There's a lot more of this Texas: the Lower Rio Grande Valley, San Antonio, South Dallas, East Austin and inside the Loop in Houston. This is a young Texas, about which there is a prevailing myth: It doesn't vote. But that myth is being sorely tested. Some 15.6 million people are registered to vote this year, 1.6 million more than in 2014. More than four million have voted so far; so far in El Paso this year's turnout has looked more like a presidential contest than a midterm.
There's another myth about Texas: "Yeah, but it's still Texas." Which is to say, whatever the personalities and trends might indicate, in the end, Texas will vote as it always has, for crimson-red candidates. As Erica Grieder at The Houston Chronicle has pointed out, that's about the laziest thing that non-Texan experts on politics can say. The number of Texans who identify as conservative has flattened, according to the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, while the number who identify as progressive has swollen.
This election is an exercise in brute electoral force: the full on clash of the real, modern Texas with a worn out, calcified caricature. "This is not a persuasion election," said James Henson, a University of Texas political scientist. "This is a mobilization election."
The Cruz-O'Rourke race may be the main event, but the ballot is full of competitive matchups. Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican, may lose to a Houston lawyer named Justin Nelson. Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller has his hands full with his Democratic opponent, a retired Air Force colonel named Kim Olson. Up in Dallas, Representative Pete Sessions, a Republican, is hearing the footsteps of the former N.F.L. player Colin Allred. In the western Houston suburbs, the Democrat, Lizzie Fletcher, is just a few points behind the incumbent, John Culberson. The Texas Tribune reports that Republicans may even lose their supermajority in the State Senate.
Another myth? Latinos don't vote. In fact, Latino turnout in Texas has been creeping up, though it's not yet at the same rate as Anglos. It's a chicken-and-egg problem: Candidates spend so much time talking to Anglo voters they get around to Latinos late, so they're less motivated.
Not this year, though. "We have lots of evidence that the anger is there," said Matt A. Barreto, the chief executive of the polling firm Latino Decisions, citing the mass deportation of Latinos and the internment of children this summer. "They're extremely upset with Trump."
The Senate race has always been Mr. Cruz's to lose. If Mr. O'Rourke wins, the American electoral map will be tossed in the air just in time for 2020. In the modern era, after all, no Republican has won the White House without winning Texas' 38 electoral votes. But the impact of the O'Rourke candidacy can't be measured by a simple W/L. The Democrat has helped sweep up new and motivated voters, people who will also vote in House, state and local races. After next week, Democratic donors will figure that spending on Texas is no longer gambling.
So, what does it mean to be a Texan? Molly Ivins said being a Texan is lot like being an American, only more so. But the great folklorist J. Frank Dobie got it exactly right. Being a Texan is about being open to change. "The Texians" -- the original Anglo settlers -- "are the old rock itself; the Texans were out of the old rock; the others are wearing the rock away."
Whatever happens on Tuesday, one thing is clear: What Texas is not. It is not Ted Cruz's pandering, ten-gallon circus act.
Richard Parker is the author of "Lone Star Nation: How Texas Will Transform America."
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Dallas Morning News Opinion: I'm pro-life and I voted for Beto O'Rourke because I'm done being used by the GOP by Destiny Herndon-De La Rosa, Contributor
This week I voted for Beto O'Rourke and might have ruined my career. The jury is still out, but as an anti-abortion-rights activist, I broke the one golden rule within our movement: Vote Republican.For years, I bought into this belief. After all, without the right to life, all other rights are useless. Chronologically speaking, we have to protect humans at their weakest and most vulnerable stage, and so for years I reluctantly supported candidates who talked about making the sand glow in other countries with bombs and who advocated taking children away from their mothers, simply because unlike us, they hadn't won the geographic lottery.
And this killed me. I'm a consistent life ethicist, meaning I oppose all forms of violence against other human beings, including war, torture, the death penalty and abortion. That means I'll never fit perfectly into either party. And then Beto O'Rourke entered the race for Senate, and he seemed different. He talked about working with Republicans and independents alike. He talked about finding common-ground solutions that we can all get behind when it comes to nonpartisan issues such as the veteran suicide rate.
If you ask almost any of my pro-life peers, they will tell you that O'Rourke is a "radical pro-abortion candidate." After I posted pictures of my husband and me attending an early-morning rally for O'Rourke in Richardson this past Saturday, friend after friend on Facebook began posting links to his NARAL and Planned Parenthood ratings. They shared op-eds about him blocking bills to limit abortions, and they voiced their horror over someone like me, a supposed leader in the movement, supporting such a monster.
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