Race for Texas intensifies amid surging turnout, COVID cases

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By WILL WEISSERT and PAUL J. WEBER

McALLEN, Texas (AP) — Texas’ surprising status as a battleground came into clearer focus on Friday as Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris devoted one of the race’s final days to campaigning across America’s largest red state and early voter turnout zoomed past 9 million — already more than the total number of ballots cast during the entire 2016 election.

Harris visited three cities, including McAllen in the Rio Grande Valley along the Mexican border, which has been ravaged this summer by the coronavirus. Part of the California senator’s mission was to energize Latino voters, whose lower turnout rates have for years helped sink her party’s hopes of making Texas more competitive.

“Texas has been turning it out,” Harris told a McAllen drive-in rally. “You’ve been standing in line. You’ve been organizing. You’ve been making a huge difference.”

By showing up closer to Election Day than anyone on a Democratic presidential ticket has in years, Harris in some ways fulfilled weeks of pleas by Texas Democrats for Joe Biden’s presidential campaign to take their chances here more seriously. But Biden himself hasn’t come, and the campaign has made relatively little investment in advertising and staff.



Voters cast their ballots for the general election at Victory Houston polling station in Houston, on Friday, Oct. 30, 2020. The location was one of the Harris County's 24-hour locations. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP)


Read more: https://apnews.com/article/texas-early-vote-exceeds-2016-ballots-5fd6192dca45abeeb5a3a6c3ce663eb8

[BumRushDaShow]

1. Wow.

When you see people in Houston all bundled up in coats and heavy sweatshirts even at this time of year, you can tell they were being hit with the dreaded "blue 'norther"!

[cannabis_flower]

3. It was....

46 degrees. Not really cold but the first norther of the year.

[BumRushDaShow]

4. That was our high here in Philly yesterday once the remnants of Zeta blew past

It wasn't too bad when I had to go out in it yesterday once it stopped raining but that's because I busted out my winter coat too!

(ended up with our first below 32 when I got up this morning)

[getagrip_already]

2. 538 still shows iowa and ohio as more likely wins, but....

TX just isn't that far out there. And 538 has also reduced trumps odds in their simulations to 1 in 10 from a recent high of 1 in 13. So there is a good joementum factor here.

Still nervous as hell with all the reports of ballots sitting in post offices, but if there is something red states are pretty good at it's counting votes once they arrive. They haven't had any real reason to game or tamper with the system (other than suppression) because they have had the numbers.

[rockfordfile]

6. nope

[BlueWavePsych]

5. Within our grasp ...