| 11/17/2025: Senate Propsects For 2026: Part One, The Flippables [RightDataUSA] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
We have already examined the outlook for 2026 in the aftermath of the 2025 elections. Most of that commentary focused on the U.S. House and how the results from the last disastrous midterm election (2018) might foreshadow the upcoming potentially disastrous midterm election. We spent little time on the Senate, but noted that although 2018 was a train wreck for Republicans over almost the entire ballot, there was one minor exception: Republicans actually gained 2 Senate seats in 2018 and with some luck could have been as many as 6. Because it was only a net +2, most observers on the right were extremely disappointed. Yet holding onto the Senate at all in 2018 was an important accomplishment and an impressive one under the circumstances. It kept rabid Democrats at least partially at bay. Recall what Democrats did with their total control of the House, and imagine what would have occurred with them in charge of the Senate during the final two years of Trump's first term in the White House.
It is not the same in the Senate, where an entirely different set of Senate seats from 2018 will be contested in 2026, and that makes specific comparisons to 2018 meaningless. Members of the "Class of 2018" completed their six-year terms in 2024; it is the "Class of 2020" which is up next year. Only one incumbent Senator who was elected in 2018 -- Mississippi Republican Cindy Hyde-Smith -- will be on the ballot again in 2026. That's because her 2018 win took place in a special election for a 2-year term. Unlike 2018, 2020 was not a good year at the Senate level for the GOP. They suffered a net loss of 3 seats, turning their 53-47 majority into a 50-50 tie which was broken by the newly-elected Democrat Vice President. The Republican majority was still intact (52-48) in November; GOP control wasn't actually forfeited until January of 2021 when Democrats won two runoff elections in Georgia. Republican incumbents had lost in two other states (Arizona, Colorado) in November but picked up Alabama. Democrats tried to purchase a much better Senate result than merely +3 in 2020, spending ungodly amounts of money in losing efforts in states such as Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina and South Carolina (outspending the victorious GOP candidate in every one of them). That was in addition to the ungodly amounts of money the Democrats spent in their winning efforts. According to OpenSecrets.org, Democrats in the 2020 general election spent over $1.1 BILLION dollars to acquire control of the Senate, an amount of money 60% higher than Republicans could come up with. Campaign finance will be a recurring theme in the 2026 previews below, with Democrats just about 100% guaranteed to obtain more money than their Republican counterparts in every state where there is even the slightest chance that Democrats can compete -- -- unless the Democrats and their "ActBlue" money laundry are finally forced to obey the same campaign finance rules that Republicans have to live by. 
Source: OpenSecrets.org
The current Senate terrain is not as favorable as it was in 2018, when Democrats had to play defense in most of the contested states -- and they did, reasonably well. In 2026 Republicans have 22 seats to defend (including special elections in Florida and Ohio) while Democrats are up in only 13 states. Of those 13, just 3 present any real opportunity for a GOP gain while there are a minimum of 5 juicy targets for Democrats this time around. All things considered, the playing field is clearly tilted towards the left here.
