My heart is so unbelievably happy. ❤️❤️In Nov ‘24 I could feel Tarrant county (Ft. Worth) shifting and Lucas Holtz validated my thoughts back then, although he told me the numbers weren’t quite there yet. Tarrant has been so fed up with Tim O’Hare as county judge and the awful school board incursions that they’ve had to root out. They were all the way done. I’m hoping RGV is all the way done too, along with the suburban counties of our big cities.
I always believed Blexas was possible, not inevitable, but well within the realm of possibility. After 2024 I wasn't so sure, or at least, not sure that it would happen within the next 10-20 years. Then I saw Talarico, and started to believe it was possible again. Even believing it was possible, I am immensely surprised by this election. Goes to show how the right candidate with the right message can pull off some major upsets.
You weren’t imagining it. When people are tired of chaos merchants, culture-war school boards, and a president who treats governance like a rage-posting side hustle, they don’t need polling to tell them. If the RGV and the big-city suburbs are feeling the same Trump-induced exhaustion, this isn’t a mood, it’s a pattern. ❤️
This is, by far the best and most insightful political assessment of Tarrant County and Texas politics I have read in a long time. Thank you Mike. I worked for Taylor here in Tarrant County. He is exactly what Mike said, plus he is young! It's time we stopped electing old people. And I say that as an old person.
I block walked today for Talarico. Mike nails the issues people of Tarrant County have. Last week, high school students, mostly Latino, walked from their three high schools to Chishom Park to protest ICE. I couldn't believe the numbers. The report said the honks of approval were constant. Reading about the number of Latino kids doing this, I thought to myself, something is up. Turns out it was. A 50 point swing in the Latino vote means Latinos voted in a special election run-off during an ice storm. And Republicans are freaking out because their path to victory relies on Latinos not voting.
I look for election integrity in Tarrant County to be Trump's target starting next week. I look for some kind of Fulton County like stunt. Tim O'Hare, the Republican operative who moved to Tarrant County and got elected County Commissioner has been blatant about suppressing the vote of Democrats. In a job that means filling potholes, running the public hospital and community college, he proclaims his only priority is to keep Tarrant County red by closing voting centers and redistricting the county. There is no doubt in my mind Trump/Abbott and O'Hare are talking about voter suppression in Tarrant County right now.
When students brave an ice storm to vote and MAGA’s entire strategy depends on them staying home, the panic button gets smashed. Turns out pothole politics can’t save a party when people are done with the circus.
This is quantifiably false. But even if it’s true - which it is not - that would be a devastating sign of how demoralized the Republican base is - for very good reason.
Btw, did you notice that now it’s Republicans who blame their losses on low voter turnout? That’s because they’re the party of the less educated, less informed and less aware of what’s happening…incidentally those are the three demographics that are abandoning Trump and the Republicans fastest.
You’re wrong. Even if your excuses were right it would be bad news.
I'm curious about your opinion on whether you see any similarities in the qualities and behaviours of Rehmet and Mamdani and whether it's those qualities that resonate so much with voters. They both seem to project a fierce determination to do what's right for the poor and working and middle classes.
Also, whether the quote about a "shift to the left" is entirely accurate. Given how toxic MAGA appears to be atm, I wouldn't be surprised if it was more a shift AWAY from MAGA and, in a two horse race, it looks like a shift ro the left. If the Republicans had selected a candidate who is more traditional, the result could have been much different.
Personally, I don't see the corporate Democrats giving up power to the likes of Rehmet and Mamdani even if it results in a landslide win, because it also results in a reduction of power within the party. I expect this election to be a fluke because the corporate Dems will take fright and keep candidates like Rehmet and Mamdani out.
The Dem candidates that can flip seats here are not “establishment” candidates, and they are not afraid to say it, to criticize the DNC as needed. They run on shoestring budgets because DNC hasn’t invested here in a long time. The election isn’t a fluke- it’s the result of scrappy, hard community work for years without much, if any, DNC support. It’s true grassroots mobilization and organization. Active local groups make the difference in TX, not the party; candidates are used to not having party help or blessings.
I wonder what sort of loyalty these candidates will have with respect to supporting the party line, given the lack of support from the party in the first place.
Which is why I believe that the corporate Dems would be horrified by this very prospect.
Rick - wonder if the labels left/right mean less to voters than the party labels which carry more weight. Some candidates manage to connect in ways outside the party labels. That’s when surprises happen!
Agreed. The candidates who defy labels have an edge. Texas has open primaries. This makes it a lot easier for a tough, smart and authentic candidate like Rehmet or Talarico to appeal to and not freak out Republicans and Independents. One of the big hurdles we face here in Texas is how thoroughly Republicans have tarnished the Democratic brand. It's kind of interesting. Since we don't register by party here in Texas, we extrapolate a likely Democratic (or Republican) voter from which primary in which they vote the most. People will have a long, solid history of voting in the Democratic primary, yet they will insist they are not Democrats. They identify as Independents.
