However, they are both repugnant to me.

Some just don’t, or refuse to get it.

Cruz won against orange Hitler 43.8% to 26.7%.

Cruz won against Beto 50.9% to 48.3%.

Beto on the ticket most definitely CAN flip Texas. There are actually several of our candidates that have the potential to flip Texas, several that have almost no chance, and one that definitely doesn’t have a chance in hell of flipping Texas this round, but none have a better chance of it than Beto.

Even if Trump won EVERY other state in 2020 that he won in 2016, if Texas Flips, the Democratic Party candidate wins.

GA, NC...

I think a Kamala/Beto ticket would be unbeatable.

Kamala has the gravitas and appeal to metro voters and suburban women (increasingly important, they drove the blue wave) and women of color (who in many ways are the base of the Dem party) and others like the youth who are inspired by the chance to see history.

Beto is special because he's like the second coming of RFK, has appeal to white working class as well as latinos (fasting expanding minority group) and youth... and if TX goes blue the GOP is finished

Which is a fair concern, if you're tuned into these things. Texas is a hard egg to crack locally for a Democrat. Beto almost managed to break Texas' state-wide race Democratic drought. There's other swing states where he'd be received even better, it's more than reasonable to assume. The GOP are naturally concerned and want to chop him off at the knees before he gets a chance to skew their chances in those states.

It's actually a logical preemptive strike on their part.

https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/tx/tx02282019_tbvn26.pdf/

It also had Beto in a tie with Cornyn for Senate.

It's an extensive survey with lots of interesting info. Trump's favorability rating is in the dumps with people under 50, it's the 50 and older crowd that keeps it close and he's still underwater. Whites are also propping his numbers up; the poll didn't break down racial compositions for each age group but obviously there are correlations.

One surprising tidbit is that 43% of voters have no opinion or not enough info about Cornyn, including 70% of people under 35. That's worse than all but a couple of the Democratic presidential candidates and compares to 2% for Trump and 10% for Bernie.

Another interesting data point not from that poll, if you use the CNN exit poll age composition of the 2016 election and applied Beto's winning percentages with those groups in 2018 he would have just eked out a win against Cruz (and Cruz was slightly more popular than Trump in the 2018 exit poll). What dragged Beto down was that about 27% of the voters in 2018 were 65 or older vs 15% in 2016 - and you can guess how they voted. Youth turnout was nearly as high in 2018 and it broke much better for Beto than Hillary.

So yes, looking at it from this far out they have every reason to be concerned (but looking at the poll Sanders and especially Biden are also potential threats).

Trump would definitely have to devote time and resources in Texas if facing Beto. Right now I would say that race would favor Trump by roughly 2 points. With any other Democrat it's closer to 6.

It's true the electorate will be younger in a presidential year. That helps Beto and any Democrat. But the math simply doesn't work unless the electorate dropped sharply from 44% conservatives in 2016 and 43% in 2018 to 38% level in 2020. I realize people don't like focus like that, largely because they don't hear it anywhere else. Gamblers need atypical reference points because if all you know is what everybody else knows, then essentially you don't know a damn thing. The betting lines hold wisdom of the crowd at a point in time. Those liberal/conservative percentages have allowed me to defeat the crowd perspective for more than 25 years.

The only two examples of states dropping sharply in self-identified conservative numbers similar to what we would need in Texas are Indiana and North Carolina in 2008. Both plunged from their typical spot in the low 40s down to 37-38 range. I remember very well because I wagered on McCain to win both states. Those are the only two statewide presidential wagers I have ever lost since finding the clarity of ideological percentages. Obama carried both states by roughly 10,000, if I remember correctly.

Both states were more of a blip than true reversal, similar to what Trump will discover in the upper midwestern states. Hillary wasted an incredible amount of time and dollars in North Carolina 2016, given a state reporting 43% conservatives and 22% liberals. If the parties polled on that relationship and not merely the candidate to candidate relationship, the terrain would be more easily viewed.

The problem with stealing an unlikely state is the other side needs to be caught off guard. That was the case in 2008 and also 2016. It will not be the case in Texas 2020, nor Arizona 2020. The closer than expected presidential numbers in 2016 followed by the 2018 senate results guarantee that the GOP will be quietly fortifying those states toward 2020, just like Republicans did with Indiana and North Carolina post 2008, and Democrats are doing with Wisconsin and Michigan. Eventually there will be nothing Republicans can do about Texas or Arizona, once the demographic shift is mature. Right now it is still toddler stage in Texas and prepubescent stage in Arizona. The side that owns the fundamental advantage can shore up rather easily. Basically we would need a huge national tilt plus Beto atop the ticket to carry Texas this time, and Arizona would require a huge national edge to barely push our nominee over the top, whoever it is.

Sophistication to match the GOP in Florida would be exponentially easier and more rewarding than pipe dreams in Texas.

I don’t think there’s a single Democrat holding statewide office in Texas.

“You have to understand that I probably like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz.”

my stomach wants to urp up something.

It really did feel like a national election! Ted Cruz, on the other hand, became a national pariah - if you remember, he even got into it with Jimmy Kimmel! I've never been good a predicting elections (obviously!), but I was sure that this one was a "slam dunk!"

only polled around 40% I knew that it was an uphill climb. I wasn't out there making any predictions that Beto would win, but I do see an opening developing in Texas. That opening may expand over the next few weeks as people complete their taxes.

And if I was betting, I would have bet on Beto, LOL. He's no longer a regional figure, he made an impact everywhere. And the resemblance to another Robert Francis doesn't hurt! But I agree with you, when the repercussions of Trump's irresponsible policies began to hit home, even those who weren't paying much attention before will have no choice but to start waking up. And I have absolutely no doubt that we're going to continue to hear about Beto O'Rourke on a national level - long after we've forgotten Ted Cruz.

Republican Party sweat gets an A+ in my book. Lots of talk about Texas because a loss for the GOP there means 2020 Armageddon. Whether the chatter is real or not, it definitely is making Republican types sweat. O'Rourke factors into this because he came so close to unseating the despicable Cruz and the Blue Wave elected other Dems in the state. How many judges was that? Seventeen black women in one county???

Wowsa!

So yeah, they're getting nervous. Because . . . we're coming for them!