Texas Republicans Officially Panicked Over Democratic Gains

AUSTIN, TX — With an email to supporters expressing his panic over surging Democratic turnout during the still-ongoing early voting period, Gov. Greg Abbott has made the GOP panic official: “We had always hoped the liberal wave would never hit Texas, but these early voting returns aren’t encouraging so far," Abbott wrote.

Democratic voting has surged since early voting began on Feb. 20, with two days left to go until the primary election later this month. And for the Republicans — regardless of permutation in extracting the raw data — there's no way to downplay the gains.

“I’ll be blunt: Democrat voter turnout is surging statewide during early voting,” Gov. Greg Abbott wrote supporters in an email this week, with liberal use of boldface and italicized red print to drive the urgency home further. The Democratic tidal wave has been seen elsewhere in the country, Abbott noted, but inferred the GOP stranglehold has long made the Lone Star State impervious to such voting shifts.

Not anymore: “We’ve seen a surge of liberal enthusiasm in deep red states like Georgia, Alabama, and Oklahoma,” Abbott continued in his email. “We had always hoped the liberal wave would never hit Texas, but these early voting returns aren’t encouraging so far.”

Related story: Against All Odds, Texas Emerges As Battleground State In Presidential Race

Elsewhere in the country, voting shifts at historically Republican enclaves have been seen as a rebuke of the Trump administration. Donald Trump took Texas, too, but the writing may have been scrawled on the electoral wall as early as that election. To be sure, Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election. But that loss was by a smaller margin than any Democrat since 1996 (save for Barack Obama who secured a larger percentage of the vote in 2008).

That progressive momentum appears to be continuing in the primaries. Compared to the first six days of early voting in 2014, the Dallas Morning News reported, Democratic turnout this time around has increased by 69 percent. Conversely, Republican turnout has increased by a more modest 20 percent in the same time period. Stated another way: Through Sunday, Feb. 25, in the 15 Texas counties with the most registered voters, 135,070 people had voted in the Republican primary and 151,236 in the Democratic, the newspaper added.

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas — a fierce Trump foe during the presidential campaign who's since embraced the president's policies — has also sounded the alarms. According to multiple media outlets, Cruz has assessed the early voting patterns so far, telling a group of Republican voters this month that Democrats would "...craw over broken glass in November to vote. We could get obliterated at the polls."

Cruz personally has reason to be worried. Beto O'Rourke of El Paso, Texas, has emerged as a formidable foe in the quest for the U.S. Senate seat Cruz has held since 2013. Cruz rode a wave of Tea Party enthusiasm to ascend to his senatorial seat, but the staunch Trump ally's support appears to be eroding.

In a recent press advisory, O'Rourke disclosed he raised more than $2.4 million for last year's fourth quarter in a "...massive display of grassroots support." The campaign cash came from 55,567 contributions, enough to out-raise Cruz despite O'Rourke's vow not to take any PAC money. So far , O'Rourke has raised triple the amount Cruz has raised so far this year.

“Putting 100 percent of our faith and focus in the people of Texas is proving to be more than a match for the PACs, special interests and corporations who have captured, corroded and corrupted Congress for far too long,” O'Rourke said on Jan. 28 as he prepared to drive to Austin where he is set to complete the final fiver hours of his 24-hour Facebook livestream.

“We raised over $2.4 million from more than 55,500 donations, most of which came from Texas, every single one of them made by real people to take back our state and our country with everything we care about on the line in this election," O'Rourke added.

On Feb. 16, O'Rourke had another update: After hosting 20 public events in five days, he saidhe raised another $2.2 million since Jan. 1. The 43,000 contributions were input in the final pre-primary Federal Elections Commission report.

For his part, Abbott — having assessed the voting patterns so far — appears to be pivoting to woo the considerable Hispanic vote in Texas. In an interview with The Hill on Sunday, Abbott framed his reelection campaign as one based on trying to win over Hispanic voters — 44 percent of whom backed him last time.

“We constantly are involved in letting the Hispanic community know that they are an essential, vital component to the future of Texas,” Abbott told The Hill.

