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The Blast: Setting expectations for the election [1]
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Date: 2024-11
The presidential race
As you’ll pick up based on the placement of this section below the Senate section, the Trump-Harris race is not the race to watch in Texas.
Despite Vice President Kamala Harris’ late trip to the Lone Star State, her role in Texas seems to be to help boost turnout for Allred. That works in reverse, too. Trump getting on the airwaves in Texas could be to sweep in Cruz.
In 2018, O’Rourke did as well as he did because there were a significant number of voters splitting their ticket, voting for Gov. Greg Abbott for reelection and O’Rourke for the Senate. This year, the expectation is that voters who turn out because of Trump will be more likely to abstain in the Senate race.
The congressional and legislative races
U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, has a competitive reelection battle while U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz, R-Edinburg, has a more comfortable path, but it’s still been a serious fight.
South Texas is also the main battleground in the state legislative races.
Republicans feel like former Uvalde Mayor Don McLaughlin is a shoo-in to succeed state Rep. Tracy King, D-Uvalde. After that, Republicans could be looking at a pickup in some other competitive South Texas races, like around Corpus Christi, where Republican Denise Villalobos is challenging former Democratic state Rep. Solomon Ortiz Jr. in another open race, where state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, is retiring.
Abbott was down in Corpus today supporting Villalobos and state Senate candidate Adam Hinojosa.
For Democrats, their goal is to deny Abbott and Republicans the votes for universal education savings accounts, which likely means flipping multiple seats in the state House. In San Antonio, Democrats at the top of the ticket could carry the seat held by Republican state Rep. John Lujan like they did in 2022.
But the question in the state House is also what happens in the suburbs. Republicans initially had concerns about state Reps. Angie Chen Button of Richardson, Caroline Harris Davila of Round Rock, Lacey Hull of Houston and Morgan Meyer of University Park. While concerns there have faded, Democrats will still keep an eye out for how competitive those seats could be later on in the decade, as we get further from redistricting.
Democrats will also be looking at races like the one between Republican Marc LaHood and Democrat Laurel Jordan Swift, where a more partisan Republican picked off a more moderate incumbent in the primary. LaHood could win tomorrow, but he could be worse off than Republican state Rep. Steve Allison would have performed, and that could come back to bite Republicans later in the decade. Republican Hillary Hickland could face something similar after primarying state Rep. Hugh Shine of Temple, although she doesn’t have the same immediate concern that LaHood has.
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