Bill Maher Had Beto O'Rourke On Real Time This Week

Texas' primary was March 6. Incumbent Ted Cruz coasted to victory in the Republican contest-- 1,315,146 votes (85.35%) and El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke coasted to victory in the Democratic race, 640,769 votes (61.82%). 1,036,467 people voted in the Democratic primary and 1,540,890 voted in the Republican primary. As of the February 14 FEC reporting date Cruz had raised $17,452,363 and spent $11,906,543 to Beto's $8,708,746 (and $4,168,970 spent). Cruz's war chest, as of that date, has $6,025,231 and Beto's has $4,938,475. Media is expensive in Texas for statewide races. You have to advertise in Houston, Dallas/Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio and El Paso and you still have over 30 other cities, like Laredo, Amarillo, Corpus Christi, Lubbock, Killeen, Odessa, Plano, Waco, Abilene, Brownsville, etc with over 100,000 people.

Can a Democrat win statewide in Texas? The last time Texas elected a freshman Democratic senator was in 1970 (Lloyd Bentsen and the last time he was reelected, in 1988, was the last time Texas elected a Democrat to the Senate.) Cruz was first elected in 2012, beating Paul Sadler by over a million votes, 56.4% to 40.6%. Democrats like to point out that Texas is a no-vote state, that millions of Texans don't vote, which is true, and that if they could just get them out to vote... That may be true, but in 2016, Trump beat Hillary statewide 4,685,047 (52.2%) to 3,877,868 (43.2%). There's a lot of ground to make up. Will the Blue Wave sweep Texas in November and rid us of Cruz. The DSCC isn't betting on it. Beto O'Rourke might as well be running as an independent. The Bill Maher audience sure liked him. Watch-- and see if you want to support him by clicking on the Blue America Senate thermometer on the right.