Beto Lost, Millennial Supporters Are Sad, but Could This Be a Bluer Texas?
As Beto bumper stickers and yard signs are peeled off of cars and removed from front lawns of O’Rourke supporters who are waking up hung over from the midterms, some millennials are wondering what’s next for O’Rourke and a Texas that’s a little more purple than it was a week ago.
For some voters, O’Rourke’s loss in the closest Senate race Texas has seen in years is solid proof: Texas will never, ever be blue. But according to Jose Medina, deputy communications director with Texas Rising — a group for people under 30 focused on electoral politics and public policy advocacy that’s under the Texas Freedom Network umbrella — first-time voters are likely to come back to vote in future elections.
“We have a theory that voting is habit-forming,” Medina says. “When I voted for the first time at that age, it was really exciting and I couldn’t wait for the next election. We believe and are hoping that it’s the same for these young voters who might be voting for the first time.”
In this year’s election, millennials made bigger waves than they did four years ago. Turnout was up more than 400 percent among voters under 30 compared with the 2014 midterms, according to data from TargetSmart, a nonprofit that collects political data.
Read more: https://www.dallasobserver.com/news/millennials-react-to-betos-loss-11346122