North Carolina Senate results from 2020
1. North Carolina:
Liberal former congressman Wiley Nickel was the first to jump in on the Democrat side, but he was merely a placeholder until phony moderate ex-Governor Roy Cooper made his decision to go for the Senate. To nobody's surprise, Cooper declared his candidacy in late July and within hours received millions of dollars in possibly-legal campaign donations. The latest financial reports from the FEC show Cooper with nearly 8x the amount of cash as Whatley. Cooper will probably eventually raise and spend at least $100 million here; Whatley will never get close in that department. Though out of office for nearly a year now, Cooper is still very popular in the Tarheel State -- at least with the liberal media, who never tire of reporting how popular Cooper is. For all his alleged popularity, Cooper's electoral record isn't very impressive in this closely-divided "purple" state. He was sufficiently well-liked to win 4 terms as state Attorney General, but his percentages as Governor were 49.0% in 2016 and 51.5% when being re-elected in 2020. Cooper's first gubernatorial win was aided by hysteria over the so-called "Bathroom Bill" which was passed by the Republican-controlled North Carolina legislature and signed by Republican Governor Pat McCrory in 2016. A bathroom bill is legislation that protects the safety and privacy of girls and women in public bathrooms against intrusion by boys or men who claim (or pretend) to be transgendered. You can understand why Democrats would be indignant about something like that. The liberal media concocted some figures purporting to show that the bill would cost North Carolina a hillion jillion dollars in lost revenue because woke companies (like PayPal and Adidas) and woke organizations (like the NCAA) would pull out of the state. The 2016 gubernatorial election turned on this single issue, with Cooper supporting the efforts of Organized Deviancy and McCrory supporting common sense. Common sense was defeated that November, 49.0% to 48.8% with a Libertarian spoiler taking enough votes from McCrory to hand the win to the Democrat without a majority. The Republican legislature caved early in 2017 and repealed the bill. Cooper's far-left stance on most issues is well-known to North Carolina voters despite the best efforts of the media. Republican Lt. Governor Dan Forest challenged Cooper in 2020, but lost by 4.5%. Forest was banking on voter disapproval of Cooper's authoritarian tactics during the COVID plandemic, but the voters weren't disapproving enough. Natural (or even laboratory-made) disasters seem to work in favor of Democrats in North Carolina despite that party's inept or ham-fisted approach to the problems; for example, the inept and even criminally negligent response to Hurricane Helene in 2024 -- Joe Biden's FEMA refusing to help people who had "Trump" signs in their yards (they did the same thing in Florida too), and local Democrats' relief efforts discriminating against Whites -- was supposed to be a boon for the GOP in that year's elections; Trump did win the state, but the most-affected areas in Western North Carolina actually moved to the left. Trump's win was a close one, and other Republicans on the ballot received no boost at all from the Democrats' mishandling of the hurricane aftermath. Speaking of disasters, Whatley is likely to help fulfill the media's mission of making Cooper look more popular than ever. The Republican nominee will be grossly underfunded and largely uninspiring to the voters. Early polls are exactly as one might expect: Cooper with a lead but running under 50% for now. At least 10-15% of the electorate is still undecided, which is also what one might expect. This race is, and always has been, Cooper's to lose. Another potential dire consequence is this: if Whatley loses convincingly next November, there are several Republican House incumbents in North Carolina who could go down with him because most GOP districts in the state are either in the tossup range or very close to it. 
Maine Senate results from 2020
2. Maine:
Georgia Senate results from 2020 runoff
3. Georgia:
Michigan Senate results from 2020
4. Michigan:
5. New Hampshire: Seventy-eight-year-old Democrat Senator Jeanne Shaheen is ending her political career in 2026 after 6 years as New Hampshire Governor followed by 18 years in the Senate. After her 3 terms in Concord her string of election wins was interrupted in 2002 when she ran against incumbent Senator Bob Smith. Only it turned out that Smith wasn't her #1 opponent that year after all -- Smith lost in the primary to congressman John E. Sununu who, despite being outspent by both Shaheen and Smith, won just over 50% of the vote in the 2002 Senate election. He was the youngest member of the Senate during his term. Shaheen won the rematch 6 years later and held the Senate seat for two more terms after that. Sununu had been out of politics since his 2008 defeat, but he's back for another go at it. Do not confuse this Sununu with his younger brother Chris, who is the former Governor of New Hampshire (2017-2024). Also do not confuse him with his father John H. Sununu, who was George H.W. Bush's Chief of Staff. That Sununu is the one who gave us John Souter as a Supreme Court justice and who convinced his employer that "read my lips, no new taxes" was somehow not a good idea and shouldn't be taken literally. Sununu's employer's reward for following that advice was a trip to the unemployment line after 1992. 
Photo credit: John H. Sununu
Chris and his father are RINOs, if not outright Democrats; John E. Sununu is the conservative in the family. By "Sununu" standards, anyway. He's one of those oxymoronic "fiscal conservatives" now (i.e. anti-conservative on every other issue). There's no such thing as a fiscal conservative/social liberal. Because "social liberalism" is clearly anything but fiscally conservative when you look at how much those social programs cost.
