Understanding Donald Trump and The GOP

We originally published this article in December 2015. It seems the right time to again move this article front and center.

The GOP finds itself trapped in its southern strategy that has not only gone bad, but has left it exposed naked as Trumpism.

Starting in the 1960s, the Republican Party made a conscious effort to win votes in the South by appealing to racists. As Kevin Phillips, a political strategist for Nixon, explained in 1970: "The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That's where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats."

The cynical strategy has, sadly, often paid off. However, by appealing to the lowest common denominator, Republicans have become the party of white identity politics. Donald Trump has taken that to the next level.

Donald Trump's racial rhetoric openly aknowledges the Party coalition Richard Nixon began to put together in 1968 - welcoming the segregationist white Southern Democrats into the former Party of Lincoln - and expanded by Ronald Reagan in 1980 - welcoming socially conservative white evangelicals into the Neo-Republican Party.

From post civil war reconstruction to the 1960's the south was solid Jim Crow Dixicrat Democrat. And then the Civil Rights Movement happened. President Johnson, a Democrat, pushed through the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Because of that, Dixicrats began to flee the Democratic Party across the Southern confederate states to the Republican Party. This was the point in time when the Democratic and Republican parties began to assume their current identities as "liberal" and "conservative," respectively — and as we understand those terms today. Today, neither party stands for what it did from the mid-1800's through the mid-1900's, especially but not exclusively on racial issues.

The Democratic coalition included white supremacists (Dixicrats) through the mid-1960’s. By 1968, Republicans, led by Richard Nixon, saw the chance to take that segment of voters away from Democrats through a "Southern Strategy" of appealing to white racism against African Americans. And that, in fact, has been the Republican strategy consistently from the 1960s to Pres. Reagan's, Pres. G.H.W. Bush's, Pres. G.W. Bush's campaigns, and ultimately onto Donald Trump's 2016 campaign.

In the 1970s, white evangelical Christians were alarmed by rapid social changes, including legal abortion, LGBT rights, the legal availability of contraceptives for women, and equal employment rights for women. But above all, they were most alarmed by court ordered school desegregation busing, bringing black students into white schools. To the New Christian Right these changes constituted a crisis that threatened the white Christian American social order. In 1980, presidential candidate Ronald Reagan forged a partnership with the Christian Right to help him win election. Messaging to the Christian Right has held an equal place hand in hand with southern strategy messaging every since.

The southern strategy of coded bigoted messaging and religious right social issue messaging has worked to give Republicans solid control of local and state governments across the old southern confederate states. It has also worked to give Republicans control of most congressional districts across the old south, and therefore control of the U.S. House.

Republicans have gotten away with codified bigoted messaging because, as a practical matter, there was no political price to pay. Democrats have been reluctant to call out Republicans on their southern strategy, fearful that it might encourage even greater racial backlash. Indeed, the Democratic Party establishment developed their own Southern strategy, of sorts, electing centrists like Bill Clinton of Arkansas to the White House and a cadre of blue dog Democrats to Congress in the 1990's and early 2000's.

But the hope Democrats could woo back the old southern Dixicrats by moderating their liberalism was a fantasy. Conservatives upped the ante by moving the centrist middle further and further to the right with social causes and by ever more loudly encouraging Americans to hate their democratically elected government for catering to people of color, social deviants, immigrants, and everyone not part of the conservative religious right.

The “Medicare Advantage” Plan to Kill Real Medicare

The Hartmann Report, by Thom Hartmann: If the corporate health insurance industry can move more than half of senior Americans off traditional Medicare and onto their corporate for profit "Advantage" plans, it’ll provide the political cover to kill off Medicare altogether — and they’re nearly there now.

In 2003, George W Bush set up the destruction and privatization of Medicare. The end of “real Medicare” is getting closer every day, and Congress and Medicare’s administrators are doing nothing.

Last Friday the Centers for Medicare Services (CMS) announced a 14.5% increase in Medicare Part B premiums, raising the monthly payments by the lowest-income Medicare recipients from $148.50 a month to $170.10 a month next year.

If you’re trying to live on the bottom rung of Social Security (about $365/month), that’s consequential. People with Medigap policies are also seeing their policy price rises announced this month.

This price hike, though, raises the larger issue of what's happening to Medicare itself and whether the entire system may be out of business in a few years, in part because our government is being robbed blind by all these so-called “Advantage” plans.

