Democrats Think 2022 May Be The Year They Turn Texas Into A Blue State

Democrats have long held onto dreams of turning the state of Texas blue, and they think that the perfect storm of bad Republican policies could help them make this dream into a reality in 2022. But they are up against a strict voter suppression law and Republican-controlled redistricting that might kill those dreams before they get started. The Democratic Party is not deterred however, and they might actually have a good case for optimism. Farron Cousins explains what's happening.

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*This transcript was auto-generated. Please excuse any typos.

The state of Texas for many decades now has essentially been the holy grail of the democratic party. It's their big foot, it's their Loch ness monster. This thing that they just know it's out there for them. They just can't ever actually get it. But democratic strategists are super optimistic that Hey, 20, 22 is our year to retake Texas and turn the whole state blue. But they also thought that in, in 2020 and 2018 and 2016 and 2014, when we were talking about it over at ring of fire all the way back to like 2010. So yeah, I mean, Democrats have always thought this is our year on Texas, but I gotta tell ya, there could be some truth to it this time. I know it's a little hard to believe, but Democrats right now in the state of Texas are working on recruiting candidates to run for state offices. They're working on their messaging and they do have a bit of a, uh, you know, wind at their back situation here because the policies enacted by Republican governor, Greg Abbott are widely unpopular, not just in the state of Texas, but across the country. Everybody's been looking at Texas this year. Wondering what the hell they're doing?

Go back to February. We all remember February, right? That's when we got those wonderful pictures of Ted Cruz in the airport heading off to canned because of winter storm URI that left hundreds dead in Texas and millions without power during the coldest cold front, many of them had ever seen in their lives. That was Greg Abbott, Greg Abbott failed the state and Democrats need to include that in their messaging. Then of course, the voter suppression legislation, Democrats fled the state, got all this national attention. Ultimately Republicans passed the bill and that's something again more too. And just the moment then of course the abortion ban, right? That's the big one judge recently issued a stay on it to where they can enforce it just yet, but national attention. Again, lot of people do not support this. It's hard, right? It's extremism at its finest.

And that could work in the Democrats favor. There's also, let's not forget the pandemic that Texas governor Greg Abbott has absolutely failed to really do anything about in his home state of Texas. So the Republicans already have all of these things working against them, but they may have the two best things in the world working for them. And that is one, the previously mentioned voter suppression legislation. That is absolutely going to disenfranchise, probably hundreds of thousands of voters, because that is the goal of this legislation. And possibly even more importantly, for 2020 to redistricting the Republican controlled government in Texas is going to get to redraw the state's districts. And when Republicans redraw districts, that really never works out to the favor of the Democrats in the state. So if we weren't obviously facing voter suppression at a massive scale and Republican redistricting, I would be just as optimistic as these democratic strategists in Texas thinking, Hey, this is our year.

And I do to a degree still think it's possible, but the Republicans also thought that that's why they're going to do everything they can with redistricting to keep themselves in power. And that's also why obviously they passed the voter suppression bill. They see the writing on the wall. They understand the demographics in the state are shifting. They're actually getting more people in the state coming from liberal areas. That's already changing the demographics, not to mention, you know, racial disparities, racial gaps are closing. It could happen. And I promise eventually it will happen. Texas will turn blue. It just might not be in 2022 or really might not be as soon as we would like it to be.