That ingratiation already has begun. On Tuesday, Abbott took the unusual (if not unprecedented) step of criticizing Donald Trump over his tone in speaking of Hispanics. The governor has been a vocal supporter of Trump's dating back to the presidential campaign he helped run in Texas for the real estate mogul/reality television star-turned politician. The rare Abbott criticism of his party's leader could be seen as part of a larger strategy to win over much-needed Hispanic votes.

“One thing that we know in Texas is that tone matters,” the Texas governor told The Hill. “Everybody deserves to be respected, and I think that the same goals that the president is seeking to achieve can be achieved with a tone of respect and dignity. There’s a righteousness in the cause of safety and security for our country that can be achieved by using the right tone.”

Abbott added: "We constantly are involved in letting the Hispanic community know that they are an essential, vital component to the future of Texas."

But niceties might only go so far, and could depend on Hispanic voters' collective political memory. In his aggressive championing of Senate Bill 4 giving cops more authority to root out undocumented immigrants while calling for the removal of duly elected officials seen as too soft in cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) sweeps, Abbott alienated a swath of the Hispanic voting bloc. In stripping Travis County $1.5 million in grant money for needed social service programs as retribution for what he viewed as too lax immigration enforcement by Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez, he alienated a few more. And in ongoing vow to abolish so-called "sanctuary cities" in Texas he perceives to be overly embracing of undocumented immigrants — even those without criminal records save for having crossed the border in search of a better life for their families — Abbott's alienated even more.

Still, Abbott now seems poised to say nice things about the Hispanic community in his quest for a second term.

Gabriel García Márquez once wrote that "...the heart's memory eliminates the bad and magnifies the good, and that thanks to this artifice we manage to endure the burden of the past." But Latino voters in Austin and beyond have been galvanized in opposing Abbott's most stringent anti-immigration measures. In the final analysis — save for the possibility of a mass political amnesia come Election Day — scolding Trump for saying not-so-nice things about Hispanics might not be enough for many of them to forget Abbott's recent political past.

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Early voting in Texas ends March 2, with the primary election scheduled on March 6. For more information on early voting, including where to find polling places throughout Travis and Williamson counties, see:

Travis County Early Voting: What You Need To Know

Williamson County Early Voting: What You Need To Know

Following is a county-by-county breakdown, with figures culled from the office of the Texas Secretary of State. The numbers represent the total in=person voters through six days of early voting:

Democratic early voting turnout

County: Travis
Feb. 2014: 8,276
Feb. 2016: 17,525
Feb. 2018: 19,082

County: Harris

Feb. 2014: 8,399

Feb. 2016: 23,361

Feb. 2018: 24,935

County: Dallas
Feb. 2014: 12,907
Feb. 2016: 17,229
Feb. 2018: 19,829

County: Tarrant
Feb. 2014: 7,955
Feb. 2016: 12,266
Feb. 2018: 10,379

County: Bexar
Feb. 2014: 11,785
Feb. 2016: 17,806
Feb. 2018: 16,464

County: Collin
Feb. 2014: 2,110
Feb. 2016: 5,493
Feb. 2018: 6,725

County: Denton

Feb. 2014: 1,390
Feb. 2016: 5,086
Feb. 2018: 5,305

Republican early voting turnout

County: Travis
Feb. 2014: 5,881
Feb. 2016: 8,428
Feb. 2018: 7,289

County: Harris
Feb. 2014: 19,249
Feb. 2016: 32,641
Feb. 2018: 22,394

County: Dallas
Feb. 2014: 14,036
Feb. 2016: 17,269
Feb. 2018: 14,435

County: Tarrant
Feb. 2014: 16,190
Feb. 2016: 25,941
Feb. 2018: 15,595

County: Bexar
Feb. 2014: 13,407
Feb. 2016: 16,604
Feb. 2018: 12,652

County: Collin

Feb. 2014: 9,267

Feb. 2016: 16,031

Feb. 2018: 13,226

County: Denton
Feb. 2014: 7,659
Feb. 2016: 14,444
Feb. 2018: 9,213

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