I wasn't aware of that. That's fascinating. Thanks for enlightening me.
Thanks everyone for your responses. I suppose what I'm curious about is, should sufficient numbers of notionally Democrat candidates win the mid-terms without much, if any, support from the corporate Democrats who currently run the Party, what does THAT Democrat Party look like? And will the corporate Democrats look on that prospect with so much horror that they prefer to lose the mid-terms in order to remain in control?
As an Australian, looking on, I feel like one of the animals in Animal Farm trying to tell the difference between the pigs and humans! I believe that the main reason why the corporate Dems and GOP fight culture wars is because they pretty much agree on everything else.
Good question about the corporate Democrats. Time will tell I guess. This struggle between corporate Democrats and working people Democrats is happening beneath the surface. I don't have any idea who might win.
But I will say this about that anyway. In Texas, were abandoned by the National (corporate) Democrats for about thirty years. They come down here and haul in massive donations from Texas donors and then spend nothing on us. Well, that is over now. The state party now has a young, millenial, Bernie Sanders style progressive as chairman. We are building infrastructure again. We're doing real politics again. If this starts happening in all the other states Democrats have ignored, i.e. "red" states, I don't see how the corporate Democrats can withstand that.
We cannot afford to let the mid-terms go just so corporate Democrats can perpetuate their personal power. Here in Texas, the stakes are existential.
I hope for your sake that it turns out well for you. And, by extension, everyone else.
We really do catch cold when the USA sneezes. I hate to think of the diseases that have been unleashed by the deluge of excrement from this Administration.
The Rehmet victory was impressive. I am also very intrigued by Bobby Pulido. Dems must recruit candidates that resonate with the electorate and get away from purity tests, meaning stop listening to the groups.
Intriguing, to say the least. Democrats in the North often don't understand that victory is defined differently in Texas and much of the South. When I lived in Michigan where I'm originally from, I often felt compelled to remind people not to underestimate Southern progressives. Some got it, some didn't, some never set foot in a Southern state I guess, so it goes. This is encouraging news, and I appreciate the experience and thoroughness you bring to light here.
Correct. Southern progressives have fire in their belly because they are tempered by the adversity of fighting politically in an adverse environment. And we just fight the power for the sport of it.
Great article Mike, as always. Quick question. I was listening to Your old Colleague Rick Wilson on Molly's podcast. Given recent polling out of Georgia - went red 2024, North Carolina, red 2024, and concerns about Byron what'shisface in Florida, even if, particularly in Florida, those are still very likely Republican holds, do you think that we might see donor money increasing to try to match the possible expansion of the map, particularly if the economy continues to suffer for voters and if, as I think Rick mentioned, we see 350,000 Cubans in Miami (and I don't even know how many Venezuelans) getting deported?
Mike, any similarity between this election and the Miami mayoral race? Or have democrats lost Florida for good? As always, I appreciate reading your thoughts.
i wonder if we're learning, “You can't hold a man down without staying down with him"
Mike, as always you’re SPOT ON with your analysis. I live in Austin and couldn’t believe it when I read about TX SD-9!
And your fantastic analysis helped answer a question a Dem friend and I just discussed: would our votes in the March primary be better used strategically by voting for Cornyn in the GOP primary instead of for Talarico in the Dem primary (because we do NOT want Paxton to get the nomination and possibly be our next Senator)? And let other Dems decide whether our candidate will be Talarico or Crockett, and of course voting for that person in November.
We were both leaning toward voting in the GOP primary. But reading your post changed my mind. I’m voting for James. I attended a private fundraiser for him in December near Austin and he’s as impressive in person as he is on social media and TV.
Maybe his best chance to win is if he faces disgusting Ken Paxton in the general election.
What a hopeful article. if there is a blue tsunami in the midterms, Impeaching orange man and VP eyeliner +2 Supreme Court impeachments will yield the presidency to The Democratic Speaker of the House. He should choose a nonideological GOPer as VP; plus American democracy will have a 6-3 Supreme Court majority. Go blue, Texas. Vamos Texas a votar por los democratia!
My heart is so unbelievably happy. ❤️❤️In Nov ‘24 I could feel Tarrant county (Ft. Worth) shifting and Lucas Holtz validated my thoughts back then, although he told me the numbers weren’t quite there yet. Tarrant has been so fed up with Tim O’Hare as county judge and the awful school board incursions that they’ve had to root out. They were all the way done. I’m hoping RGV is all the way done too, along with the suburban counties of our big cities.
