Tomorrow
Tomorrow! Tomorrow!
I love ya Tomorrow!
You’re only
A day
A way!
On election day eve, I usually don’t have much to say. Stuff is pretty much baked in. I am feeling good, but I don’t want to get overconfident. I mean, huge crowds in Texas for our side. Event cancellations over on the MAGA side.
_____
To those of you who enjoy the political macabre and didn’t get enough of your scary juices flowing on Halloween Night, you got to witness a political suicide yesterday. Sore loser Cong. Haley Stevens endorsed MAGA candidate Mike Rogers in the U.S. Senate race in Michigan. She had told numerous Democratic leaders and the media that she would be voting for all Democrats. There was universal condemnation from Democratic leaders throughout the country. She is a sore loser, liar, and now got her arse kicked out of the Democratic Party. In the end, it won’t make a difference in the race.
_____
Here is a closing read on Harris County’s role in tomorrow’s race. From the Chron:
Harris County was once a place Texas Republicans could count on to help win statewide elections. Now it could propel Democrat James Talarico to the Senate in his race against Ken Paxton.
For decades, the state’s most populous county was a rare GOP stronghold among America’s largest urban counties. Republicans held the county judge’s office for 44 years and won seven of eight gubernatorial elections there.
That changed after President Donald Trump took office in 2017, as Harris County became an increasingly dependable source of Democratic votes.
As Trump’s approval ratings slumped, Democratic-leaning groups intensified registration efforts. Voter rolls in Harris County, which includes Houston, grew nearly 20% in four years. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke beat Republican Sen. Ted Cruz there by about 200,000 votes in the 2018 election.
O’Rourke still lost statewide by roughly 219,000 votes. But his close finish showed Democrats how overwhelming margins in growing urban and suburban counties could offset Republican dominance elsewhere in Texas.
Harris County has added another 400,000 registered voters over the past six years. If turnout climbs a few percentage points above 2018 levels and Talarico captures closer to 60% of the vote, compared with O’Rourke’s 56%, he could gain nearly 100,000 additional votes.
Underscoring Harris County’s importance to his Senate bid, Talarico headlined a Saturday rally in downtown Houston, just three days before Election Day.
State Rep. Ann Johnson, D-Houston, said Democrats still regret falling short in 2018..
“Life would be different if we’d gotten that right,” she said.
On a recent Saturday morning, Johnson rallied about half a dozen volunteers preparing to knock on doors in Houston.
Two of them, high school seniors Kien Tom and Nathan Thokala, were assigned roughly 40 homes. Most residents who answered already supported Talarico. The challenge was making sure they turned out.
“A lot of people have very strong opinions of who they’re voting for but not a strong voting plan, and that’s a problem especially in Texas where there’s a lot of rules that are pretty predatory toward voters,” Tom said.
Harris County could get Talarico nearly halfway to erasing O’Rourke’s losing margin in 2018. The rest of the journey runs through the Rio Grande Valley, Austin’s growing suburbs and the politically unpredictable neighborhoods of Tarrant County.
Rio Grande Valley
Can Talarico reverse Trump’s historic breakthrough in the Rio Grande Valley? Trump carried Hidalgo County in 2024, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to win it since Richard Nixon in 1972. Talarico launched his Senate campaign in McAllen, has outspent Paxton and his allies on Spanish-language television and has repeatedly returned to the border. Without a win in Hidalgo, Democratic chairman Richard Gonzales says Talarico’s chances are slim. “I don’t see the math,” he said.
Williamson County
Talarico has a hometown advantage in Williamson County, where he grew up in Round Rock and helped flip a Republican-held Texas House seat in 2018. That year, Williamson and neighboring Hays County narrowly backed O’Rourke after supporting Cruz in 2012. With voter registrations soaring, fellow Democratic state Rep. John Bucy predicts victory for Talarico. “He’s going to run up the score here,” he said.
Tarrant County
Tarrant County has a habit of keeping both parties guessing: It backed Trump in 2016, Joe Biden in 2020 and Trump again in 2024. O’Rourke narrowly won it in 2018, but Paxton has carried it in every statewide attorney general election since 2014. Talarico supporters say he can break that streak. “The energy this time is different,” said former county Democratic chair Crystal Gayden.
_____
Dylan Dreyer is in the featured photo as Barbara Eden’s Jeannie from “I Dream of Jeannie,” during the “Today” Halloween show.
_____
Christian Walker won the AL Gold Gove for first baseman.
Randy Flores will be introduced today as the new general manager of the Astros.