Hillary Clinton as the Straw of Hope for Texas Democrats

Hillary Clinton carried three congressional districts that reelected their GOP congressmen. Is that good news for Texas Democrats?

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton triumphed over Republican Donald Trump last year in three Texas congressional districts that, on the same ballot, reelected their respective GOP congressmen. Clinton’s party seized the result as evidence of a potential Democratic comeback in the 2018 elections. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee put on its hit list the three districts—Pete Sessions’ Thirty-second district in Dallas, John Culberson’s Seventh District in Houston, and Will Hurd’s Twenty-third District, stretching from San Antonio to El Paso.

“We view 2018 as a real opportunity to win more seats here in Texas,” House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi said recently on Overheard with Evan Smith on KLRU-TV in Austin. “We don’t just raise money in Texas. We spend money in Texas. What we raise here stays here, and we bring in more. What we saw in the last election, with at least three members being re-elected in districts where Hillary Clinton won, some of the investments over time and registrations are paying off.”

On the top line, the three districts look like a surge of Democratic voters: 81,000 more than President Obama received in his 2012 election and almost 38,000 fewer votes for Trump than 2012 GOP nominee Mitt Romney. But the anomalous Clinton/Trump isn’t a good measuring stick—partisans of both sides deeply disliked the opposition’s candidate. Also some Republicans were not going to vote for Trump for many of the same reasons that the party turned against uncouth Republican gubernatorial candidate Clayton Williams in his 1990 contest with Democrat Ann Richards. Rabble-rousing Trump with his “grab them by the pussy” remarks were not terribly unlike Williams joking that bad weather is like rape—“relax and enjoy it”—and his promise to “head and hoof” Richards and “drag her through the mud.” Richards won that election, but so did Republicans Rick Perry for agriculture commissioner and Kay Bailey Hutchison for state treasurer.

But winning the districts will be far more difficult than Democrats believe. Although Clinton carried his district, Hurd won reelection despite the DCCC spending $1.1 million on behalf of Democrat Pete Gallego and $1.9 million against Hurd, according to statistics compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics. Neither Clinton’s victory nor the DCCC’s spending carried the day for Gallego.

Read more: http://www.texasmonthly.com/burka-blog/hillary-clinton-straw-hope-texas-democrats/