The Atlantic: “Do Texas Democrats want to win statewide elections? I’m sure they’d prefer it to losing them. But the question is whether they actually care enough about winning to take the necessary steps—or even whether winning elections ranks among their top, say, five priorities.
The state is holding a Senate election in November that is, or could be, a pivot point in the chamber’s control. Yet Texas Democrats have lost every statewide election since 1994.
During the Obama era, Democrats pointed hopefully to the state’s growing Latino population as a source of strength that would propel them inevitably back into majority status. This expectation of an emerging majority may have paradoxically caused the party to avoid making any accommodations to the state’s conservative-leaning electorate—why compromise their values to win when they could just ride the demographic wave?
In recent years, these hopes have faded. …Every ingredient is in place for Texas to swing back, and potentially give Democrats a Senate majority, except one: the Texas Democratic Party.”