RandySF
RandySF's JournalTX-25: Battle between Rep. Roger Williams, Julie Oliver spotlights Texas' evolving political
WASHINGTON – When Julie Oliver launched a longshot campaign to unseat Republican Rep. Roger Williams in 2018 in a conservative stronghold that stretches out from the Fort Worth suburbs, the Democrat said she “wasn’t thinking at the time, ‘Am I going to win?’”
Instead, she recalled, her mentality was more along the lines of “Gosh, I hope I can win.”
But after coming within nine points of Williams in that election – and then subsequently raising hundreds of thousands of dollars more this cycle than she collected for her bid two years ago – the former health care executive said “something has shifted.”
I know I can win,” she said.
It remains to be seen if her confidence is warranted in a mostly Central Texas district that President Donald Trump won by 15 points in the 2016 election, particularly since Williams has stressed that he’s taking “nothing for granted” and is running his campaign accordingly.
“I feel good about our chances,” said the four-term congressman, who’s also scaled up his operation from two years ago.
https://www.dallasnews.com/news/politics/2020/10/23/congressional-battle-between-rep-roger-williams-julie-oliver-spotlights-texas-evolving-political-map/
Why Trump Can't Take Red Counties in North Carolina for Granted
In this final sprint of the campaign, Mr. Trump is now holding up to three rallies a day to try to “juice” his base, in the words of advisers, as he bleeds support among the suburban voters who helped fuel his victory in 2016. His trip to this bedrock Trump county, and to Wisconsin and Ohio suburbs and exurbs on Saturday where his once-solid support is sliding, reflect his need to energize as much of his base as he can since many swing voters are now behind former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and there are few undecided voters left.
Gastonia is only about a half-hour west of downtown Charlotte, but once you cross the county line at the Catawba River, you are in die-hard Trump country. The only Democrat elected countywide here is the sheriff, who shares the president’s positions on guns and immigration. Trump flags fly in front of many houses, and lawn signs with his name dot the highways. “He isn’t a perfect president, but I am more proud of him now than I ever was before,” said Sandy Caudle, who works for a wholesale distributor and had two Trump banners displayed with his Halloween decorations on his front porch in the town of Lowell.
Four years ago, Mr. Trump’s outsized win in this district helped him toward an overall victory in North Carolina by a slim margin of 3.6 percentage points. A New York Times/Siena College poll this month of likely voters in the state showed Mr. Biden leading Mr. Trump by four points.
Lawn signs and campaign posters for Mr. Biden in this area are rare sightings. People like Karen Brown, who had a modest Biden-Harris sign displayed on her front yard in Gastonia, said she could not find one anywhere in town and finally resorted to ordering the $10 sign from Amazon.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/us/politics/trump-north-carolina-rural-.html
Joe Biden has emerged more popular as he closes in on a job he has wanted for decades
But the circumstances of this campaign — a pandemic and an economic collapse costing millions of jobs and making even the still-employed feel vulnerable — have pushed the race in the direction of Biden’s strong suits and against his deficits, shining a bright light on his empathy and sober experience and casting his flaws into the shadows.
He has emerged with more Americans viewing him favorably now than at this time last year, the opposite of the usual trajectory of a campaign and far different from the circumstances that faced Hillary Clinton in 2016. He holds a national lead approaching double digits and narrower but stable leads in many battleground states. He enters the final stretch with far more money to spend than Trump as he reaches for the pinnacle of a political career, one that has eluded him twice before.
The closing days of one of the most unusual presidential campaigns in history conclude years of Democratic anger and angst over how to defeat the man they view as a historically damaging figure in American politics. Biden’s approach, however, has relied on the same traits and tactics he has used over the past half-century in politics.
He has tried to exude hope and optimism despite the raw and painful circumstances enveloping the country. He has clung to bipartisanship despite the country’s deep polarization, ignoring raised Democratic eyebrows when he tells his donors, as he did two weeks ago, “For those of you who are Republicans, I promise I’m not going to embarrass you.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/biden-campaign-optimism/2020/10/24/c793947a-1548-11eb-ad6f-36c93e6e94fb_story.html
White House chief of staff: 'We are not going to control the pandemic'
Washington (CNN)White House chief of staff Mark Meadows said Sunday that the US is "not going to control" the coronavirus pandemic, as cases surge across the country and nearly 225,000 Americans have died from the virus.