Just as Sununu had to face an experienced senator (Bob Smith) in the GOP primary during his first run for that office in 2002, he will be facing another one in 2026 -- ex-Massachusetts Senator Scott Brown, who was a fluke winner in 2010 to replace the deceased Teddy Kennedy. Brown won 52% of the vote against Democrat Attorney General Martha Coakley. How repugnant do you have to be to lose to a Republican in Massachusetts? Coakley's done that twice. Brown started off as a moderate in the Senate, but even running hard to the left was not enough to save him in 2012. Brown did run well ahead of Mitt Romney in Massachusetts that year, and in both of his Senate races he showed an ability to run neck-and-neck against Democrats in terms of campaign cash. Brown relocated to the north by 2014 and ran again for Senate in his new home state of New Hampshire. In that year's crowded GOP primary, one of the defeated candidates was good old (age 73) Bob Smith again. Brown came reasonably close to defeating Shaheen, but this time he was conclusively outspent and that was a major factor, as of course were the "carpetbagger" allegations though Brown was actually born in New Hampshire. Bob Smith, by the way, is still around and has endorsed Brown for 2026. Instead of attacking each other too much (yet), both Sununu and Brown are training their artillery mainly on presumptive Democrat nominee Chris Pappas, who is currently the congressman from New Hampshire's 1st District. Pappas is in his fourth term and, like so many other liberal Democrats who seek higher office in states which are not solid "blue", has suddenly pretended to discover moderation after being nearly a 100% party-line liberal vote prior to 2025. Sununu, who only jumped into the race recently, is the current favorite for the GOP nomination and matches up better against Pappas in general election polling. New Hampshire is about as closely divided a state as there is, but Democrats always seem to eke out victories and 2026 isn't likely to be any different. This race is definitely a toss-up, but there's a strong likelihood that the Republican will be the one getting tossed (out), albeit not by a very large amount. 
Ohio Senate results from 2024
6. Ohio:
Brown's luck -- but not his money -- finally ran out in 2024. Brown and the Democrat Money Machine spent over $100 million to repurchase his Senate seat, but Republican Bernie Moreno was able to ride Trump's coattails to a 3.6% win after trailing in all polls until October. Moreno, though outspent 4:1 and overwhelmed by Brown's advertising presence in all types of media, won every Ohio county except the urban ones, one suburban county (Lorain) near Cleveland, and the academic wasteland of Athens County (University of Ohio). Moreno prevailed by over 200,000 votes in all. With Ohio Democrats having nowhere else to turn in 2026 -- ex-congressman Tim Ryan declined and so did a couple of ghetto congresswomen -- Brown was tabbed to try to regain the Senate seat he occupied as recently as a few months ago. Ryan had run for the Senate in 2022 against Vance and suffered a humiliating loss despite having the usual astronomical cash and media advantages which accrue to Democrats even in GOP states. It's not quite accurate to say that Ohio Democrats had nobody else willing and (financially) able to oppose Jon Husted. A Cleveland-area millionaire Democrat named Fred Ode jumped into the Democrat primary back in August and prepared to invest $5 million of his own money to show he was serious. Ode entered the Democrat primary because he feels that "old-school" Democrats like Sherrod Brown are not filled with sufficient hatred of Donald Trump and all other Republicans. For that reason, Ode believed that someone like Brown was unlikely to win against Husted next year. Ode definitely has a point about hatred being the ultimate motivator for Democrat voters (or have we already forgotten the election results from earlier this month?). However just a few days ago Ode suddenly and mysteriously aborted his campaign which was still in its first trimester. Clearly angry (apparently as usual for him), Ode still did not give a reason. Perhaps Ode made his decision after finding a decapitated horse's head in his bed one morning? The Democrat establishment is every bit as capable of hatred and violence as the insurgents from the far left. Radicalism may work well for Democrats in New York City and California and (soon) Maine or even Texas -- and don't forget Virginia now -- but not necessarily in middle-America, apple-pie Ohio. Democrat leaders feel that their chances in Ohio are much better with Brown than with Ode or someone like him. For 2026, early polls showed Husted moderately ahead of Brown but recent Democrat-leaning polls have it pretty much a tie. Ohio, along with Maine and North Carolina, could flip from R to D next year and result in a 50-50 tie for the Republicans in the Senate if those losses are not offset elsewhere. Any additional Republican losses in the Senate would hand control to Democrats. With the Senate almost within their grasp, Democrat billionaires will be tossing around campaign cash like never before, and things like a Republican being outspent only by a margin of 4:1 will seem quaint. 