It all began with George W. Bush, who’d spent most of his life openly and proudly campaigning to privatize Medicare and Social Security.

In 2003 Congress and the Bush administration rolled out a privatization option, allowing private for-profit insurance companies to sell policies branded as “Medicare Advantage” to gullible seniors who think they’re buying the actual Medicare Parts A and B. As a result, today companies eager to rip off seniors are flooding the market, particularly with TV advertising.

The simple fact is that Medicare Advantage is hurting traditional Medicare, because that system is paying the insurance companies, in most cases, far more than it would be paying to simply cover the costs of its regular Medicare recipients.

Biden Tells USPS Board Chairman Bloom, You’re Fired

Today, President Joe Biden announced his intent to nominate two new members to the United States Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors to replace Governors Ron Bloom and John Barger when their terms expire in December.

• Daniel Tangherlini, Nominee for Governor, United States Postal Service
• Derek Kan, Nominee for Governor, United States Postal Service

The Washington Post first broke the news early Friday morning that Pres. Joe Biden would not reappoint United States Postal Service (USPS) Board of Governors Chairman Ron A. Bloom to a new seven year term. Bloom’s term as a board member is set to expire December 8, 2021. Biden will instead nominate a new person to take his place on the board.

In the first months of his administration Biden filled three open seats on the U.S. Postal Service’s board of governors. Even with Biden's three appointees — Ron Stroman, a former deputy postmaster general; Amber McReynolds, the CEO of Vote at Home, an organization that promotes voting by mail; and Anton Hajjar, the former general counsel for the American Postal Workers Union — the majority of the board members, all appointed by Pres. Trump, by a margin of two, support Postmaster General Louis DeJoy's moves to lower USPS service levels and increase costs to mail letters and packages. But that’s all about to change.

Bloom, a conservative Wall Street Democrat, was nominated to the Postal Service Board of Governors by Pres. Trump, confirmed by the Senate and began his service Aug. 20, 2019. Bloom served the remainder of a then vacant seat seven-year term that expired Dec. 8, 2020, and is currently serving a one year holdover term. He was elected on Feb. 9, 2021 by his fellow Trump appointed Governors to serve as the 24th Chairman of the Board of Governors.

Bloom shares responsiblity with Postmaster General DeJoy for reducing mail service levels and hiking mail rates, actions DeJoy began to implement in the summer of 2020, immediately after then Pres. Donald Trump appointed him to the position.

Time for Pres. Biden and Congress to Save the USPS

It’s no secret how much the USPS has been struggling in recent years. With the rise of the Internet and ubiquitous email drastically cutting snail mail volumes and stamp sales revenues, coupled with a disastrous 2006 Congressional mandate forcing the agency to annually contribute huge payments into postal employees’ retirement and health benefits to fully fund it 50 years into the future, the USPS has been running annual operational deficits most of this century. Since 2006, the postal service has been handling less snail mail year after year, and it’s been losing more and more money. In 2019, the USPS handled about a third less mail than in 2006.

Postmaster General Louis DeJoy saw these annual deficits and created a 10-plan to alleviate them, though it may not be the plan that will actually alleviate deficits. In fact, DeJoy’s new plan could have several negative effects, such as longer and less reliable mail delivery times, higher mail service rates and a larger workload for existing postal workers.

DeJoy’s plan to cut service levels while raising the cost to use USPS services appears more likely to push the USPS into a death spiral. And while Donald Trump famously feuded with the Postal Service, Republicans have targeted the postal institution for privatization for a long time.

As The Washington Post’s Paul Waldman noted in an August 2020 column, the reason for this is likely that the USPS represents everything Republicans hate, and getting rid of it serves a goal they all tend to share.

USPS Board of Governors Reappoint Ron Bloom Chairman

On November 10, 2021, the United States Postal Service’s (USPS) nine member board of governors, dominated by six of former President Donald Trump’s appointees, reappointed Trump appointee Ron A. Bloom as Board Chairman for another year. The problem is that Bloom’s term as a board member is set to expire December 8, 2021.

