President Biden’s success in the suburbs last year has led many Democrats to crow about their chance to create a new version of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal coalition, which dominated U.S. politics for nearly 50 years. Saturday’s special election in Texas’s 6th Congressional District shows how far the party has to go to realize its dreams.
Texas’s 6th is a microcosm of the sort of place Democrats need to capture to establish a dominant majority. … Democrats were mildly optimistic that they could gain the seat when it became vacant after Republican Rep. Ron Wright died in February after being diagnosed with covid-19. …
Republicans combined outpaced Democrats by a whopping 25 points, 62 percent to 37 percent, when all votes were tallied. That’s an even greater advantage for Republicans than had been the case last decade when this area — and many similar suburbs nationwide — were considered safe territory for Team Red. If this result is a harbinger of the midterms, Democrats are in for a bloodbath as the suburbs snap back into Republican lockstep. CONTINUED
Henry Olsen, Washington Post
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