Texas Senate results from 2020
7. Texas:
On the GOP side in Texas in 2026, we'll have incumbent senator John Cornyn vs. state Attorney General Ken Paxton vs. congressman Wesley Hunt. On the left, we'll have ex-congressman Collin Allred (back for a second try at higher office) vs. state House member Holy James Talarico. A late addition to the tag team could be congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, the self-appointed moral voice of the shrieking, hysterical (but dominant) wing of the Democrat party, and darling of the radical-left media. She believes herself to be the Texas version of AOC, and presumably considers that designation a complement. Crockett already has raised at least $6.5 million (which is more than Talarico or Allred have done), and that's far more money than necessary for her to run in some little House district which is rated at least D+10 and will have no viable GOP alternative. It certainly looks like she's running for the Senate, but we'll have to wait to find out for sure. Queen Latifah Crockett has declared that she will make her solemn pronouncement at the filing deadline, which is December 8. What reason would there be for her to not run for Senate? Aside from avoiding the risk of losing in the Senate primary, Crockett may realize that another easy House win in her district -- combined with the reasonable likelihood of Democrats taking control of the House after 2026 -- would give her a position of greater power and perhaps a juicy committee chairmanship. Worst-case scenario for Crockett is that she loses the Senate primary, is out of Congress starting in 2027, but then is hired by "The View", which obviously can never have enough shrill, unattractive women on its panel. 
Photo credit: splinter.com
Talarico describes himself as a deeply religious Christian, but is a phony who spouts that "Jesus-was-a-liberal" bullshit a la the self-righteous "He Gets Us" television ad campaign, which you may have seen. Picture Talarico as a combination of Bernie Sanders and Jimmy Swaggart (apologies to Swaggart). Talarico the "True Christian" adamantly opposed displaying the Ten Commandments in Texas schools, preferring that those institutions remain atheistic and free from anything which might accidentally encourage good moral values. He represents an ultra-liberal (D+26) Austin district in the state House, so Talarico's views are surely considered to be mainstream by his constituents but most of the rest of the state of Texas would disagree. Talarico is a one-trick pony, wearing his version of far-left Christianity on his sleeve at all times and using it to explain all of his immoral, pro-abortion, pro-crime and other radical votes in the legislature. He surely believes he can "out-liberal" and "out-hate" Crockett and Allred, but he's got his work cut out for him in those departments.
Senator Cornyn is a squish but he is always a well-funded one. The 73-year-old has been in the Senate since 2003. He compiled a conservative voting record during his first two terms, but now has become so unreliable (i.e. "moderate") that he was actually eligible to apply for the job of Senate Majority Leader after Mitch McConnell stepped aside. No true conservatives need apply for that position, which was won by John Thune in a November, 2024 secret ballot of GOP senators. The outcome was said to be close. Cornyn has been in a panic throughout 2025, awkwardly trying to appear conservative (at least through next March's primary), furiously raising money and becoming more popular with the media as he and his allies toss allegations at his closest challenger, Ken Paxton. 
This is nothing new for Ken Paxton. The former state legislator was first elected as Texas Attorney General in 2014, succeeding Greg Abbott in that office as Abbott stepped up to become Governor. The solidly-conservative Paxton quickly showed that he was (and still is) one of the most effective A.G.'s in the entire country. However he is much too effective to suit the RINOs who perpetually have control of the Texas GOP and the Texas state House; Democrats loathe him even more than RINOs do.