"We are not going to control the pandemic. We are going to control the fact that we get vaccines, therapeutics and other mitigation areas," Meadows told CNN's Jake Tapper on "State of the Union."
The comments from President Donald Trump's chief of staff come as coronavirus cases surge across the US and the administration continues to consistently disregard advice from government health experts to wear masks, social distance and avoid large gatherings as a way to curb the spread of the virus. The White House is also facing a potential second outbreak of the virus after at least five people in Pence's inner circle have tested positive in recent days, according to a source familiar with the situation.
Pressed by Tapper on why the US isn't going to get the pandemic under control, Meadows said: "Because it is a contagious virus just like the flu." He added that the Trump administration is "making efforts to contain it."
https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/25/politics/mark-meadows-controlling-coronavirus-pandemic-cnntv/index.html
Joe Biden leads in Texas in latest poll
WASHINGTON — Former Vice President Joe Biden leads in Texas in a poll of more than 3,000 likely voters released Thursday that showed him with a 1-percentage point edge over President Donald Trump.
The Morning Consult poll of 3,347 likely voters conducted between Oct. 11 and 20 carries a margin of error of 1.7 points. It showed Biden leading Trump 48 to 47.
It’s not the first to show Biden with a lead in Texas, but it’s by far the largest survey to show such a result. A Public Policy Polling survey of 721 likely voters released earlier this month showed Biden leading 48-49.
On Wednesday, a Quinnipiac University survey showed Biden and President Donald Trump in a dead heat in Texas.
The Morning Consult poll comes just hours before Biden and Trump are scheduled to meet for their final . It showed a close Senate contest as well, with Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn leading Democratic challenger MJ Hegar, a former Air Force pilot, by five percentage points.
It’s the latest poll to show Texas is staring down its first competitive presidential race in decades. The last Democratic presidential candidate to win the state was Jimmy Carter in 1976.
https://www.houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas/article/Joe-Biden-leads-Texas-in-latest-poll-15667815.php
Jon Ralston's Nevada Early Voting Blog - 10/25/20 - 9:15 a.m.
Good morning, fellow ravenous data types. Here's where we are after eight days of early voting:
Looks as if the SOS did update last night, but it did not pop through (for me at least). The latest — and I am going to add Clark in-person/mail (which I now have):
Clark County Dems firewall: 66,000 (44,000 at this time in 2016)
Statewide Dems lead: 54,000 (31,000 at same time in 2016)
The percentage leads are slightly above 2016 — remember there were 250,000 fewer voters four years ago:
Dem lead is 8 percentage points (43-35); it was 7 points at this time in 2016.
Clark lead is 15 points (46-31); it was the same four years ago at this time (47-32)
(Remember mail Monday could change this.)
So I predicted Saturday after the rurals were added, the statewide Dems lead would be about 55K. And...voila!
Not much change from Friday, although I always caution that the mail comes in batches and very little likely to be processed over the weekend. Here are some numbers/context — and I will update charts and tables later (remember all my apple/orange caveats because the patterns are so different this year):
Total voted: 670K (just under 40 percent of active voters)
For contrast, 780,000 cast ballots by early/mail voting for the entire election in 2016. That was more than two-thirds of the vote. A comparable number this year would probably be about 1 million voters (depends, of course, on turnout).
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog-3
Harris County's early votes show more women, more young adults casting ballots
HOUSTON — Tens of thousands of voters continue to turn out to the polls in Harris County this weekend.
The county already broke its record for number of ballots cast during early voting.
The high-voter turnout trend is not restricted to Harris County. Texans have cast more early votes than residents of any other state in the country so far.
“Voting this year is a cool thing to do,” said Houston mayor Sylvester Turner at a voting event at the Toyota Center.
The basketball arena has been turned into a polling site during the pandemic.
The Harris County Clerk’s Office and MTV arranged Saturday’s event to encourage voters to continue to cast ballots early.
“If we do not continue to treat voting as something our ancestors had to fight for, it will casually be one of those things that (becomes), 'Oh, we don’t have to do that,’” singer Kam Franklin said.
