Midterm Election Night Predictions and Races to Watch

“There’s got to be a horse in here somewhere,” said the optimistic Texas Democrat.

November 6, 2022

Welcome to a special Midterm Elections edition of Life Its Ownself, in which I venture some predictions and share my thoughts on races to watch. I invited readers to share their own thoughts on races to watch but had received no responses by press time. However, you can comment below if you would like to add to (or subtract from) my brilliant insights. In any case, please VOTE if you haven’t already. Voting is the only input that matters.

There was a time this spring when your Humble Correspondent espied a big red wave gathering on the horizon, poised to break over the political landscape. Then, after SCOTUS handed down the Dobbs decision in June, that wave seemed to grow visibly weaker. But now, with the election just a few days away, the horizon is once again darkened by the shadow of a significant red wave.

Texas being Texas, red waves don’t tend to change much. Republican candidates statewide start off with 10-12 percentage point advantage which has held consistent over the last 20 years. From that perspective, Beto O’Rourke’s 2.6-point loss to incumbent Ted Cruz in the Senate race and Mike Collier’s 4.8-point loss to incumbent Dan Patrick in 2018 should be considered respectable underdog performances. The question is, will they be repeated, or even improved upon, this cycle?

PREDICTIONS

Statewide, I predict the GOP sweeps the Big Three races – Abbott, Patrick, and Paxton. If there is an upset, it’ll be in Paxton’s race, discussed infra.

The lesser statewide races will go to the GOP as well – Hegar, Buckingham, Miller and Christian. My take: although the Democratic challengers are all good people, their races have not attracted enough attention (or money) to disrupt the built-in GOP advantage. Does anyone have a contrary opinion about any of those? Kleberg, anyone?

In Travis County, incumbents will win the State Senate (Eckhardt, Zaffirini, Campbell) and House (Cole, Goodwin, Howard and Hinojosa) races. My guess is James Talarico and Lulu Flores will join their ranks in the open seats in HD-50 and HD-51.

In the Austin Mayor’s race, I predict Kirk Watson and Celia Israel will go into a December runoff.

RACES TO WATCH

In the hopes of making Tuesday night interesting, here are some races to watch around the state:

TX Attorney General – Ken Paxton vs. Rochelle Garza. Twice Indicted Attorney General Ken Paxton has a fiercely loyal base and a surprising ability to dodge the consequences of his actions. Rochelle Garza is a civil rights lawyer born and raised in the Valley. The only issue in the race is whether Texas voters are tired or embarrassed enough by Paxton to go for a change. If Democrats are to win a statewide election this cycle, it will probably be this one.

South Texas congressional races. There’s been much chatter about how President Donald Trump did better in the Rio Grande Valley (RGV) in 2020. Anyway, the GOP is focused on three contiguous congressional districts this cycle and hoping to pick up at least two of them. If the GOP picks up two, or all three, of the seats, Texas Dems will have to reevaluate fundamental assumptions about their base.

         They are:

• CD-28, anchored in Laredo and extending up to the southern suburbs of San Antonio. Longtime Democratic congressman Henry Cuellar survived a tough primary challenge and now faces off against newcomer Cassy Garcia. FiveThirtyEight rates it as Likely D, as does the Cook Political Report.

• CD-15, which runs from Edinburg up to Seguin. Vicente Gonzalez was the congressman but moved into the adjoining CD-34 this cycle. Republican Monica De La Cruz, who lost to Gonzalez last time, is running against newcomer Michelle Vallejo. FiveThirtyEight rates it as a dead heat, as does Roll Call, although the Cook Political Report calls it Likely Republican.  

• CD-34, which runs from Brownsville to the King Ranch, then wraps around Corpus Christi and up to Gonzalez County. Mayra Flores won a special election this summer to take the seat after the early retirement of Rep. Filemon Vela. Her opponent is incumbent congressman Vicente Gonzalez, who moved from the neighboring 15thDistrict to run for the seat. FiveThirtyEight rates it as Lean D, but the Cook Political Report rates it a GOP Toss-Up.