Bloom was nominated to the Postal Service Board of Governors by President Donald Trump, confirmed by the Senate and began his service Aug. 20, 2019. Bloom served the remainder of a seven-year term that expired Dec. 8, 2020. When Pres. didn't officially reappoint Bloom for another full term, or appoint someone else for the full term, the USPS Board voted themselves voted to appoint Bloom for a one year holdover term. He was then elected by his fellow Trump appointed Governors, on Feb. 9, 2021, to serve as the 24th Chairman of the Board of Governors.

The Board's action to reappoint Bloom to the Chair position for another year was opposed by Pres. Joe Biden’s three appointees to the board. The six Trump appointee board members refused to allow Biden's three appointees to voice their objections to Bloom’s reappointment as chairman, ruling that their objections were not in order.

The Trump appointees also reappointed current vice chairman, Roman Martinez IV, to an additional one-year term. Martinez, an investment banker who was also appointed by Trump, is serving a seven-year term that will not expire until 2024.

None of the governors discussed the significance of their vote to appoint Bloom to the chair position, however, it clearly signals they intend to reappoint Bloom to another one year holdover term on December 8, if Biden does not appoint someone else to replace Bloom.

Rep. Katie Porter Explains Why Post Master Louis DeJoy Must Go

During a House oversight committee hearing in Chicago, Friday, while questioning a representative of the USPS, Rep. Katie Porter referenced USPS audit statistics to highlight a definite and dramatic decline in on-time mail deliveries from 92% on-time to 61% on-time since the summer of 2020. Porter was leading up to asking the USPS representative about how delivery times have grown significantly slower since Postmaster General Louis DeJoy was appointed by former President Donald Trump in 2020.

"I'm a professor, and I used to do a lot of grading," said Porter. "And 92 is considered widely like an A-minus, 80 is considered hanging on, hanging on to the lowest possible B. 60 percent is at best a D-minus. The Postal Service delivers 48 percent of the world's mail. It is an institution, it is a civic treasure. And we let it get all the way, what you found, is we let it get all the way down to that D-minus level."

As Porter said on Twitter, "On-time mail delivery has plummeted under Postmaster Louis DeJoy—forcing veterans to wait longer for prescriptions, seniors to scramble to pay bills without their Social Security checks, and communities to feel less connected."

The audit found that during the spring of 2020, mail delivery was right around 92 percent — that is 92 percent of the mail got there within the standard of on time,” said Porter in the hearing, holding up a whiteboard displaying the data. “That dropped to 80 percent by the fall of 2020, and by January of 2021 was hovering around 61 percent. I realize this has gone up somewhat since then, but I wanted to ask you, when did Mr. DeJoy take over as postmaster? Do you know?”

“The summer of 2020,” said the witness.

President Donald Trump appointed Dejoy postmaster general for the U.S. Postal Service in May 2020. At the time he held interests of at least $70m in companies that compete w/the Postal Service. Documentation published in October 2021 show that DeJoy had conflicts of interest relating to the company where he served as a chief executive, XPO Logistics, as well as 13 other major companies that have relationships with or compete with the Postal Service.

Rep. Porter is a member of the Committee on Oversight and Reform which has been investigating declining delivery standards at USPS since Mr DeJoy’s appointment.

Watch:

20 State Attorneys General Sue USPS

On October 1, 2021 Postmaster General Louis DeJoy officially implemented his sweeping 10-year USPS restructuring plan that slows mail delivery while making it much more expensive to mail letters and packages. In mid-October twenty state attorneys general filed a complaint over DeJoy’s plan. 

The AG’s suit against the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC) argues that the Postal Service didn’t fully vet DeJoy’s 10-year plan. “The Plan will transform virtually every aspect of the Postal Service… rework how the Postal Service transports mail and other products; overhaul its processing and logistics network; enact slower service standards for First-Class Mail and Periodicals and First-Class Packages Services; reconfigure the location of places where customers can obtain postal products and services; and adjust rates,” the attorneys general said in a joint statement.

“Postmaster General DeJoy’s plan to transform the Postal Service will impact mail delivery for everyone in Pennsylvania and across the nation,” said Pennsylvania AG Josh Shapiro. “This plan is being enacted without any meaningful oversight and review, and the Postal Regulatory Commission, states, experts, and the public deserve to have their voices heard.”

DeJoy’s “radical” plan could “destroy the timely mail service that people depend on for medications, bill payments, and business operations in rural parts of the state,” North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein said in a separate statement.

