There was a poll a while back that showed the race to be 34% Davis and 40% Abbott. This is a difficult race to predict. I have been active in politics for a long time and I have not seen this level of excitement among Democratic voters and groups. There are some really good quality candidates running in most races and we will have far fewer uncontested races than in any cycle that I can remember. There has been double or more the number of people showing up at meetings of the county party and for some club events.
Battleground Texas is very active and should be making a difference. There are some really strong people working for Battleground and they are registering a large number of people. Judge Hinojosa is now the chairman of the State Party and he is doing a great job. In prior years, the former chairman would waste money trying to get the vote out in East Texas and the party ignored areas where we could win the vote.
Davis is focusing on increasing Hispanic turnout and the suburban single women vote. If she can increase turnout among these groups, then she should win.
Greg Abbott is a weak candidate in many ways. Greg has raised $20+ million but he is running a weak campaign so far. You can not find a non-white face in any of his ads or at any of his events. In addition, Greg is running a nasty campaign. His followers are active on twitter at #abortionbarbie. I know Greg and I am hoping that he continues to run an aggressive but stupid campaign. Perry may be a dumb person but he always ran smart campaigns. For example, he refused to debate Mayor Bill White (a very strong trial attorney) and was able to mobilize the tea party in Texas. Abbott is not running a smart campaign so far in comparison to Perry.
I am working on fighting the voter id law. We are going to be using vote by mail to a large degree and I hope to run some voter id clinics to get people birth certificates for $3 and then get these voters election identification certificates. The Texas voter id law is set for trial on September 2, 2014 and I am hoping that the judge strikes down this law.
I am looking forward to this campaign season. Win or lose, the Texas Democratic Party is a very different animal than in past years.
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