Photo credit: Texas Scorecard
As noted above, the GOP primary is not just a 2-way race anymore. In October, congressman Wesley Hunt announced that he would abandon his safe (R+10) district in the suburban Houston area and join the Senate race. The 44-year-old Hunt has a fine military background, graduating from West Point in 2004, serving 8 years in the U.S. Army before earning 3 Masters' Degrees, and then entering politics. Hunt's first bid for Congress came in 2020 in the deteriorating 7th District and was unsuccessful though he made a solid showing (47.5%) under difficult circumstances. When the new 38th District was created in 2022 in approximately the same area, Hunt won a majority in a crowded 10-way Republican primary and then easily sealed the deal in November. Hunt was re-elected in 2024 with only token opposition, and has been a reliable conservative vote in the House. He currently trails his primary opponents in fundraising (and is way behind the wealthy Democrats) but he's only been in the race for about 6 weeks.
Iowa Senate results from 2020
8. Iowa:
Tags:
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Georgia
Michigan
New Hampshire
Ohio
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Iowa
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| 3/29/2024: [Texas] The 2024 Senate Race Has Been Called! [RightDataUSA] | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Photo credit: ABC News (from 6 years ago, so don't get excited)
Of course it's really quite far from being over, but not according to some rando with a blog which gets posted on a site called "American Thinker". Not deep thinkers apparently, but at least they are hopeful ones and they're on the right side.
There is no reason to presume that a positive outcome here is guaranteed, and subsequent polls will definitely "confirm" that, however there are some good reasons to believe that Cruz will be re-elected: this is a presidential election year and Trump's presence on the ballot will help Cruz, unlike in the 2018 midterm when Cruz only narrowly defeated another Democrat celebutard; Allred is of course a media darling but he's a completely dim bulb; and it's hard to imagine so many tickets being split that Trump wins Texas but Cruz loses it. On the other hand, nobody can doubt that Texas is a rapidly "purpling" state (going from true blue towards commie red). This is not a recent development and has been apparent for quite some time. However what is a recent development is the increased mass invasion of Democrat voters from south of the border. The impact of that is not yet baked into political outcomes, but by November it may well be. Texas is being invaded from every direction and not just from the south, taking in refugees from all other states but particularly ones such as California, New York, Illinois, etc. which have been destroyed by a long period of thoroughly incompetent and corrupt one-party Democrat rule. Not all invaders are liberals, but the numbers strongly suggest that a majority of them are. Below is a table which shows the number of registered voters back to 2022 along with the most recent available data for 2024 for the most populous counties in the Lone Star State. Texas does not register voters by party so there is no way to determine how many of these new voters are Democrats, though some folks have methods to derive party-orientation estimates. However these are really just guesstimates and do not necessarily have a great deal of accuracy. The 12 counties in the table account for approximately 62% of all registered voters in the state. The good news is that the proportionate increase of new voters is the same statewide as it is in these dozen (mostly) leftward-trending counties, and that balance is important. At the present rate there will be a net gain of about three-quarters of a million voters in Texas by this November as compared to last November. That is a far greater increase than occurred between 2022 and 2023. But in a presidential election year, particularly one accompanied by an invasion, a larger number of registered voters is to be expected. Especially if the voter rolls are not periodically cleansed to get rid of ineligible and deceased voters.
