U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz starts as the Texas favorite in a fantasy 2016 Republican primary for president, swamping Gov. Rick Perry and a number of other big-name candidates in the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. The governor fared better in a potential head-to-head matchup for re-election in 2014 against […] Read more »
The Latest Exercise in ‘Blue Texas’ Wishful Thinking
Texas electoral politics tend to elicit sensationalism. Jeb Bush has suggested the Lone Star state, which voted for Romney by 16 points in 2012, could somehow turn blue in 2016; Ted Cruz, who doesn’t even favor comprehensive immigration reform, similarly said that new Hispanic voters would turn Texas blue and […] Read more »
Targeting Texas
While the Republican Party struggles to resolve fratricidal conflict over gay marriage and immigration reform, there is another elephant in the room: Texas, the last big-state bastion of the right. Neglected by national Democrats since 1992, when Bill Clinton’s campaign decided to write it off, Texas has emerged as a […] Read more »
The Man Who Could Turn Texas Blue: Rick Perry
Big in all things, Texas leads the nation in failing to provide health insurance. About one in four Texans are uninsured, the highest percentage in any state. That’s some 6 million people, the total population of Missouri. Yet Gov. Rick Perry, back from his stumbles in the 2012 GOP presidential […] Read more »
Lone Star Blues
The 2012 presidential race in Texas might as well have been in Mexico, so little did the Democrats campaign for the state’s 38 electoral votes. Yet during a fund-raising swing on a sweltering July day, President Obama let a political secret out of the bag for his rich donors. “You’re […] Read more »
Texas Immigration Politics: Enforcement First, Outreach Later?
Earlier this week a bipartisan group of eight senators announced their preliminary plans for comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) legislation. Neither senator from Texas is among the coalition of legislators leading the effort to change the broken system currently in place. … The Texas senators are out of step not only […] Read more »