They keep telling us that there’s a ‘Blue Wave’ coming… but that promising first ripple failed to reach the shore. Could this be the beginning of a ‘Blue Drought’?
The election of Pete Flores to Senate District 19 seat was a shocker for Democrats. They thought that their candidate, U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego, had it in the bag. After all, SD-19 is a district that is 66 percent Hispanic, so they’ve got that vote thanks to their reliance on identity politics, right?
Eh, not so much.
Voters elected political newcomer Pete Flores to the Texas Senate on Tuesday, flipping a Democratic district red for the first time in 139 years and bolstering Republicans’ supermajority in the chamber ahead of the November elections.
A retired game warden, Flores defeated former state and U.S. Rep. Pete Gallego for the Senate District 19 seat after receiving backing from some of the state’s most prominent politicians, including Gov. Greg Abbott, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and U.S. Sens John Cornyn and Ted Cruz.
“We conservatives are conservative in the way we make approaches. The gunfight’s not over until the last shot’s fired,” Flores told the Express-News after Gallego conceded in a phone call just before 9 p.m. “The last shot’s been fired.”
It was a shocking flip because the district hasn’t elected a Republican since Reconstruction. The last Republican to hold the seat was Andrew Phelps McCormick, who left office in 1879 according to the Legislative Library of Texas records.
Flores’ win marked an incredible upset in a district that political observers said shouldn’t have been competitive for Republicans. Low turnout in special elections and high-level GOP interests in preserving a Senate supermajority helped push Flores across the line, they said.
“It will provide a completely unexpected gift for Republicans for the next legislative session,” said Mark Jones, a professor of political science at Rice University.
Jones said Flores’ victory all but assured a Republican supermajority next year, which would allow Senate Republicans to bring bills to the floor without any Democratic support.
Flores had polled at 53 percent in the special election to replace Democratic State Sen. Carlos Uresti, who faces up to 12 years in prison after being found guilty of 11 felonies after having perpetrated a Ponzi scheme on investors in his now-defunct oilfield services company.
Maybe voters were finally tired of entitled Democrats and corruption.
“Tonight, you all just made history,” Patrick told supporters. “For the first time in history, we have 21 Republican senators. For the first time in history, we have a Hispanic Republican senator.”
Patrick, who spent around $175,000 on Flores’ campaign, said the supermajority was secured Tuesday night.
“This guy gives us a two-thirds majority,” he said.
Source: My San Antonio
It kind of reminds me of what happened in Georgia with Jon Ossoff.
This isn’t exactly great news for Beto O’Rourke, the Democrat that is challenging Sen. Ted Cruz for his Senate seat. The polls are all over the place, with some giving Cruz a comfortable 9-point lead, while others say it’s a dead heat with O’Rourke up by 2 points — within the margin of error.
It seems like the Trump supporters are fired up, after all.
Well, can you blame them?
Just look at how he’s Making America Great Again… and his foreign policy is fantastic.