* Projected The fastest-growing county on the list is the best one: Montgomery County, which for the time being retains a healthy Republican majority in all elections. It will continue to do so for many years to come, albeit with decreasing percentages. Rapid, massive growth is not always a good thing. When something grows rapidly inside a body it's called "cancer". Excessive growth in a good county or state always -- eventually -- has a cancerous effect too. Montgomery County has already absorbed too much detritus from adjacent Harris County (Houston) among other places, and its demographics are showing the strain. Its election results are beginning to show deterioration too; it's still very subtle at this time, but Montgomery County unquestionably has reached its peak. This doesn't mean that the county has gone insane and will begin electing Democrats anytime soon, just that its rightward motion has stopped and has begun to reverse. Montgomery County's future probably looks very much like Fort Bend County's present. It's an inviolable law of demographics that bad people always follow (and then drive out) the good people from desirable areas, until those areas are no longer desirable. Fortunately new good areas naturally arise, even farther away from the urban center. The cycle continues as, over time, the new areas are ruined as well. Like Montgomery County (except at a faster rate), the entire state of Texas has been "purpling", as anyone who actually takes the time to look can easily attest to. To see a bigger picture, we'll pull back and focus on metro areas rather than individual counties. The four metro areas which dominate the Texas landscape are:
These four areas accounted for 7,856,153 votes in the 2020 presidential election, which was 69.4% of all votes cast in the state of Texas. Trump got 3,670,374 of those votes (46.7%) and Biden received 4,056,573 (51.6%). The rest of the state outside these four urban and suburban areas gave Trump a massive 64.0% to 34.7% win. Here is the data for the 2016 presidential election:
Between 2016 and 2020 Trump went from narrowly winning the Big-4 (by 0.5%) to being demolished by 4.9%. The areas in Texas which are being invaded the heaviest -- not just via Mexico -- are the ones moving to the left the quickest. Furthermore, these urban/suburban areas increased their share of the state vote by nearly 2% (from 67.7% up to 69.4%) in 2020. Apparently turnout was relatively higher in these demographically-decaying areas than it was in the rest of Texas, or perhaps it was just easier in these urban localities for Democrat vote-counters to "find" more absentee/mail-in ballots in precincts they controlled. Either way. In the rest of Texas, Trump increased his winning margin from 26.8% to 29.3%. This dovetails with the assertion that Hispanics moved significantly towards Trump (but not necessarily all other Republicans) between 2016 and 2020. That assertion is only half-true, however. Rural Hispanics in Texas and in some other states did in fact move sharply to the right, a development which the tribe of media controllers has desperately suppressed in its (lack of) reporting since 2020. Urban and suburban Hispanics in Texas and elsewhere have shown no such rightward trend, or if they have it has been mostly inconsequential. In Texas as of 2022 there were 7,437,831 urban/suburban Hispanics in the four major metro areas out of a total of 12,068,549 Hispanics in the state -- over 61% reside in the metros. Yet they are "underrepresented" there. Texas as a whole was about 40% Hispanic, but the figure in the Big-4 was only 36.5%. In the entire rest of the state, Hispanics account for almost 50% (47.9% to be exact) of the population. Their swing to the right, even if just a temporary Trump-related phenomenon, is nice but the impact is muted by the far greater number of non-rural Hispanics who are still refusing to leave the Democrat plantation. The following tables illustrate the recent leftward lurch in the major metropolitan areas of Texas: Metro Dallas-Fort Worth:
Metro Houston:
Metro San Antonio:
Metro Austin:
Texas has voted GOP for president in every election since 1980. However as measured by its Republican presidential voting percentage as compared to the rest of the United States, it could be considered as truly "solid" blue (note proper color usage) from 1996 through 2012, based on voting around 10 points (or more) greater than the average for the GOP candidate in the country as a whole.
