Washington: Democrats once wrote off Texas as a guaranteed victory for Republican presidential candidates, but in 2020, Democratic party activists sense an opportunity to snatch victory from the GOP for the first time in more than four decades.
With 38 Electoral College votes at stake – the second-highest number in the country – Democratic success in Texas would all but eliminate a path to victory for President Donald Trump.
“The only thing Republicans have to do, typically, to win an election in Texas is to win their primary and avoid getting hit by a bus by election day,” said Harold Cook, a political analyst and a veteran of Democratic Party campaigns in Texas. “But Trump has damaged the Republican brand such that it has made it competitive in a general election.”
Jimmy Carter was the last Democratic presidential candidate to win Texas, in 1976. In 1994, Bob Bullock was re-elected Lieutenant Governor, the last year Democrats won in state-wide elections.
