{"id":349720,"date":"2026-06-25T09:19:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T09:19:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/349720\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T09:19:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T09:19:11","slug":"texas-democrats-head-to-convention-with-optimism-but-questions-about-november-remain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/349720\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas Democrats head to convention with optimism, but questions about November remain"},"content":{"rendered":"

While they haven\u2019t done so in more than three decades, Texas Democrats believe they have a real chance to win<\/a> a statewide seat in November. That idea was backed up this week by a new Texas Politics Project poll<\/a> that shows the races essentially at a dead heat.<\/p>\n

They will have time to gameplan how they can come out on top when they meet in Corpus Christi this Thursday for a three-day convention stacked with a slate of statewide candidates and big names in the political arena from outside of Texas.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it reflects optimism in the Texas Democratic Party and among national Democrats that believe that Democrats this cycle have a realistic prospect of breaking the losing streak that dates back to 1996,\u201d Mark Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, told The Texas Newsroom.<\/p>\n

On the list of speakers are U.S. Sen. Cory Booker, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham, Tennessee State Rep. Justin J. Pearson and giving the final keynote speech on Saturday is U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.<\/p>\n

University of Houston Political Scientist Nancy Sims says \u201cthey\u2019re showcasing the wide spectrum of thought for the party.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the slate of Democrats running in the state, U.S. Senate hopeful James Talarico, Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa, and candidate for Lt. Gov. Vikki Goodwin are all scheduled to speak.<\/p>\n

But while attending isn\u2019t required to be a bonafide or elected Texas Democrat, to some political scientists, the biggest thing that stuck was who wasn\u2019t on the list.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe notable absence in this convention is [Congresswoman] Jasmine Crockett,\u201d Joshua Blank, a UT Austin political scientist, told The Texas Newsroom.<\/p>\n

One of the goals of the convention is finding unity among Democrats after a hard-fought U.S. Senate primary between Talarico and Crockett. Crockett\u2019s absence leaves many to question not only that, but whether Talarico is having trouble convincing her voters, specifically Black men and women, to vote for him.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the margins, roughly 5% or so of identified Black voters in the poll suggest they’ll vote for the Libertarian rather than Talarico or Paxton,\u201d Jon Taylor, a political scientist at the University of Texas at San Antonio, said. \u201cThat tells me Talarico has a problem he’s got to work on for a key constituent group for the Democratic Party if he’s gonna win in November.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"State<\/p>\n

Bob Daemmrich<\/p>\n

\/<\/p>\n

For The Texas Tribune via POOL<\/p>\n

State Rep. James Talarico, left, and U.S. Rep. Jasmine Crockett shake hands prior to a debate at the Texas AFL-CIO COPE Convention in Georgetown during their primary contest for the Democratic nomination to U.S. Senate. <\/p>\n

So while this weekend will be about setting the Democratic agenda moving forward in Texas, an underlying story will be how Democrats can earn the support from Black voters<\/a> who were all in on Jasmine Crockett in the March primaries.<\/p>\n

But Jones said in the grand scheme of things, \u201cit’s probably not going to be the deciding factor in the race.\u201d \u201cBut if Black turnout is a little lower than normal, that clearly hurts Talarico\u2019s chances,\u201d Jones said. \u201cEspecially with a Republican candidate like Ken Paxton, you’re looking at somewhere close to nine out of 10 of the Black votes going to Talarico.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Crockett were to come out and support Talarico before the race, Texas Southern University political scientist Michael Adams believes it\u2019d give him a greater chance to win.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we have an election that’s a statistical dead heat, those voters who may opt to stay at home would be very important, and Jasmine Crockett was able to get them off of their sofas and out to the polls,\u201d Adams said.<\/p>\n

Republican unity shaky after GOP convention<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, Texas Republicans met in Houston for their party convention. The event gave the party a chance to come together after a hard-fought primary.<\/p>\n

For the most part, that happened. Gov. Greg Abbott gave a speech<\/a> and House Speaker Dustin Burrows and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick all spoke about the future of Texas and how, in order to get to their goals, they\u2019d need Republicans to turn out and vote in November.<\/p>\n

But it wasn’t all positive. During Patrick\u2019s speech, he called outgoing Sen. John Cornyn a \u201csore loser<\/a>\u201d for how he has handled the loss in the primary runoff \u2014 something the senior senator said in a recent interview with Semafor is \u201ccontinuing to alienate<\/a>\u201d traditional conservative Republicans.<\/p>\n

The event also featured a lot of attacks towards Talarico and his rise in the polls.<\/p>\n

“I’ve never seen so much blasphemy from anyone running for office,” Patrick said about how Talarico, a Presbyterian seminarian, talks about the Bible.<\/p>\n

During the convention, Patrick released several new campaign ads<\/a> where he can be seen wearing a black leather jacket, a move Taylor interpreted as \u201ctrying to make himself look tough.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThe message that came across to me was that this is a party that\u2026 It may be in power, but it also, I think, is worried about where it’s going,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cAnd in particular about polls, about elections this fall.\u201d<\/p>\n

So while both parties are trying to come together, there is clear work to be done on both sides to truly bridge the gap between their intraparty factions.<\/p>\n

Ultimately, political scientists say it\u2019s a long time until early voting for the general election begins, and a lot can happen before then.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While they haven\u2019t done so in more than three decades, Texas Democrats believe they have a real chance…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":349721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[27,29,28],"class_list":["post-349720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-texas","tag-texas","tag-texas-headlines","tag-texas-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=349720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/349720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/349721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=349720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=349720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=349720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}