Discussion: Is Booming Turnout In Texas Giving Beto O'Rourke A Chance?

After Alabama, anything is possible

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Polling depends on modeling the electorate so much that it can miss things…that’s what happened with Heitkamp in 2012, the models missed a large swath of support for her. Beto has a real chance here, if the young people coming out now reflect the entire vote, and if they lean Democratic like the young tend to do, then he should over perform the polls. But, there’s no guarantee that’s how things will go…it could be young conservatives fired up to protect Trump storming the voting booth instead.

I expect Beto to do better than the polling the past few weeks, but I’ll be surprised (pleasantly!) if he pulls it off.

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One thing that pollsters aren’t looking at is the women’s vote. We have many angry women here in Texas ready to stomp out people like Ted Cruz. The election of Empty Dumpty energized many women who were never active in politics before the 2016 fiasco.

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If National Enquirer does a few ā€œReal Newsā€ stories on Cruz, O’Rourke will be a shoe in!
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ted-cruz-ami-national-enquirer-donald-trump_us_5bd8a992e4b019a7ab57d70e

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Ok not just angry women like you and me, angry evangelical women. Women who voted for Trump who are now voting for Beto and have said so.

One major young anti-abortion activist came out yesterday and said she is voting Beto and other Democrats because she doesn’t really believe the GOP is about life.

I’m sure she influences people around her.

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I would like to see some more quality numbers out (Emerson is +3% for CanadianCruz, and is out today, but its not the best pollster) but he has closed the gap from 9% to 5% in Quinnipiac.

I don’t know what kind of a turnout operation Beto has - the guy certainly has the $$$ for one - and if the early vote is just cannibalizing the election day vote. I think the key is if his GOTV gets Hispanics and young Texans to vote. If so he wins, if not he looses.

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Not sure if you saw it but there was an article in the times today about young evangelical voters.

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Anecdote: I’m from El Paso and last week at an industry conference after our roundtable discussion, a fellow Texan from a ruby red part of the state asked me, ā€œSo what 'bout Beet-o?ā€ After my brain made the switch, I told him I personally knew Beto and that he was a great guy, always upfront, positive, and wanting to come up with common sense solutions. He was so happy that I knew him and could personally vouch for him, saying he was from the ā€œother side of the divideā€ and that he knows friends of Cruz who ā€œaren’t even going to vote for him [Cruz]ā€. I’m not saying he’s necessarily going to vote for Beto but he seemed astonishingly positive about him!

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Yeah thank you for that - it was great.

Religious leaders who are looking toward the future of their congregations have to be cognizant that they stand to lose even more of the young ones if they don’t stop being the gigantic hypocrites they are = younger people see right through that shit and by and large hate it.

Another issue that is tearing evangelicals apart is global warming.

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Thanks for that
No one in their right mind answers a cellphone when they don’t recognize the number .
Friends text
Phone calls are for sales pitches (normally spoofed with your local area code and exchange) and Dr’s appointments…
and if it’s a toll free 800 # no way

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It’s impossible to will yourself not to hope. You might even say it’s hopeless.

I grew up a fierce Knicks fan. When I was young I was among the worst sports fans ever, regularly driving my family members out of the room when the Knicks lost. (My father was worse though: legend has it that when he was a kid his beloved Brooklyn Dodgers lost some key game. So he took a razor to the Dodgers posters that covered his bedroom walls and shreddded them all!) I remember distinctly when the Knicks would be losing a playoff game and I would be in a fury, smashing the wall and yelling out that they suck and I hope they lose—even then, amidst all that rage and disappointment and apparent resignation, I was still secretly fervently hoping they could pull off a miracle come-back.

I don’t care about the Knicks anymore and I have gotten a little better about not expressing my frustration when things don’t go the way I want. And though I am doing my best to steel myself for the worst to happen in the midterms, I don’t even try to pretend that I don’t also have tremendous hope.

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You covered it completely and completely accurately - that is exactly how it works for my husband and I. We have a landline that my husband won’t get rid of. It rings all day long and we never answer it because nothing comes in under a name. Same on my cellphone. I get phone calls all day that I never answer. If it was someone I knew, they would leave a voicemail.

I only answer calls when I’m sure of who the caller is.

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hahahahahahaha Gee, you ought to try being a Maverick’s fan. You think you have been frustrated? hahahahaha

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I don’t proclaim to know much about the Evangelical community other than what I’ve read… having said that, I’d be very cautious about giving much hope to their supporting democrats. They seem to be completely engulfed by the culture wars. I’d very glad to be proven wrong and given that you seem to be in TX, you are probably much more able to evaluate what’s happening in the community.

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I don’t know any personally and I’m basing this on what I’ve read. I keep reading and have for several weeks, that evangelical women were sick about Brett Kavanaugh, abortion notwithstanding.

I’m sure that’s not all of them but I’ll take whatever I can get. I suspect it’s mostly young women.

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To be fair, it’s still an open question as to who is liked less in the Republican party Cruz or Moore.

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Moore for sure. Not even a difficult call (much to the chagrin of leadership).

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I agree with the TPMer above who thinks TX may blow out the model for this election.
I think a lot of this early voting is by college kids who see RFK here. Also, a Latino group registered 000’s of Latino voters.

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What are on earth are you talking about? At least in Wilco voter registration has been on fire this year.

And the GoTV is jaw dropping -

Well over 200,000 people who have NEVER voted in any election before now have already cast a ballot in Texas. The state with the second highest number of first time voters, CA, has only 78,000. Keep that in mind as you assess the polls in Texas.

— Tom Bonier (@tbonier) October 31, 2018
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And African America turnout is also way way up.

All I know for sure is that in the midterms of '06 we defeated gerrymandering here with turnout.

But I realize it’s just one county.

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