The complaint charges that the DeJoy plan “reflects multiple unprecedented changes in the Postal Service’s operations and service, at a time when reliance on the mail remains at historic levels, and states across the country are grappling with a resurgence of COVID-19 cases caused by the Delta variant.” The AGs argue that “[t]o date, the Postal Service has only submitted two requests for an advisory opinion to the Commission on important but narrow changes that represent only a small portion of the Plan’s scope.”

USPS Board of Governors to Meet 11-10-2021

WASHINGTON, DC — The U.S. Postal Service Board of Governors will meet Nov. 10, 2021, in open session at Postal Service headquarters, 475 L’Enfant Plaza, SW, Washington, DC. The public is welcome to observe the meeting beginning at 9:00 a.m. ET in the Benjamin Franklin Room on the 11th floor. The Board is expected to discuss the following items:

Long Past Time to Fire Postmaster DeJoy

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) used to be one of the best-run and most popular agencies in the American government. But under the leadership of Postmaster General Louis DeJoy, on-time delivery has plummeted, wreaking havoc on both individuals and businesses. 

Now, as of October 1, 2021, he has imposed additional sweeping changes with his 10-year USPS restructuring plan that further slows mail delivery while making it much more expensive to mail letters and packages. This is supposedly meant to address a substantial operating deficit, but it could very easily lead to a death spiral, as the worse service causes customers to flee to private shippers, cutting revenue further. That may even be intentional — as John Nichols argues at The Nation, it all smells like the start of a plan for privatizing the agency entirely.

Dejoy’s 10-year plan has drawn a complaint from 20 states’ attorneys general against the Postal Regulatory Commission (PRC), which argues that the Postal Service didn’t fully vet DeJoy’s 10-year plan: “The Plan will transform virtually every aspect of the Postal Service … rework how the Postal Service transports mail and other products; overhaul its processing and logistics network; enact slower service standards for First-Class Mail and Periodicals and First-Class Packages Services; reconfigure the location of places where customers can obtain postal products and services; and adjust rates,” the attorneys general said in a joint statement.

Privatizing the USPS would seem to benefit DeJoy's business interests, as well as the investment banking interests of Ron Bloom who currently serves as Chairman of the USPS Board of Governors.

The U.S. Postal Service Was Never a Business. Stop Treating it Like One

When the Continental Congress appointed Benjamin Franklin as the first Postmaster General, our nation had not yet been founded. The Bill of Rights would not be drafted for another 16 years. Now, nearly two and a half centuries later, the United States Postal Service provides every person in America with a private, affordable, and reliable means to exchange information.

From its origins in the U.S. Constitution, it was intended to connect us to one another, so that we could live as one nation. That idea is even written into Title 39 of the U.S. Code:

The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities.

The Postal Service even serves as a baseline for the exercise of American constitutional rights through its conveyance of mail in election ballots.

Recent news that the Postal Service’s financial condition is being used as a pretext for degrading its service – including allowing mail to go undelivered for days and scaling back the hours of or closing post offices – threatens to degrade that constitutional baseline as well.

Republicans Setup USPS for Financial Failure

The USPS has been struggling financially fin the 21st century, in part because email has reduced letter mail volume and revenue, but also because of an extraordinary requirement the Republican controlled Congress and President George W. Bush imposed on it in 2006. Unlike any other government agency or private company, the USPS is required to prepay health benefits for retirees 75 years into the future. This means that the Postal Service must have funds in reserve to pay for future workers who have not been born yet. This requirement has been an albatross around the neck of the USPS ever since it was implemented, costing billions of dollars every year and making up nearly all of its operating losses, which totaled $8.8 billion in fiscal year 2019.

Collin Co., Texas 2020 Election Summary

Collin County, Texas, is one of the fast growing suburban counties in Texas and the U.S. Its relatively young population has a high portion of college educated professional men and women, and it has a growing population of Asian-American voters.

Hispanic-American Voters In Texas

The Texas Tribune Reports: Donald Trump made inroads in South Texas this year. Voters in the historically Democratic stronghold of South Texas are left wondering whether this was simply a strange election during moi an unusual year or a sign of a profound political realignment in the region.

