Castro could challenge Ted Cruz, the state’s Tea Party-backed junior U.S. senator, in 2018. 

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For Castro, that means embracing the limelight and making the attention strategic, whether it is claiming one of the camera-friendly aisle seats hours ahead of Obama’s State of the Union, or using political wordplay to drive home one of his key messages: that education breeds prosperity for the underprivileged. In interviews and public appearances on a recent day in Washington, Castro used a term he coined — America’s “infrastructure of opportunity” — no fewer than six times. 

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“I didn’t come here to be a wallflower, but I didn’t come here to get into a shouting match with everybody I meet either,” Castro said. “Doing your job requires different modes, and you can’t just be stuck in one mode where you’re always the shrill outsider screaming at everybody.”

The Castro brothers’ political allies credit them with boosting the national profile of Texas Democrats; state Rep. Rafael Anchia, D-Dallas, said they have “in a very short period of time almost singlehandedly breathed life back into the Texas Democratic Party.”

“When you look at who the rising Latino stars are on each side of the aisle, the Castros pose a big electoral threat, and I don’t think the GOP has the answer for them,” said Ed Espinoza, an Austin-based Democratic consultant.

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[turntexasblue]

Happy Texas Independence Day, y'all! 

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In short... numbers numbers numbers statistics. But those imply a continuation of current trends. The secret is recruiting and engaging voters who wouldn't have voted in the past. 

Micah Cohen for FiveThirtyEight blog of NY Times: 

How worried should Republicans be? And how realistic are those Democratic aspirations? A new study released on Thursday — based on data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey — points toward some answers: Republicans should be worried, but Democrats in Austin and Phoenix shouldn’t stock up on confetti just yet.

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But more important, a change in the eligible voter population is not the same as a change in the likely voter population.

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As a result, the fast-growing Hispanic and Asian-Americans communities continue to “punch below their weight.” For example, if a Democrat wins 70 percent of the Hispanic vote (roughly what Mr. Obama earned nationally in 2012) but just half of eligible Hispanics go to the polls, then a Democrat gains a net of only two votes over their Republican opponent for every 10 new eligible Hispanic voters.

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The other variable is turnout. Democrats could speed the rate at which Arizona and Texas become competitive if they could accelerate the rise of Hispanic turnout rates. So far, however, Hispanic turnout has increased incrementally.

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Cecile Richards, President of Planned Parenthood and daughter of Governor Ann Richards, writes an op-ed for the NY Times: 

But there is another critical element for anyone seeking electoral success in Texas: women. They are fed up with the backward policies coming out of Austin — and by the way, women make up a majority of the growing population of Hispanic voters in Texas.

Gov. Rick Perry and his party have given priority to anti-women’s health policies, first slashing money for the state’s family planning program and then creating a costly health program that denies women access to Planned Parenthood’s preventive health care services. This strategy is out of touch with what Texans want.

A new poll confirms that the majority of Texans — including 77 percent of Hispanics — support state-financed family planning, including access to birth control.

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David Muto for The Texas Tribune: 

A new group aiming to spend up to tens of millions of dollars to help turn Texas Democratic officially launched today, announcing new leadership and a campaign website.

The organization, dubbed Battleground Texas, hopes to mobilize the state's growing Hispanic population, as well as other minorities, young people and progressive groups, in hopes of delivering the state's coveted 38 electoral votes to future Democratic presidential candidates and aiding Democrats running for statewide office, as Politico first reported last month. Texas hasn't elected a Democrat to statewide office since 1994.

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“The University of Texas will change its colors to maroon and white before Texas goes purple, much less blue,” Perry told the Wall Street Journal.

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Megan Whitaker for MSNBC: 

“If she’s the nominee, I would say that this is a ‘lean Republican’ state but not a ‘solid Republican’ state,” Texas GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri tells Real Clear Politics.  ”I don’t know anyone nationally who’s scoffing at this. The national party leadership is aware and tells me they’re taking it seriously.”

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The key to harnessing that power may be voter registration:  there are more than 2 million eligible unregistered Latino voters in Texas. That would double the Latino voting power in the state, and that’s not the only factor in Hillary’s favor. ”You pair that with a lot of single women in Texas and you have an incredible coalition the likes of which you haven’t seen in Texas in a long time.”

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Richard Parker for the New York Times: 

 It also requires that Democrats stop assuming they’re going to lose. “If we start treating this as a purple state,” said Matt Glazer of the activist group Progress Texas, “we would be one that much sooner.”

That also assumes that Republicans continue on their present, self-destructive course. If they moderate their anti-immigrant message, they might cut into the gains that optimistic Democrats are taking for granted.

Aside from get-out-the-vote efforts and pro-immigrant posturing, the Democrats need to develop a better understanding of Texas Hispanics as more than just immigrants. Their No. 1 issue: jobs. Polling and focus groups by the University of Texas political scientist Daron Shaw suggest that economic themes — including education and entrepreneurship — may draw Hispanics to vote in greater numbers. But as long as both parties see voters as mere immigrants, he said, “Hispanics are going to look at the candidate as just another politician.”

It has been 36 years since the Democrats last captured Texas in a presidential election. It could well happen again. But to make it happen, they have to look beyond demographics and start focusing on the hard, long road of party building first.

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Greg Campell for The Daily Caller:

In a letter to Magpul founder and CEO Richard Fitzpatrick, Perry touts Texas’s business climate, citing such things as “low taxes, a fair legal system, reasonable regulations, a well-trained and skilled workforce and unmatched transportation and communications infrastructures.”

“There is no other state that fits the definition of business-friendly like Texas,” Perry wrote.

Perry mentioned gun rights only briefly, in a business context.

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But so far Texas is the only state where the governor is known to have made a personal appeal.