Harris County Judge – Lina Hidalgo vs. Alexandra del Moral Mealer.

Harris County is the third-largest county in the country (behind Los Angeles and Cook counties), and this race has everyone’s attention. Lina Hidalgo burst on the scene in 2018, winning her first-time candidacy again popular incumbent Ed Emmett. She’s done some things well, but did not move quickly enough when some aides got into ethical trouble. Alexandra del Moral Mealer is also a first-time candidate, with an impressive résumé that includes West Point and Harvard Law. She is buoyed by lots of outside GOP money that sees Hidalgo as a rising star and therefore a future threat. The race is a statistical dead heat. Harris County ought to be a blue county, and a Hidalgo loss would ripple through county, and statewide, politics.

Presidio County Judge – Cinderela Guevara vs. Jose Portillo, Jr. Presidio County (6,140) is miniscule compared to Harris County, of course. Cinderela Guevara has been the County Judge since 2014 – as a Democrat. Late last year, she switched parties and is running for reelection against Democratic challenger Jose Portillo. Presidio is a heavily Democratic County, which makes Guevara’s decision to switch parties mystifying. (For instance, in winning their respective primaries in March, 835 people voted for Portillo in the Democratic primary versus 90 for Guevara in the GOP primary.) But Guevara is getting help from Project Red Texas, which “supports and highlights candidates who are running for county-level offices.” She’s also gotten boosts from Greg Abbott. Still, Presidio County voted for Joe Biden 2-1 in 2020. The last time Abbott was on the ballot in Presidio County, in 2018, he lost to Lupe Valdez 70%-28%. If Guevara hangs on as an R, is it because of her personal popularity or is some new wind blowing across the Marfa Plateau?

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CONCLUDING THOUGHTS

Even before we see election results, we can tell some warning lights are flashing. The Democrats’ battle plan called for higher turnout among young voters, women and in urban areas. So far, none of those seem to have materialized. Through Friday, turnout statewide for early voting was 31.07%, about midway between the 2014 (19.11%) and 2018 (39.9%) levels.

This data reinforces a perception that even progressive majorities in the state’s big urban areas cannot overcome the state’s far-rightward drift. New York magazine’s Intelligencer column yesterday published an article titled “Austin Has Been Invaded by Texas: The progressive paradise is over for some, and they’re fleeing to bluer pastures.” The money quote:

This summer, that anxiety pervaded a stratum of liberal Austin, namely women, LGBTQ+ folks, parents, and people of color who fear a future in Texas and have the means to escape. The overturning of Roe seemed to remove the last obstacle in the state’s march to the far right, which is likely to be cemented in the upcoming election where Beto O’Rourke is way behind Abbott.

Last night, Bill Maher concluded his show with a eulogy for America democracy, YouTubed below. He warned about the slide into authoritarianism:

This is the “It can’t happen to us” moment that’s happening to us right now. We just don’t feel it yet. We’re the Titanic right after the iceberg hit. And honestly, too many Americans just don’t care – and won’t even care after it happens.

Listening to Maher, it occurred to me that it has already happened in Texas. We’ve had one-party control of Texas government for 20 years. Over that time, the checks and balances that ought to characterize state government have atrophied. We have a Governor who’s diverted hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars to what is basically a campaign stunt on the border, all in service to his reelection and a nascent 2024 presidential campaign, with virtually no protest from his “co-equal” Legislature. We have a Lieutenant Governor who rules the Senate as his own personal fiefdom, punishing even members of his own party for ideological impurity. We have an Attorney General who has been under felony indictment for his entire tenure in that office, and yet sleeps peacefully every night convinced that the wheels of justice will never run him over. Our Agriculture Commissioner is a nationwide joke, but the voters will probably not disgorge him. Texas is becoming more diverse and more liberal, but our Legislature is whiter and more reactionary, thanks in part to redistricting games that entrench the conservative minority. Life has gotten better for the Haves and much more precarious for the Have Nots, but government listens to both groups even less than it used to.

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I think it unlikely the 2022 elections will do much to change that. And the 2024 elections may be even worse. Buckle up, Texans.