BETO... For U.S. Senate?

BETO by Nancy Ohanian

Chris Cillizza delivers the most superficial and stupidest way to watch the 2020 nomination race on CNN every month. Yesterday, he moved Bernie, Klobuchar and Castro up in his "power ranking," while Sherrod Brown and Kirsten Gillibrand moved down. "Sliding down to #3," mouthed the silly Cillizza-- with silly cartoon music behind him (apparently someone at CNN knows what a doofus he is)-- "is former Texas Congressman Beto O'Rourke. Now, O'Rourke is the buzz and momentum candidate, even hosting his own competing rally in El Paso..."

Chuck Schumer loves recruiting candidates. Unfortunately he usually picks the worst candidates. Last cycle, his biggest efforts went into 3 extremely conservative Democrats-- Phil Bredesen (TN), Jacky Rosen (NV) and Kyrsten Sinema (AZ). Bredesen lost with just 44.2% of the vote but the other two flipped red seats. Unfortunately they have both already earned F grades for their Senate voting records, entirely predictable, since they both had F grades for their House voting records. In fact, Sinema had the single worst voting record among Dems in the House and after just a month of votes is already voting more conservatively than Doug Jones, Joe Manchin and... Susan Collins! That said, even Schumer can accidentally pick a decent candidate once in a blue moon. And both Texas and the moon seem to be headed in a blue-tinged direction. Look at that brand new polling of Texas voters from PPP:

Beto may be too middle of the road to make the best 2020 presidential nominee, but he'd make a very good Democratic Senate nominee against McTurtle sidekick John Cornyn. There are Texas progressive activists who don't want to hear that, who already have their hearts set on Sema Hernandez, organizer of the Poor People's Campaign and the 2018 DSA primary candidate who drew 245,847 votes (23.7%) in 2018's three-way Senate primary that Beto won with 640,769 votes (61.8%), before he was half as well-known as he is now.

Jim Henson and Joshua Blank of the Texas Politics Project at UT put together all the arguments for Beto to take on the 69 year old Cornyn in less than 2 weeks after he came within 2.6% of beating Cruz. "O’Rourke," they wrote, "is a known commodity to the Texas electorate, and more importantly, won’t be easy to define, or redefine, compared to his less known, and less well-financed, potential competitors... The rampant speculation about a Beto for President campaign in 2020 is a fantasy borne of various combinations of Texas-centric thinking, viral Betomania, and media group think. The idea that O’Rourke is already a top-tier candidate in a very crowded and more experienced Democratic field has been, since its pre-election inception, at best far-fetched and at worst a transparent attempt at generating web traffic. Bluntly put, losing hasn’t made it any more plausible... But O’Rourke's return to the statewide arena for the 2020 campaign could hasten the arrival of something genuinely new to Texas politics: A more competitive political system in which neither party monopolizes politics and policy. A competitive Texas would also have serious implications for the presidential race, more signficant than were he to join the Democratic presidential nomination fight. The stakes are high." They polled for favorability/unfavorability between Beto and Cornyn and the results are encouraging:

• Beto- 43% favorable-- 44% unfavorable
• Cornyn- 39% favorable-- 34% unfavorable

Their most interesting claim was that "the likely composition of the Texas electorate in 2020 might actually favor Democrats, particularly one who has now demonstrated the ability to turn out low-propensity Democratic leaning voters in 2018." The larger turnout in a presidential year will favor Beto, even in Texas. "Larger Texas electorates are," they wrote, "at least, less conservative, and potentially more moderate or even more liberal than the habitually small turnout affairs that have marked Texas elections for decades. High turnout in 2020 (compared to 2016) would likely benefit a strong Democratic challenger to Cornyn... certainly compared to recent history. And Beto running for Senate would help ensure this higher turnout." It would also help Democratic candidate up and down the ticket and could help Dems flip as many-- and I know this is optimistic-- ten red seats that Dems came close to winning last year. Beto on the ticket will certainly help flip TX-23 (Hurd), TX-10 (McCaul), TX-21 (Roy) and TX-24 (Marchant) and possibly TX-31 (Carter) and TX-22 (Olson). Depending on the Democratic nominee next year, Dan Crenshaw (TX-02) needs the big turnout Beto would generate like a hole in his head.

Mike Siegel, the progressive Democrat running for the Austin-Houston corridor 10th congressional district, did a lot of campaigning with Beto last year and is eager to do it again next year. Today he told me that "Beto running for Senate might be the best of both worlds. By confining his energetic, inspirational campaigning to Texas, he maximizes statewide turnout and replaces right-wing crony Cornyn with a Democratic senator from Texas. And at the same time, he puts Texas in play for the Democratic nominee for President. Of course, he might be able to accomplish both of these ends as a presidential nominee, as well, especially if Joaquin Castro runs for Senate. Whatever he decides, I hope he makes sure we are doing what is best for Texas and the nation." [Note: that thermometer on the right is Blue America's Take Back Texas contribution tool. Please click on it to contribute to Mike's campaign.]

Beto was a basically unknown backbencher from El Paso when he started his race against Cruz. Now he's a national celebrity with an immense (and growing) database of voters, volunteers and grassroots donors. None of the other potential candidates seem nearly as well-positioned as Beto to make Cornyn's reelection campaign a serious race, which is why Schumer is trying so hard to recruit him. Some might argue it's Joaquin Castro's turn but he's already committed to being chairman of his twin brother's presidential campaign and he was just elected chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, and running for Senate means not running for reelection to the House. Other names being talked up include Dallas state Rep. Rafael Anchia, Dallas County judge Clay Jenkins, former gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis and Mark Strama, a former Texas state Rep and an old friend of mine from the People for the American Way Young Elected Officials program who is now a tech executive. Only Davis, though has a statewide profile and I suspect Cornyn would breathe a sigh of relief if one of them wound up as his opponent.