As of 2016 and 2020, the relative voting percentage for the GOP in presidential elections in Texas is back to where it was in the 1980's when it first flipped from Democrat to Republican. In 2020 that percentage actually declined relative to the U.S., despite the fact that rural Hispanics in Texas voted for the Party of Trump in record numbers. As of 2020 and even 2022, it's worth repeating that the dramatic Hispanic trend to the right has been very limited geographically; urban and suburban Hispanics -- in Texas or anywhere else -- are trending that direction only very slightly, if they are even moving rightward at all. Back to the future: Cruz should win the 2024 Senate election in Texas by about 5 points (plus or -- yes, possibly -- minus) and Trump should win by a little more than Cruz does. It's extremely unlikely that either one, especially Cruz, will get a 10-point margin like Greg Abbott (10.7% margin in 2022) or John Cornyn (9.6% margin in 2020) got last time they ran. It's no secret that the Rats are definitely going to lose the West Virginia Senate seat and might lose Ohio and/or Montana. Some pipe dreamers would add other states to that list. But even just flipping WV makes it a 50-50 Senate. A Trump win gives the Republicans control with the vice-president breaking the tie, depending of course on whether any liberal Republican Senate incumbents decide to bolt from the party. To digress briefly, we predicted back in 2022 that Sen. Lisa Murkowski would do exactly that if it had been necessary to deprive the Republicans of a Senate majority (it wasn't necessary, as things turned out) but now it appears that our prediction might come true a couple of years later. Don't rule out Sen. Susan Collins doing the same thing if it appears that President Trump would have a Senate that is under Republican control (oh noes!). Both of these dried-up old RINO hags are fully aware that they are in their final Senate terms and will never have to face the voters again. So 50-50 is the most realistic partisan breakdown in the Senate for 2025 as things stand now: the GOP goes +1 and maybe gets one or two more if things go unusually well in November. Texas is the one state where Democrats have any chance whatsoever of picking up a seat in the Senate. Does anyone really believe they aren't going to pull out all the stops to try to achieve that? The latest FEC reports still show the Democrat empty suit with more money to spend than the incumbent Republican. Cruz has raised a ton -- but has spent just about all of it (on what?). He'll get more, but he'll never catch Allred in terms of cash-on-hand unless he hoards all he's got and never spends it. It's not unusual at all for a Democrat to have more money to work with than a Republican. It is unusual for an incumbent Senator to trail in the financial department. The customary advantages that Democrats enjoy in all major statewide races (financial support, and across-the-board support from the "mainstream" media) still probably won't add up to a defeat for Ted Cruz this time around, but this mindless blogger chatter about some poll "confirming" that he "will" definitely win in November is extremely premature. Tags:
2024
Senate
Texas
Going Purple
Ted Cruz
1/21/2024:
14 House Democrats Vote To Denounce Biden Admin's Open-Borders Policies
[Daily Wire]
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Photo credit: Getty Images
The vote earlier this week involved "Denouncing the Biden administration's open-borders policies, condemning the national security and public safety crisis along the southwest border, and urging President Biden to end his administration's open-borders policies." Here is a link to the text of the resolution: House Resolution 957. Since there is no substance whatsoever to this resolution, it's all about the propaganda value. Numerous articles popped up immediately in the liberal media, with titles which contain words like "denounce" and "rebuke" with regard to the Biden administration. The titles sound as if they're documenting some huge legislative setback for the White House and imply that stopping the invasion now has bipartisan support and progress is going to be made. Hardly. The real story -- the only story -- in these articles concerns praise for the 14 courageous Democrat souls who openly rebuffed their party leaders in the House and stood up to be counted on the side of Mom, Apple Pie and America. We've written about tactical voting on several occasions here. That occurs when certain Democrat plantation slaves who represent marginal districts in the House of Representatives are permitted to briefly leave the plantation. There is no defiance of authority, there is no courage and there certainly is no sincerity in those tightly choreographed and controlled performances. These 14 leftists did not march into the office of House minority leader Hakeem Homeboy and register any pleas or issue any demands; they were simply told how they would be allowed to vote on this resolution. The only reason that more Rats were not allowed to openly support this charade was that the puppetmasters did not wish to dilute the "courage" angle in the media; it takes no courage to be part of a mob. Democrat leaders selected a handful of members who needed to shore up their shaky support at home. A different group of vulnerable Democrats will get its chance to fake to the center during a risk-free vote on some other day. So what the oh-so-clever Republican majority actually ended up accomplishing here was to give certain potentially endangered Democrats a golden opportunity to grandstand without having to put even one dime's worth of money where their mouths are. Now the obedient liberal media lapdogs portray them as heroes for their courageous inconsequential votes. You can't buy that kind of positive coverage, but the liberal media -- with Republican assistance in this case -- can give it to you for free. Let's see how these 14 vote when it truly counts for something like the upcoming impeachment attempt of the smarmy incompetent (or just corrupt) Biden administration official pictured at the top of this commentary. There won't be any defections then, just a 100% united Democrat party marching in perfect goosestep as usual. Here is a table which displays data pertaining to the districts of these valiant heroes. It reveals the reason for this sudden deviation from Democrat orthodoxy.