Texas 2020 vs 2016 Turnout - EV Day 18

Texas currently has 16.95 million people, or about 78% of the state’s voting-age population, registered to vote for a net gain of 1.85 million voters over the 15.1 million Texans registered for the 2016 general election. However, there are more than 3 million Texans currently registered who were not registered in 2016. Most of those new registrations are in the 12 most populous and rapidly growing urban/suburban counties that are increasingly left-leaning. (See table below)

Collin Co. TX Bellwether - EV Update

Collin County, Texas, is one of the fast growing suburban counties in Texas and the U.S. Its relatively young population has a high portion of college educated professional men and women, and it has a growing population of Asian-American voters.

Since the 2016 election, the county net voter registration count has increased from 540K to more than 654K, a net registration increase of 114K registrations. The median age of all registered voters is 47 years with slightly more females (321.4K) than males (290.8K) registered to vote.

Colorado Early Voting Turnout - Oct. 26

With one week left before Election Day, more than 1,790,827 Colorado voters have already cast their ballots, far outpacing ballot returns compared to the same time period before the previous two federal elections.

As of late Monday, the latest figures available, 1.79 million of the 3.7 million active voters in the state have cast ballots, Democratic voters slightly leading Unaffiliated voters in ballots returned.

Statewide, 37% of the ballots that have been cast so far are from registered Democrats, 35.5% are from Unaffiliated voters and 26.4% from Republicans.

Across in the 29 counties that make up the 3rd Congressional District, where the ultra-right Republican Lauren Boebert and moderate Democrat Diane Mitsch Bush are campaigning for that now open seat, 217,242 ballots have been cast through Monday, which makes up about 47% of all active voters in the district.

Banking Early Dem Turnout Eliminates Election Night Drama

Daily Kos — An army of early Democratic voters just might kill Trump's chance to sow chaos on election night:

White Men W/O College Dump Trump

According to a report from MSNBC, the single largest segment of Donald Trump's base — non-college-educated white men — are fleeing the president's camp at an alarming rate and admitting that they have become embarrassed by his actions and his bullying. This was a key 2016 voting bloc for Trump nationally and in Texas.

Colorado Voter Turnout 24 Times 2016

As with voters across the U.S., Colorado voters seem to have decided how they will mark their ballot, and they are motivated to get the job done. During the first week of early voting more than 576,705 ballots we’re cast (mostly by return mail and drop boxes)  through Friday, October 16th, according to data report by the Secretary of State’s office. For the 2016 election, Colorado voters had cast only 42,416 ballots by the 18th day before the November 8th election day that year.

Biden Leads Trump By 15 Points In Colorado

A Keating-OnSight-Melanson survey survey of likely Colorado voters, conducted Oct. 8-13, found Democrat John Hickenlooper up 10 points over Republican U.S. Sen. Cory Gardner, 51% to 41%, with 7% undecided, confirming similar results from the two nonpartisan polls released in the last week by Colorado Politics/9News and Morning Consult. The Keating-OnSight-Melanson survey also found Donald Trump trails Joe Biden among likely Colorado voters by 15 points, 54% to 39%, with 4% undecided.

3 Million New Texas Voters Since 2016

While limiting voting using drop boxes is certainly good news for Republicans, because many more Democrats than Republicans are expected to use that voting option, not all Texas news is good for the GOP. Since 2016, 3 million voters have registered in Texas. That means that about 1 in 5 (20%) of all current Texas voters were not registered in 2016.

Polling Difference From 2016

The popular notion that the polls were way off in 2016 is wrong. If a poll says that "Smith" is ahead of "Jones" 49% to 47% with a margin of error of 4 points, what that means is that the pollster is predicting that there is a 95% chance that Smith will score in the range 45% to 53% and that Jones will come in between 43% and 51%. Victory by Jones, 50% to 44%, would mean the pollster still got it right. In 2016, the national polls had Hillary Clinton winning by 3%. She won by 2.1%, which is close to perfect. The state polls weren't as good. The worst state was Wisconsin. We had Clinton ahead 46% to 41%. She indeed got 46% but Trump got 47%, so he was slightly outside the predicted range of about 37% to 45%. The final predictions for Michigan and Pennsylvania were correct in terms of the ranges predicted.

