If fact, Democrats haven’t won any statewide elections in that long, and there have been about 100 of them during that time.
By way of illustration, an online site for lottery players puts the odds of someone matching three of the six numbers in a Texas Lotto drawing at about one in 75. The payout for hitting three of six is a modest $3. But it still means a Texas Democrat has a better chance of winning at least part of the Lotto jackpot than he or she has of getting elected statewide.
And that begs the question, why can Democrats win at least sometimes in red states but not in Texas?
There’s not a one-size-fits-all answer, but there are some clues. And, like the Lotto analogy, evidence suggests that a little luck is often involved.
I remember growing up in Texas when Democrats were regularly elected statewide. And in some parts, like East Texas, one couldn’t get elected without being a Democrat. Back then, Democrats still loved God, guns, law & order, and fought for the little guy. Those Democrats are not today’s Democrats. I’d suggest that Texas has not gotten more conservative or Republican. If anything, it has drifted a bit left. But the Democrats have gone so far left that they can’t win in a majority of the state.
The D’s are waaaaaayyyyyy off the scale–so much so that a number of them are running as fast as possible AWAY from D positions. Cuellar is one in Texas. Solid rumors that Manchin/Sinema are proxies for another 10 D’s in the Senate.
It will be very interesting to see who wins the D primary for US Senate and what their platform will be, aside from ROJO BAD BAD BAD LIKE HITLERTRUMP.
The smear/lie/smear campaign already started, of course.