Politico: “Garza, a former ACLU attorney and a Democrat who grew up in the Valley, is running for Texas attorney general against Republican incumbent Ken Paxton, a powerful political figure known for his intense allyship with Donald Trump. No Democrat has won the state attorney general race since 1994. But the mood that August night was sunny. Her campaign had been recently buoyed by a Dallas Morning News-UT-Tyler poll showing her within two points of Paxton, while fellow Democrat Beto O’Rourke trailed in his gubernatorial race by seven. All at once, a relatively unknown candidate from south Texas looked like she had a shot at winning. Texas Democrats questioned the lack of media attention on her. Republicans seemed unworried. (“Rochelle who?” the Texas GOP chair said at the time.)…
Now, weeks from Election Day, Garza is traveling the state, hoping to boost enthusiasm and turnout among the Democratic base, especially women and Latino voters, and convince them why the AG’s race matters. (She also still has to introduce herself: The Texas Politics Project poll from October found that 59 percent of likely voters didn’t express a favorable or unfavorable opinion about her.) And as other Democratic politicians in Texas have learned, it’s not enough to energize the Democratic electorate. To win, Garza will have to mobilize voters who aren’t Democrats, too.
Garza is still betting she can, not only because of Paxton’s legal issues, but because of Dobbs. “Kansas showed us that abortion is not controversial,” she said when we spoke in McAllen. She was relaxed, but when she described the realities in Texas, her voice turned resolute. She cited polling finding that the vast majority of Texans support abortion access in some form. But “the folks in power right now have completely outlawed it,” she said. “There’s no exception for incest or rape. There’s still confusion over what does it mean to to provide an abortion to save the life of a mother.””