Trump Continues To Drag Down GOP Members Of Congress... In Texas!

Trump's former top economic adviser, Gary Cohen, was interviewed in yesterday's Washington Post and he mentioned the harsh $26 billion cuts to Social Security would be "political suicide... even in a bunch of red states." He went even further, predicting that if Trump is seen by voters as trying to cut Social Security it will be a political disaster for the Republican Party as a whole. One of those red states where Republicans could lose seats in the House is going to be Texas, where Trump's approval is continuing to crumble in some areas.

Bad enough for Texas Republicans running for office next year, right? How about this? Texas Republicans are trying to push a bill through the state legislature-- House Bill 896-- that not only criminalizes abortion but that subjects a woman who gets an abortion to the death penalty. Sponsor state Rep. Tony Tinderholt (R-Arlington): "I think it’s important to remember that if a drunk driver kills a pregnant woman, they get charged twice. If you murder a pregnant woman, you get charged twice. So I’m not specifically criminalizing women. What I’m doing is equalizing the law."

Now there's a GOP civil brewing in Texas. Rep. Jeff Leach (R-Plano), the chairman of the House Committee on Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence, said he "cannot and will not support nor will I let come out of this committee any bill on [abortion] which targets the woman with either civil or criminal liability... that targets a woman who is facing that difficult decision and who might make that decision."

On Monday, Todd Bullis of Little Elm was at the Capitol with a group of young people carrying placards in favor of the ban.

Bullis, a member of Abolish Abortion Texas, described himself as a Republican precinct chairman who is mindful that the state party platform adopted last year calls on lawmakers to enact legislation “stopping the murder of unborn children and to ignore and refuse to enforce any and all federal statutes, regulations, executive orders, and court rulings that would deprive an unborn child of the right to life.”

He claimed that his state representative, Rep. Jared Patterson of Frisco, committed to support the ban before the election last year but failed to sign up as a sponsor of Tinderholt’s legislation. A Patterson aide, Jordan Long, responded to a request for comment with an email stating that Patterson has signed up to sponsor several abortion-related measures, including Leach's "Born Alive" bill and a proposal that would outlaw an abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Bullis said: “Representatives don’t really want to move on" the proposed ban “because they’re moderate liberals.”

Another ban backer, Starr Finn, said she’s a GOP precinct chairwoman from Whitney.

Of Leach, she said, “this [ban] is a priority of the Republican Party of Texas. If you don’t like the bill, write your own.”

Finn elaborated: “We work hard to put these people in office. We thought he was one of our own." Leach squeaked out a narrow 2-percentage-point win over Democrat Sarah Depew in his Collin County district last year.

Leach, Finn said, should let the proposed ban win House consideration. If not, she speculated, Leach's resistance could amount to a first foul toward the three fouls needed for the party to censure Leach-- as party leaders did to then-House Speaker Joe Straus in 2018.

“He’s behaving like a king" if he keeps the proposed ban bottled up, Finn said.

...Earlier, Finn also said she won't be voting again for Gov. Greg Abbott, already described by a consultant as likely to seek a third term in 2022. Abbott devoted much of his early-session State of the State speech to lawmakers to his desires for a surge in targeted public school funding and a leash on property-tax increases. His speech did not mention any need for abortion-related changes in law.

McCain won Texas' 34 electoral votes with 55.45% and Romney won them with 57.17%. Trump won them too, but he was down significantly-- just 52.23%. Two years later that translated to Democrats flipping two previously safe red seats-- TX-07, where John Culberson was replaced by Lizzie Fletcher and TX-32, where Colin Allred defeated GOP heavy-hitter Pete Sessions-- and too-close-for comfort wins in TX-10 where Michael McCaul scraped by with 51.1%, TX-21, where Chip Roy was elected with just 50.2%, TX-22, where Pete Olson wound up with 51.4%, TX-23, where Will Hurd margin of victory was 0.5%, TX-24, where Kenny Marchant won with just 50.6% and TX-31, where John Carter's win was with 50.6%. Alarm bells are ringing... loudly!

On Wednesday morning, as Trump was flying to Houston and San Antonio, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram published a piece by Andrea Drusch, Democratic polls show Trump struggling in three GOP-held Texas districts, that indicates the GOP challenges in Texas are growing, not diminishing. Trump's approval rating is underwater in districts that are already key battlegrounds for 2020, suburban districts Trump won in 2016 but would likely lose today.

Surveys the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee recently conducted found that 41 percent of voters approved of Trump’s job performance in Texas’ 24th congressional district, where Rep. Kenny Marchant serves, while 44 percent disapproved.

In Rep. Mike McCaul’s 10th district, 44 percent approved and 45 percent disapproved of the job Trump is doing. And in Rep. Chip Roy’s 21st district, 45 percent approved and 48 percent disapproved.

...After flipping two seats in Texas in 2018, Democrats are plotting a much bigger investment to go after six more in 2020. But the targets are much tougher this time around, running through much more conservative territory.

While Hillary Clinton won both of the Texas districts Democrats took control of last year, Trump carried all of the party’s 2020 targets except the 23rd district, represented by Rep. Will Hurd. Democrats are also targeting Texas GOP Reps. John Carter and Pete Olson.

To flip these traditionally GOP seats, Democrats say they are relying on moderate Republicans who have soured on the Trump-led party, as well as minority voters who have become a larger share of the electorate.

The DCCC’s polling, for example, showed Marchant’s district has increased its African American population by 26 percent between 2010 and 2016 among citizens of voting age. The Hispanic population rose by 29 percent, and the Asian population by 42 percent.

So far Blue America has one horse in this race, stalwart progressive Democrat Mike Siegel, who's running for the 10th district seat Michael McCaul holds. McCaul was the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee and was a Trump partner in formulating the babies in cages family separation agenda. Siegel gave him the shock of his political career last November when he only managed to garner 51.1% of the vote. Travis County, the part of the district with the most voters, wound up giving Siegel an astounding D+44 win margin. Siegel also made inroads in Bastrop and Waller counties and has been working to cut into traditional GOP margins in western Harris County. The thermometer on the right is the Blue America "Take Back Texas" page. We expect that page to expand over the next six months. But only for progressives, not for the kinds of conservative Democrats who vote like Republicans.

Mike sent this out to his supporters as Trump ws wining his way towards Harris County yesterday: "Our 'representative' is complicit in every atrocity of the Trump Administration. He is trying to separate himself on domestic and foreign policy, but it’s too late. On family separation, attacks on healthcare, attacks on human dignity, McCaul has voted lockstep with the President. So in 2020, when we vote Trump out of office, we’ll also vote for real representation here in Texas. And I’ll be fighting for the people of the Texas 10th: to secure universal healthcare and reopen rural hospitals; to protect Social Security and strengthen public schools; to prevent climate change and ensure that our government respects human rights and common decency."