With the polls showing Hillary holding a commanding lead, an amazing speech that lays bare for middle America the true nature of Trump and his campaign, and the media finally starting to at least halfheartedly fact check and vet him, the time has come to look to expanding our gains down ballot. The Senate is looking more and more likely as time goes on, but the House is still not being pursued aggressively enough and this is a chance we can’t afford to waste. DailyKos has already started helping profile and fund more obvious contenders, but I love a good underdog story. I’d like to do a few diaries on some long shot, dark horse races in red state territory that could flip with the right push and circumstances. To that end I’m going to start on a place that’s near and dear to me: Texas. Specifically, the Texas 6th Congressional District and the race between Joe Barton (R) and Ruby Faye Woolridge (D). This race was brought to my attention by local progressive activists in the area, and believe it or not I think this could be a real surprising win for us given the right supporting GOTV effort. You might laugh at the notion of making real gains in Texas, but I personally believe in the haste to write off entire red states as a lost cause we're not just doing a major disservice to beleaguered red state Democrats, we're also neglecting some real possibilities. With just 30 seats needed, it would only take a few out of each such red state to flip unexpectedly to really turn the tide (especially if the more likely seats get pushed blue). Why the 6th? Well, I'm glad you asked.
Let’s start by examining the demographics. The Texas 6th is 42% people of color: 19.3% black and 22.7% Hispanic. Considering Trump's abysmal numbers so far with those groups, we can write off pretty much that entire bloc from Barton’s column. That leaves Ruby with the relatively easier job of peeling away a minority of white voters, and the still-hard job of motivating those disillusioned minority voters to get to the polls. Now, the bigger problem is the Texas 6th almost perfectly mirrors the state at large in final results. Romney carried the district by 17 points at 57.8 and Barton won that race by 20 points with 58. This trend is fairly reliable going back over the years. It follows that if Trump is only up by 4 in the polls (make of those polls what you will but for argument's sake we'll use it here as I've not found any local race polls to use instead), Barton may be in hot water with a jeopardized lead as well. Even if he “outperforms” the spread like he did in 2012, it’s worth noting that was only due to non-Republicans splitting between the Democratic candidate and independents greater than on the state level. Barton certainly didn’t carry any disgruntled liberal voters to win that election. Still, we'll be pessimistic and say that Woolridge loses just as many voters to the Green Party. Let’s say he has a 7 point lead then: still commanding, but not as impressive as the 20 to 24 point leads he won his last two races by. That’s actually downright scary when you think about it; this should be the kind of race that utterly buries the Democratic rival, but can he still count on them to vote for him downballot? I have my doubts. It’s also worth noting that Trump is no Romney, and the 6th is heavy Cruz territory. Cruz trounced Trump in the primaries here, so that 7 point lead assumes disappointed local Republicans come out in force to support a man they already dislike that's polling pathetically in what should be a Republican stronghold. Call me skeptical, but I don't see them breaking out the sweet tea and peach cobbler for Trump anytime soon. I suspect a lot of them will stay home.
This race is also motivating Democrats to come out in force and rally. Unlike Barton, Woolridge's presidential candidate was the favorite here: Hillary carried the primary by an impressive margin, and (unlike Cruz) Bernie didn’t infamously refuse to endorse his rival at the convention. Ruby also got as many votes in her primary as Barton's last challenger got in the entire general election. There's more democrats coming out to vote for their side than before, and a lot at stake. It seems those people of color know quite well what they have to lose after all. Barton is fighting an opponent with a unified and motivated base, and he's doing it with a disappointed and fractured one. The district is also suburban, and getting more urban all the time. It includes Arlington (home of the Dallas Cowboys and Texas Rangers at the moment), and it's worth noting Dallas County recently went blue. The DFW metroplex is turning bluer by the year, and the Texas 6th is right smack in the middle of the urbanization that is going hand in hand with a more cosmopolitan, liberal North Texas.
Of course, that’s only enough to make this a close race with a narrow loss for Woolridge. To push her over the top, she needs Barton to be an unappealing choice for his base to boot. Luckily, Barton has spent thirty years making that case for her. In his entire tenure in the house, he has introduced a mere seven bills that became law, one of which was to approve the Yucca Mountain site. This of 216 put forward, most of which were introduced before failing to even fail before the House. That's three decades of do-nothing busy work and paper shuffling. He made a failed, embarrassing push to be house minority speaker some time ago and found himself roundly thumped. He has no real allies in the house (which isn't surprising given he only gets a piece of legislation through once per presidential term, and then usually only if it's a boring piece of routine minutiae). He’s no Ted Cruz, but he’s anything but popular. With congressional approval ratings at a pathetic low, it's a bad time to be seen as a typical beltway leech, especially without friends to have your back.
