Clinton Targets Texas, What Does It Mean?

A few things first, the Clinton campaign plans to have sufficient funding to contest Texas. Second, in Presidential years, a lot of Texas is competitive, starting with major urbanized counties like Harris, Dallas, Bexar, and Travis. Third, in this year's elections, Republicans have no high profile races on the ballot, which is led by Railroad Commission, Texas Supreme Court, and Court of Criminal Appeals races. Fourth, history shows (2008 and 2012) that with no significant Democratic investment made, still led to Obama carrying Harris County and other majors twice. Fifth, down ballot setbacks occurred in 2008 and 2012 and a shift of 1% (12,000 votes) of the vote to the Democratic side from Republican and our losses go up geometrically.

Just looking at 2012, the following fine GOP judges and elected officials would be out with such a shift: Ryan Patrick, Tad Halbach, Ken Wise, Brock Thomas, Debra Mayfield, Mike Sullivan Tax Assessor-Collector, and on the margins, Renee Magee.

While the Trump campaign remains a mixed bag: good - a great Supreme Court prospect list; and stupid - attacking the federal judge hearing a lawsuit against a Trump company. It seems what we see is what we are going to get from him.

So what is the lesson for conservatives? It's all about the down ballot. Focus on the local ballot. Tell the story behind some of the outstanding down ballot candidates, and with the right campaign and independent campaign efforts we can survive.