Polling - GOP Risk Losing Texas

With Texas early in-person voting starting tomorrow, and mail ballot returns already flowing into county election offices across the state, it’s a dead-heat race between Biden and Trump, and Hegar and Cornyn for the state’s U.S. Senate seat. A poll released by Civiqs last Wednesday that surveyed likely voters during October 3-6 found Trump and Biden dead even at 48-48 percent all.

At 63.9% Turnout - Biden Wins Texas

The thing most pundits and polling prognosticators miss about Texas is the growing disparity between the red and blue parts of the state with each passing election.

The blue part has been growing a deeper shade of blue as the number of registered voters spikes up in the blue part each presidential election cycle, while the number of voters in the red part remains more or less stagnant.

Collin Co., TX - Red To Blue Bellwether

Collin County, Texas, is one of the state’s suburban Republican stronghold counties that has been increasingly trending more left-leaning over the last several elections. In 2018 Democrats flipped two long held Texas congressional districts. Texas Democrat Colin Allred, a former NFL player making his first run for elected office, stunned incumbent Republican Pete Sessions to win his long held 32nd Congressional District, which is split between Dallas and Collin counties.

Tracking 2020 Texas Turnout

If it’s clear Biden has won Texas’ 38 electoral votes in the hours after polls close on Election Day, November 3rd, then Trump would have no viable path to victory. 

The election would be over that night, before Trump’s lawyers can get through the courtroom doors on November 4th to stop the vote counts in other states, and Trump will no choice other than to pack his bags to hit the road. 

What Texans Need To Know For The Election

Our democracy is stronger when our communities are educated and equipped with the tools they need to cast a ballot that counts:

1. What Kind Of ID Do I Need When I Go Vote?

The following are acceptable forms of ID to take with you to the polls:

• Texas Drivers License
• Texas Election ID Certificate
• Texas Personal ID Card
• Texas Handgun License
• US Military ID (with photo)
• US Citizenship Certificate (with photo)
• US Passport (book or card)

If you can’t get one of those, you can sign something called a Reasonable Impediment Declaration and use a non-photo ID, like a utility bill or your voter registration certificate.

Russ Feingold - Why It’s Appropriate to Expand the Supreme Court

Former Wisconsin U.S. Senator Russ Feingold has thought longer and harder than most Americans about the US Senate’s handling of Supreme Court nominations, and he knows something has got to change. As the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee’s subcommittee on the Constitution, and as the current president of the American Constitution Society, he has fought to maintain the deliberative process by which the Senate is supposed to provide advice and consent in a finely balanced system of checks and balances.

Youth Vote Enthusiasm Highest Since 2008

A national poll of America’s 18- to 29- year-olds released today by the Institute of Politics (IOP) at Harvard Kennedy School found significant interest in the upcoming election with the likelihood of turning out to vote at levels not seen since the 2008 presidential election. The poll found 63% of respondents indicated they will “definitely be voting,” compared to 47% during this same time before the 2016 presidential election.

Can The GOP Lose Texas In 2020?

This is not one those election years when the issues seem esoteric and disconnected from real life. This one is about the issues each voter is struggling with every day, about threats to personal and economic health, to the family and friends and institutions that stitch together into what we all refer to now as normal life. 

What’s happening nationally with the coronavirus — in terms of the issues at stake, problems with response, what it means for family, schools, commerce, recreation, voting, culture, retirees, life and death itself — is reflected in Texas politics today. 

The referendum on the ballot this year is whether voter sentiment against Trumpism in Texas, as across the nation, has reached a tipping point favoring a new political direction for the nation — and Texas. The political question for Texas Democrats is whether they have rebuilt enough of a political ecosystem across the state, or at least up and down the increasingly left-leaning urban/suburban corridor between Houson and Dallas / Fort Worth, that they can turn out a winning share of voters. 

Texas Republicans on the ballot this year are looking at cracks in their political base as the Republican advantage in this reliably conservative state is at risk because of a volatile president, a weak economy, and a Covid-19 pandemic allowed to run rampant by national and state Republican leaders. Republicans can read election results as well as Democrats, and they can clearly read the trend was not their friend from 2012 to 2018. 

• Trump confesses to lying in ways that denied Americans basic information for surviving COVID-19. 
• Coronavirus outbreaks in schools wreck Trump's push for return to normal
• American parents are realizing that Donald Trump is the reason their kids can't go back to school

Republicans have good reason to fret Texas may be slipping from their grasp sooner - as in this year - rather than later.