House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said this week that Texas will be “ground zero” for Democrats in 2020 and predicted that when Texas turns blue soon, it will change the country and the world.
“Texas is ground zero for us in the next election,” Pelosi reportedly said at the Travis County Democratic Party’s Johnson Bentsen Richards Dinner. “When you helped win in 2018, you were doing something very patriotic for America and when we win a great Democratic victory — and it’s essential that we win the victory in 2020 — we will know that that victory was our destiny.”
Pelosi told activists to know the power that they have to change the country—and the world—by turning Texas blue and giving Democrats the Lone Star State’s 38 Electoral College votes.
“Know your power, this state is so important,” Pelosi reportedly said. “When it turns — and it will soon — it will make a difference not only in Texas and the lives of individual people here, it will make a difference in the country and it will make a difference in the world.”
President Donald Trump carried Texas by nine percentage points over Hillary Clinton in 2016, and Democrats became more optimistic about turning Texas into a battleground state in 2020 after former Rep. Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke narrowly lost his 2018 Senate race to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).
After O’Rourke’s came within 2.6 percentage points of defeating Cruz, Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa told the Texas Tribune that “turning Texas blue is not an event, it’s a process.”
“And I think 2020 will put us, if not blue, purple — deep purple,” he reportedly added.
As the Tribune noted, “Texas hasn’t voted for a Democrat for president since Jimmy Carter in 1976. The last time both parties made a serious play for the state’s electoral votes was in 1996, when President Bill Clinton campaigned here for his re-election ahead of Election Day. Bob Dole won the state by 4.9 percentage points.”
Top super PACs on the left, though, are reportedly planning to spend massive amounts in Texas if the Democrat is within striking distance of Trump in 2020.
Texas could soon have two Democrats running for president to challenge Trump. Julian Castro, the former San Antonio mayor, is already in the race and O’Rourke, who has ruled out running for Senate in 2020 against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), is reportedly set to announce his 2020 decision this month.
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