The push to make voting more accessible to Harris County residents has been working. More than 1 million early voting ballots were cast in the county. More than 900,000 of the ballots were cast in person.
https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/harris-countys-early-votes-show-more-women-more-young-adults-casting-ballots/285-426a9f40-a3c4-4175-ad4a-7444fc89e05e
North Texas Counties See Record Voter Turnout With 1 Week Of Early Voting Left
A steady stream of voters at Irving City Hall Saturday added to what has become a record-breaking tally.
“There’s some things you just shouldn’t put off to tomorrow, and this is one of them,” Cat Lara, a Dallas County voter, said.
Dallas, Denton, Collin and Tarrant counties have already passed 2016 totals for early and mail-in votes. Nearly 600,000 ballots have been cast in Dallas County alone.
In Denton and Collin counties, voter turnout is already over 50%.
“You know a lot of people have already voted in early voting. I think, probably you’ll see a lot of voters coming out November 3rd,” Collin Huckaba, a Dallas County voter, said.
Concern over how many people will turn out on the actual Election Day is what was driving a number of voters to get to the polls on Saturday.
“I wanted to avoid the crowds, if there were any. I just felt that it was better,” Joseph Clark, a Dallas County voter, said.
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/10/24/north-texas-counties-record-voter-turnout-one-week-early-voting-left/
Democrats Hope 2020 Is the Year They Flip the Texas House
After a generation under unified Republican control, Texas is a battleground at every level of government this year. President Trump and Senator John Cornyn are fighting for their political lives, and five Republican-held congressional seats are in danger of flipping.
But some of the most consequential political battles in Texas are taking place across two dozen contested races for the Texas State House, which Republicans have controlled since 2003. To win a majority, Democrats must flip nine of the chamber’s 150 seats — the same number of Republican-held districts Beto O’Rourke carried during his 2018 Senate race, when he was the first Texas Democrat to make a competitive run for Senate or governor in a generation.
Mr. O’Rourke has organized nightly online phone banks that are making about three million phone calls a week to voters during the campaign’s final stretch. His organization helped register about 200,000 Texas Democratic voters in an attempt to finish a political transformation of Texas that began with his Senate race.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/us/politics/texas-house-democrats-republicans.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/25/us/politics/texas-house-democrats-republicans.html
Jon Ralston's Nevada Early Voting Blog - 10/24/20 - 7:00 p.m.
No SOS update today -- I feel like a man without nourishment -- so can't definitively update statewide outlook with rural numbers.
I did get a deeper Clark breakdown and the underlying fundamentals for the Republicans in key down-ticket races are shaky right now. Let me emphasize: A lot of people have voted in Clark County (426,000, including 231,000 by mail and 195,000 in seven days of early voting), at least 40 percent and perhaps closer to half of all who will vote this cycle in Southern Nevada. But there are still 800,000 or so Clark County active voters who have still not voted, so nothing is set in stone.
But, consider these numbers underneath the 67K-ballot firewall the Dems have in Clark:
CD3 (Lee): D+16K, down slightly from last update. 8-point lead. About 40 percent of the vote is in.
CD4 (Clark part) (Horsford): D+22K, slightly up from last update. 17-point lead. Also close to 40 percent in.
SD5 (Woodhouse): D+3.7K, slightly higher than last update. 12-point lead. Again, about 40 percent in.
SD6(Cannizzaro): D+3.7K, slight decrease. 11-point lead. More than 40 percent of the vote is in.
The story is the same in nearly every key Assembly district, too: Republicans are building up sizable margins in early voting, but they are getting overwhelmed by the mail numbers. You can see the gap slowly tightening in the amount of mail vs. the early numbers, but two questions are fundamental to this election:
No. 1 -- Can the Dems keep doing this in the email?
No. 2 -- Will there be enough votes left on Election Day for the GOP to catch up?
Unless there is more crossover going towards the GOP than usual in Nevada, from top to bottom, if both parties get out their voters, the GOP will always lose here. But if they can hold their own in Week 2 of early/mail voting and win Election Day by a lot, they can still win almost any of these races from top to bottom.
I may update later with Clark and Washoe if they report....
https://thenevadaindependent.com/article/the-early-voting-blog-3
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