Rural Democrats

Today is Veterans Day. Thank a veteran.

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Jasper Scherer of the Chron has a frontpage story that focuses on Texas Democrats, rural Texas, and Tuesday’s election outcome. Commentary is quoted in the story. Here are parts:

Throughout the midterm campaign, Beto O’Rourke and other Texas Democrats tried to chip away at Republicans’ lopsided advantage in rural areas, pushing policies with bipartisan appeal like building more rural hospitals and expanding broadband access.

O’Rourke was rewarded for his efforts with about 21 percent of the vote in counties with less than 50,000 registered voters, down 5 percentage points from his 2018 Senate run. Among those 207 counties, O’Rourke received fewer than 275,000 votes this year, a fraction of the more than 3.5 million he tallied statewide, according to unofficial results.

And this:

Among the candidates who tried to court rural voters and disenchanted Republicans was Mike Collier, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, who emphasized his background as a former Republican and touted endorsements from numerous GOP politicians. Ali Zaidi, Collier’s campaign manager, said he “would not spend any time in the rural areas anymore” if he were to run a future statewide campaign in Texas. 

“I think Democrats, myself included, we haven’t reckoned with the reality that we can put out moderate candidates who take all the right positions in order to produce electoral success on paper and in focus groups,” Zaidi said. “But out in the real world, we were competing against Fox News, which is running every night. So our four weeks of advertising isn’t enough to move the needle there.”

Here is the entire read: Texas Democrats again search for gameplan after blowout (houstonchronicle.com).

Commentary doesn’t know this Zaidi fella. I don’t agree with him.  I don’t think any Texas Democrat should agree with him.

If Democrats are ever going to win Texas, we are going to have to do better in rural communities. Democrats showed up to events in rural communities.

Texas Democrats have been ignoring rural communities for a couple or so decades. We can’t expect to make inroads in one or two election cycles. It will take time, but we would be foolish to give up.

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The Chron also has a story today on how our election was conducted here in Harris County. Here is how the story starts:

Widespread problems with Harris County elections likely would be relieved if officials reduced the number of polling locations in favor of fewer sites that operate more efficiently, a Rice University researcher and some recent reports say.

“We do just fine with early voting,” said Robert Stein, a political scientist and fellow at the school’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy. “We have all kinds of locations over 12 days and that count goes fine. Then, at the end of election night you have 900 people standing in line.”

That line, like plenty of others, is made up of frustrated voters who, despite Harris County offering 782 polling locations with roughly 11,000 voting machines, encounter confusion and delays as poll workers troubleshoot problems, wait for instructions or replacement equipment from election officials.

County Election Administrator Clifford Tatum, the county’s sixth person to oversee elections since 2018, said Wednesday that officials would assess and investigate problems with this week’s mid-term election once they have completed the final tally and verified election results.

“We will look at every polling location,” Tatum said.

Here is the entire read: Less could be more efficient for Harris County Elections (houstonchronicle.com).

They need to get it right.  It needs to improve.

My friend Bob Stein is a good guy. Bring him in and listen to him.

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I am loving the GOP infighting right now. The finger pointing is nice. Keep it up.

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Jose Altuve and Yordan Alvarez won Silver Slugger awards yesterday.

These nine Astros are up for the All MLB Team:

Jose Altuve, 2B; Yordan Alvarez, DH; Alex Bregman, 3B; Cristian Javier, SP; Jeremy Peña, SS; Ryan Pressly, RP; Kyle Tucker, OF; Framber Valdez, SP; Justin Verlander, SP.

I am thinking Chron Sports Columnist Jerome Solomon will get comped a dinner at one of Jim Crane’s eateries for writing this about the Astros owner today:

Crane is now the best owner in the baseball business and perhaps the best in all of sports.

Hard to argue with this.

Have a nice weekend.