I always believed Blexas was possible, not inevitable, but well within the realm of possibility. After 2024 I wasn't so sure, or at least, not sure that it would happen within the next 10-20 years. Then I saw Talarico, and started to believe it was possible again. Even believing it was possible, I am immensely surprised by this election. Goes to show how the right candidate with the right message can pull off some major upsets.
You weren’t imagining it. When people are tired of chaos merchants, culture-war school boards, and a president who treats governance like a rage-posting side hustle, they don’t need polling to tell them. If the RGV and the big-city suburbs are feeling the same Trump-induced exhaustion, this isn’t a mood, it’s a pattern. ❤️
This is, by far the best and most insightful political assessment of Tarrant County and Texas politics I have read in a long time. Thank you Mike. I worked for Taylor here in Tarrant County. He is exactly what Mike said, plus he is young! It's time we stopped electing old people. And I say that as an old person.
I block walked today for Talarico. Mike nails the issues people of Tarrant County have. Last week, high school students, mostly Latino, walked from their three high schools to Chishom Park to protest ICE. I couldn't believe the numbers. The report said the honks of approval were constant. Reading about the number of Latino kids doing this, I thought to myself, something is up. Turns out it was. A 50 point swing in the Latino vote means Latinos voted in a special election run-off during an ice storm. And Republicans are freaking out because their path to victory relies on Latinos not voting.
I look for election integrity in Tarrant County to be Trump's target starting next week. I look for some kind of Fulton County like stunt. Tim O'Hare, the Republican operative who moved to Tarrant County and got elected County Commissioner has been blatant about suppressing the vote of Democrats. In a job that means filling potholes, running the public hospital and community college, he proclaims his only priority is to keep Tarrant County red by closing voting centers and redistricting the county. There is no doubt in my mind Trump/Abbott and O'Hare are talking about voter suppression in Tarrant County right now.
Thanks for the feedback and for putting in the work for democracy!
When students brave an ice storm to vote and MAGA’s entire strategy depends on them staying home, the panic button gets smashed. Turns out pothole politics can’t save a party when people are done with the circus.
Political professional here.
This is quantifiably false. But even if it’s true - which it is not - that would be a devastating sign of how demoralized the Republican base is - for very good reason.
Btw, did you notice that now it’s Republicans who blame their losses on low voter turnout? That’s because they’re the party of the less educated, less informed and less aware of what’s happening…incidentally those are the three demographics that are abandoning Trump and the Republicans fastest.
You’re wrong. Even if your excuses were right it would be bad news.
Time to go back to your mom’s basement. Buh Bye!
You’re unemployed begging for campaign work and never run a race in your life.
We’ll let that speak for itself
Great article Mike! Eyes on Texas, they could be key to the outcome in the next election.
Hi Mike, another great article as per usual.
I'm curious about your opinion on whether you see any similarities in the qualities and behaviours of Rehmet and Mamdani and whether it's those qualities that resonate so much with voters. They both seem to project a fierce determination to do what's right for the poor and working and middle classes.
Also, whether the quote about a "shift to the left" is entirely accurate. Given how toxic MAGA appears to be atm, I wouldn't be surprised if it was more a shift AWAY from MAGA and, in a two horse race, it looks like a shift ro the left. If the Republicans had selected a candidate who is more traditional, the result could have been much different.
Personally, I don't see the corporate Democrats giving up power to the likes of Rehmet and Mamdani even if it results in a landslide win, because it also results in a reduction of power within the party. I expect this election to be a fluke because the corporate Dems will take fright and keep candidates like Rehmet and Mamdani out.
I think all of these observations are spot on!
The Dem candidates that can flip seats here are not “establishment” candidates, and they are not afraid to say it, to criticize the DNC as needed. They run on shoestring budgets because DNC hasn’t invested here in a long time. The election isn’t a fluke- it’s the result of scrappy, hard community work for years without much, if any, DNC support. It’s true grassroots mobilization and organization. Active local groups make the difference in TX, not the party; candidates are used to not having party help or blessings.
💯, too!
💯
I wonder what sort of loyalty these candidates will have with respect to supporting the party line, given the lack of support from the party in the first place.
Which is why I believe that the corporate Dems would be horrified by this very prospect.
Rick - wonder if the labels left/right mean less to voters than the party labels which carry more weight. Some candidates manage to connect in ways outside the party labels. That’s when surprises happen!
Agreed. The candidates who defy labels have an edge. Texas has open primaries. This makes it a lot easier for a tough, smart and authentic candidate like Rehmet or Talarico to appeal to and not freak out Republicans and Independents. One of the big hurdles we face here in Texas is how thoroughly Republicans have tarnished the Democratic brand. It's kind of interesting. Since we don't register by party here in Texas, we extrapolate a likely Democratic (or Republican) voter from which primary in which they vote the most. People will have a long, solid history of voting in the Democratic primary, yet they will insist they are not Democrats. They identify as Independents.
