July 21, 2019

Democrats' Path To National Power In The 2020s Runs Through Small Races In Texas

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/democrats-2020-texas-races-sharon-hirsch_n_5d2774d7e4b0bd7d1e1937a6

It’s all about redistricting, the process by which governors and state legislators draw each state’s legislative and congressional districts, and which occurs every ten years, after each census. In recent decades, the Democratic party has overlooked the importance of state legislature races, giving Republicans tremendous power to draw district boundaries that give them a substantial partisan advantage.

If Democrats can win races like Hirsch’s and take back the Texas House in 2020, they’ll have a voice in Texas’ redistricting process. That could ensure that, in future elections, Dems have a much more level playing field in the huge, blue-trending state.

“We flipped 12 [seats] in 2018, we have to defend all 12 of those. … But we have to flip nine more and my race has to be one of them,” Hirsch told HuffPost. “There’s limited opportunity for Democrats to have a voice.”

Texas Republicans know exactly what’s at stake, too.

“There is nothing more important — not only to Texas, but literally the nation — than to make sure that we maintain the Texas House” going into redistricting, Republican state Sen. Kelly Hancock said at a Tea Party event in June. If “we lose Texas, we lose the nation. And there’s no other place to go.”

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This is damn good. Glad Sharon Hirsch is running again given she lost last year by such a small margin. Plano TX is an affluent city full of BLUE voters. Dems need to also focus on winning control of state legislatures. Redistricting (more correctly, GERRYMANDERING) is the product of GOP having control of the levers of power at the state level.