He’s also famously ignorant. You may remember his name from a while ago as the guy who was against wind power because "wind is a finite resource", arguing that too many windmills would ruin God's heavenly central AC for the planet. While he was technically quoting someone else at the time, he later reiterated that point (showing he believed it was true even if it wasn't his own words), and was ultimately arguing that wind turbines may do more harm than good when it comes to stopping global warming (why yes, some of those bills he introduced WERE pro-fossil fuels, what tipped you off?). He also tried (and hilariously failed) to stump former Secretary of Energy Steven Chu about the formation of oil in the arctic (a textbook example of why a layperson should never match wits on science with a Nobel Prize winner). A tea party candidate ignorant of green energy facts in conservative Texas might not seem like a liability, but Texas is rapidly expanding its wind power production and the taxpayers are reaping the benefits with decreasing energy prices and new jobs. An anti-wind power platform is not exactly a wise choice, and it's getting less and less each year (especially as Texas' summers get hotter and hotter).
Locals are getting frustrated with him as well. He’s refused to agree to a debate with the Democratic contender on the grounds he has no reason to let her benefit from his notoriety (one wonders if he realizes what he’s notorious FOR, but I digress), and while it’s admittedly anecdotal evidence, attendees of his last two town halls report that he’s getting increasingly flustered with the questions being posed to him by the room (which has been less sympathetic to him over time). Woolridge (in lieu of her desired debate) has been in attendance at these meetings, making a point of mentioning his refusal to debate and calling him out on his vulnerabilities before his constituents. Again, purely anecdotal, but it’s hard to believe the only attendees were die hard liberals, and you can make the case that for every one dissatisfied conservative in attendance there’s several more at home who couldn’t or wouldn’t bother to attend such an event anyway. To cap it off, he’s said he’d be a hypocrite to not vote for Trump as the nominee. In a district that’s nearly half POC with most of the balance having soundly refused to support Trump earlier, this isn’t a position that will earn him any points. If Trump continues to fall, he’ll be an albatross around Barton’s neck as the locals lose the desire to come out and vote for a presidential candidate they already have to hold their nose to vote for in the first place. Of course, he could always disavow Trump to try and win them over, but that just opens him up to being attacked as a self-described hypocrite and a craven, two-faced flip-flopper. No real appealing options exist for him at this point regarding his support of Trump.
This really is the 6th's best chance to dislodge him. Off year elections are where he wins by a landslide, and there’s no reason to believe that 2018 would be different. Right now he’s facing a motivated Democratic base and apathetic Republicans that are also none too happy with his performance over the past 15 terms. Ruby herself is a solid choice by comparison: she has a laundry list of endorsements that perfectly illustrate her appeal to the very demographics she needs to motivate (the Texas Latina List, Democratic Women Club, Texas Coalition of Black Democrats, Muslim Democrats, and the Texas NAACP President, to name a few), not to mention a host of union endorsements that solidifies her reputation as a pro-workers candidate. Of course, when appealing to Republican moderates it never hurts to be seen as pro-military, a test she passes as the mother of a deceased, Bronze Star awarded Gulf War veteran. As a former pastor with a strong religious education and background, she's definitely got the moral and religious authority the right usually co-opts for itself in these races, and that's not to be discounted in a devout state like Texas. She also has a wealth of endorsements from fellow educators, both individual endorsements and the Texas State Teachers’ Association. “The children” are always a bipartisan concern, and she has the history of working in the education system and the endorsements to make the case that, party aside, a vote for her is a vote for better schools and better education (that's just the sort of pitch that suburban voters want to hear). Her platform is definitely to the left, but her pro-community policing stance and call to restore federal and state grants to local law enforcement could play to the right, as it doesn’t come across as demonizing LEOs. Her support for better education, fighting wealth inequality, halting wage stagnation, increasing manufacturing jobs, and opposition to sending jobs offshore all address complaints by working class whites (particularly Trump-leaning Republicans who want to see jobs come back from China and Mexico).
Sure, it's a long shot, but I think this is one race that could be won with the right combination of grit, determination, and (of course), money. Ad-buys and similar big ideas may be the sexy option, but what I think what would really push her over the top is a coordinated GOTV campaign. There's a lot of POC in the district that don't believe there's a point in voting in Texas, and if they get motivated to get out there, all Woolridge needs is a slim fraction of whites to carry the district. She's not facing any serious attacks from Barton she needs to fend off (the benefit to having an opponent who has become lazy and complacent after winning his primary), but she also doesn't need to win over THAT many voters either if she can get the ones she should have out of their funk and into the booths. Donations would go a long way towards voter registration efforts and getting workers lined up for election day itself. If you'd like to donate to support her, you can do so at her website here. You can also check out more details about her, her endorsements, and her platform for yourself.
I'd love to keep featuring and talking about underdog stories like this that, with the right mix of moxie and luck we can turn blue. Do you live in a red state and know of a local race that might be closer than the rest of us think? Post your suggestions in the comments, and let's see if we can throw a lifeline to some of our less-recognized allies behind enemy lines. Who knows? We might even win a few while we're at it. If nothing else, it'll be good practice for 2018, when the fight will be even harder.