You may have noticed that one of these things is not like the others. We'll come back to that. The districts represented by the Fearless Fourteen are marginal or even Republican-leaning, and 8 of the 14 are represented by freshmen whose prospects for re-election this year are (or were) tenuous. Some notes about this motley crew:
The one Democrat on the above chart who is not from any marginal district is ex-pro football player Colin Allred, who played linebacker for four years with the Tennessee Titans and stood on the sidelines most of the time, starting a total of 2 games. CNN nonetheless refers to him as an "NFL star" because of course they do. The link is good for a laugh. Allred first won election to the House in the anti-Trump annihilation of 2018 when the Rats gained a few dozen seats in Congress. They gained two of those seats in Texas, in similar suburban districts (one near Houston, and Allred's district near Dallas) which were in the process of going into the toilet demographically. Republican redistricters in 2022 abandoned any hope of gaining back either of these deteriorating areas and conceded them to the Democrats for at least the remainder of this decade. The GOP reluctantly fielded a candidate but didn't spend a single dollar against Allred in '22. Allred didn't vote for HRes 957 on principle (oh, please) nor was he concerned about his re-election chances because he isn't even running for re-election. Instead he's Beto O'Rourke 2.0 -- the 2024 celebrity Democrat challenger to Ted Cruz for a Senate seat and the new darling of the Hollywood left and other wealthy lunatics. Allred's voting record in Congress is impeccably liberal, rare fakes (like this one) to the center notwithstanding, and he has the full support of the Democrat Money Machine. Ted Cruz has faced and defeated unqualified liberal dilettantes before, and he is no stranger to fundraising either. He has raised -- but already spent -- millions of dollars in this election cycle. The Democrat cash registers have hardly opened yet, however Allred has more cash on hand than Cruz. Whatever Cruz has spent $35,000,000 on so far (and that was just through September), it's not working. A poll from earlier this week shows Cruz up only 42% to 40% over his empty-suit opponent. That same poll shows accurate-looking results in the presidential matchup (Trump over Biden by 8 to 10 points, but under 50% overall) so intelligent people cannot easily shrug it off and the emotionally frail ignore it at their own risk. Trump is certain to win Texas if he is the nominee, likely with over 50% but surely nothing remotely approaching a landslide. Cruz should receive help from Trump's coattails to drag him across the finish line; he may very well need that help. The Rats won't be spending much in the Lone Star State on the presidential race because they can't win one of those races here (yet) and more pertinently because they don't need to win it. However they will be going all-in on the Senate election, and more data to back up that fact will be available shortly when the FEC releases its 2023 year-end campaign data. Tags:
U.S. House
2024
Senate
Texas
Ted Cruz
vs. "NFL star"
GOP saves endangered baby Rats
7/11/2023:
Mayra Flores Launches Comeback Bid in Texas
[Breitbart]
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Photo credit: Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
You'll remember Flores from June of 2022 when she scored a historic upset victory in a heavily-Mexican south Texas district (CD-34) which had never before been won by anything other than a Democrat. The old version of the 34th district in which Flores won that 4-way special election 13 months ago was pretty much a tossup and had trended slightly to the right as of 2020. Special elections are always prone to fluke outcomes due to low turnout, but the flukes usually favor the left. This one didn't. Tags:
Mayra Flores
Texas
U.S. House
Historic upset
Redistricting
2/1/2023:
These are the states Americans are moving to
[The Hill]
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Photo credit: iStock
Nothing unexpected here -- people are moving to the usual destinations (Texas, Florida, the rest of the Sun Belt) and fleeing from pathological liberal areas, especially California which has had net domestic outmigration for three decades now and led the nation again in escapees in 2022. Tags:
Demographics
Voting with their feet
Texas
Californication
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