In his letter, Perry noted a slate of financial incentives Texas offers companies, including cash grants, sales tax exemptions and refunds, employee training programs and low-interest loans.

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Audrey White for the Texas Tribune:

Interfaith groups and Democratic state legislators rallied on the Capitol steps Wednesday in support of expanding Medicaid to impoverished adults, as directed by federal health reform.

"We don't want more mothers dying. We don't want to lose more brothers," said Rosalie Tristan, a leader of Valley Interfaith. "We want you to do something. We don't want you to do nothing."

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"The numbers are solid. This is economic development and social justice," said state Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, one of more than a dozen Democrat state legislators to speak in favor of Medicaid expansion at the rally. "This is health care that makes sense. Let's put politics aside and do what's right for the people of this state."

State Rep. Lon Burnam, D-Fort Worth, said he believes the state can develop a bipartisan effort to expand Medicaid. In Arizona, for example, Republican Gov. Jan Brewer plans to approve Medicaid expansion on the condition that the state immediately pull the plug on the program if the federal government reduces its financial share, he said.

"There are people on both sides of the aisle who are too smart to lose billions and billions of dollars," Burnam told the crowd.

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Emily Ramshaw for the Texas Tribune: 

Just six months ago, Texas Gov. Rick Perryand Florida Gov. Rick Scott were fishing together on FoxNews, pitching then-presidential contender Mitt Romney’s Medicare plan and arguing that decisions about health care should be made by states, not the federal government.

On Wednesday, Scott reversed course, joining a growing number of Republican governors who are reluctantly embracing the key tenet of President Obama’s federal health reform — a sweeping Medicaid expansion.

“While the federal government is committed to paying 100 percent of the cost,” Scott said at a press conference, “I cannot in good conscience deny Floridians that needed access to healthcare.”

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"When people ask my why I am so optimistic about [a] Medicaid expansion in Texas, it's because I know that the arguments for expansion transcend politics," state Rep. Garnet Coleman, D-Houston, said in a statement following Scott's announcement. "... The people of Florida should be proud of their governor today for making the right choice." 

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Jonathan Martin for Politico: 

But when it comes to politics — both present-day battles and future trends — ground zero right now is the fastest-growing of the mega-states: Texas.

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Texas Republicans now mirror their national counterparts, a party cleaved between conservatives radicalized by President Barack Obama and an establishment wing that alternates between taming the fire-breathers and accommodating them. 

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The Republican fear of being “primaried” has infected the Lone Star State at high levels. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), the second-ranking Senate Republican, is going to lengths to preempt a primary challenge from the right by sticking close to his colleague, tea party-backed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), who has been in the chamber for all of a month.

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And for both parties, Texas is arguably Exhibit A in how demographic forces are shaping electoral destiny.

Democrats here, shut out of statewide office since 1994, are glum about their current prospects but hopeful about a future revival for the same reason the national party is optimistic about their chances of retaining majority status in the coming years: the electorate is changing in their favor.

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But now the GOP, in Texas and beyond, faces a test with Hispanics with how it procedes on immigration reform.

While Johnson and Carter have dived into discussions on the issue, Cornyn and especially Cruz have been far more hesitant. Some Texans worry that if Cruz votes against the eventual bill, Cornyn will have to as well — and that their opposition, even with Senate passage, will make it harder on the state’s House Republicans to back comprehensive reform.

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Straus, much like Speaker John Boehner, has had to quiet some of his more ideological members who’ve garnered press coverage for pushing issues such as the TSA groping matter and “Sanctuary Cities.”

Straus’s job is safe in part, though, because he enjoys coalition support from a bloc of Democrats and Republicans.

But while that enables him to muzzle conservatives in his caucus, Cornyn, the new GOP whip, has no such luxury.

Democrats snicker that he’s now stuck on “Cruz Control,” following the lead of his junior partner on issues ranging from the confirmation of Secretary of State John Kerry (they comprised two of the three “no” votes) to the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act (which garnered 78 “yes” votes).

“Cruz is essentially now able to determine Cornyn’s dance steps,” said Rep. Castro.

The 42-year-old senator represents the new vanguard of his party in both Texas and beyond. Elected to the Senate after winning a primary runoff against the establishment-backed sitting lieutenant governor, he’s part of a new cadre of “Red Dawn Republicans” that came of age when Ronald Reagan was president and are more conservative than their elders. The Houstonian has become an overnight star among conservatives for his prosecutorial aggression toward Chuck Hagel during the would-be Defense secretary’s confirmation hearings but is raising eyebrows among some of his more senior colleagues.

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Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas), who has taken the helm of the Financial Services Committee, said Cruz represents the urgency bordering on panic many grass-roots conservatives are gripped by in an era of large deficits.

“People sense that time is running off the clock,” said Hensarling. “And they’re looking for people who will not only articulate what they think but also will take action. That’s what they see in Ted Cruz.”

Cruz’s victory last summer against longtime Lt. Gov David Dewhurst sent shockwaves through the state political establishment and sent the same message to Texas politicos as tea party wins have in other states: ambitious conservatives aren’t going to wait their turns any longer.

“You are going to see more contested races in the primaries.,” explained Austin-based GOP consultant David Weeks. “The Cruz race changed things.”

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As his votes show, Cornyn got that message. The other big question now hanging over Texas is whether Attorney General Greg Abbott is feeling as emboldened as Cruz. Abbott, who has held his office for a decade, is sitting on an $18 million war chest and is mulling whether to run for governor in 2014. That could mean a primary challenge against Perry, who is now in his 13th year as governor and has been back in the news for another job poaching run in California. But the betting in Austin is that the governor could forgo a fourth gubernatorial campaign to prepare for another run.

“If he doesn’t run for governor, I assume he’ll run for president,” said one Perry adviser.