I wasn't aware of that. That's fascinating. Thanks for enlightening me.
Thanks everyone for your responses. I suppose what I'm curious about is, should sufficient numbers of notionally Democrat candidates win the mid-terms without much, if any, support from the corporate Democrats who currently run the Party, what does THAT Democrat Party look like? And will the corporate Democrats look on that prospect with so much horror that they prefer to lose the mid-terms in order to remain in control?
As an Australian, looking on, I feel like one of the animals in Animal Farm trying to tell the difference between the pigs and humans! I believe that the main reason why the corporate Dems and GOP fight culture wars is because they pretty much agree on everything else.
Good question about the corporate Democrats. Time will tell I guess. This struggle between corporate Democrats and working people Democrats is happening beneath the surface. I don't have any idea who might win.
But I will say this about that anyway. In Texas, were abandoned by the National (corporate) Democrats for about thirty years. They come down here and haul in massive donations from Texas donors and then spend nothing on us. Well, that is over now. The state party now has a young, millenial, Bernie Sanders style progressive as chairman. We are building infrastructure again. We're doing real politics again. If this starts happening in all the other states Democrats have ignored, i.e. "red" states, I don't see how the corporate Democrats can withstand that.
We cannot afford to let the mid-terms go just so corporate Democrats can perpetuate their personal power. Here in Texas, the stakes are existential.
I hope for your sake that it turns out well for you. And, by extension, everyone else.
We really do catch cold when the USA sneezes. I hate to think of the diseases that have been unleashed by the deluge of excrement from this Administration.
Thanks. We’re trying.
I'm not sure the corporate Dems are going to win the fight for the soul of the party. I'm not voting for them.
Just bought your book (audio book for my work commute) and looking forward to listening. I am grateful for your insight. Keep writing!
Can’t wait to hear your thoughts Hillary
Great work as always Mike
Thanks Nick 🙏🏼
Fantastic article, Mike. Let’s hope they listen this time.
The Rehmet victory was impressive. I am also very intrigued by Bobby Pulido. Dems must recruit candidates that resonate with the electorate and get away from purity tests, meaning stop listening to the groups.
💯
I only hope the corporate Dems succumb to their better nature and embrace what you say.
Intriguing, to say the least. Democrats in the North often don't understand that victory is defined differently in Texas and much of the South. When I lived in Michigan where I'm originally from, I often felt compelled to remind people not to underestimate Southern progressives. Some got it, some didn't, some never set foot in a Southern state I guess, so it goes. This is encouraging news, and I appreciate the experience and thoroughness you bring to light here.
Correct. Southern progressives have fire in their belly because they are tempered by the adversity of fighting politically in an adverse environment. And we just fight the power for the sport of it.
Great article Mike, as always. Quick question. I was listening to Your old Colleague Rick Wilson on Molly's podcast. Given recent polling out of Georgia - went red 2024, North Carolina, red 2024, and concerns about Byron what'shisface in Florida, even if, particularly in Florida, those are still very likely Republican holds, do you think that we might see donor money increasing to try to match the possible expansion of the map, particularly if the economy continues to suffer for voters and if, as I think Rick mentioned, we see 350,000 Cubans in Miami (and I don't even know how many Venezuelans) getting deported?
Does your analysis of this race change at all with Talarico's Colbert interview?
Mike, any similarity between this election and the Miami mayoral race? Or have democrats lost Florida for good? As always, I appreciate reading your thoughts.
i wonder if we're learning, “You can't hold a man down without staying down with him"
Booker T. Washington
Mike, as always you’re SPOT ON with your analysis. I live in Austin and couldn’t believe it when I read about TX SD-9!
And your fantastic analysis helped answer a question a Dem friend and I just discussed: would our votes in the March primary be better used strategically by voting for Cornyn in the GOP primary instead of for Talarico in the Dem primary (because we do NOT want Paxton to get the nomination and possibly be our next Senator)? And let other Dems decide whether our candidate will be Talarico or Crockett, and of course voting for that person in November.
We were both leaning toward voting in the GOP primary. But reading your post changed my mind. I’m voting for James. I attended a private fundraiser for him in December near Austin and he’s as impressive in person as he is on social media and TV.
Maybe his best chance to win is if he faces disgusting Ken Paxton in the general election.
What a hopeful article. if there is a blue tsunami in the midterms, Impeaching orange man and VP eyeliner +2 Supreme Court impeachments will yield the presidency to The Democratic Speaker of the House. He should choose a nonideological GOPer as VP; plus American democracy will have a 6-3 Supreme Court majority. Go blue, Texas. Vamos Texas a votar por los democratia!
🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻🤞🏻
Big Mike nails it again. 👏
Great article and hopeful times ahead for my American brothers & sisters.