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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsThe 2018 Election Started Tuesday With One Jaw-Dropping Stat
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/02/the-2018-election-started-tuesday-with-one-jaw-dropping-stat/The 2018 Election Started Tuesday With One Jaw-Dropping Stat
Tim Murphy
Feb. 21, 2018 2:41 PM
The 2018 election officially began on Tuesday with the first day of early voting ahead of Texas March 6th primaries. Evidently, a lot of people got the message. In Harris County, which includes Houston and is the states largest population center, Republican turnout was 25-percent higher than the first day of early-voting in the 2014 primaries. That makes some sensetheres an expensive state house of representatives race in the county and an open Republican-leaning congressional district. But whats more surprising is the turnout jump on the Democratic sidea full 300 percent.
Link to tweet
Harris County was one of the few bright spots for Democrats in 2016, and that momentum has carried over into the current cycle. A big reason for that turnout boost: the extremely competitive Democratic primary in the states seventh congressional district. The seventh, which extends from Houston to Katy, is an archetype of the kind of seat progressives are targeting with new fervor in 2018affluent, suburban, highly-educated, and very diverse. And the field reflects the kind of candidates that are running for Democratic nominations in 2018a cancer researcher worried about budget cuts and coverage gaps; a lawyer who has worked with reproductive rights groups; a freelance writer who launched an online tool to help users pressure members of Congress; and the director of a non-profit that works with refugees.
Whats also notable is that two of those four leading candidates vying for a spot in the May runoffLizzie Pannill Fletcher, the lawyer, and Laura Moser, the writer-turned-activistare women.
That might not be such a big deal in a lot of places, but its highly unusual in Texas. There are just three women in the states 36-member congressional delegation, and its been that way for a whileother than Republican Rep. Shelley Sekula-Gibbs two-month stint in 2006 (she filled out the remainder of ex-Rep. Tom Delays term), Texas hasnt elected a new woman to Congress this millennium. Reps. Eddie Bernice Johnson and Sheila Jackson Lee were the second and third Democratic women ever to represent Texas in Congress when they were elected in the early 1990s. There hasnt been a fourth. There havent been a lot of close calls eithereight of the nine male members of the states Democratic delegation beat other Democratic men in their primaries.
That will almost certainly change this year. In the El Paso district currently represented by Democratic Rep. Beto ORourke, who is retiring from the House to run for Senate, Veronica Escobar and Dori Fenenbock are competing for the nomination in what is a safely Democratic seat. And state Sen. Sylvia Garcia is the favorite in the primary to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Gene Green in Houston. Former Air Force intelligence office Gina Ortiz Jones is vying to take on Republican Rep. Will Hurd in a West Texas swing district. Ortiz Jones has the backing of EMILYs List, which supports pro-choice Democratic women, and has the endorsement of the districts largest newspaper, the San Antonio Express-News, but she first needs to get past prosecutor Jay Hulings in the primary. And there is, of course, the seventh district, which is shaping up to be a top battleground in November.
The surge of women candidates reflects the nature of the Trump-inspired Resistance itselfthe logical evolution of a movement that progressed from womens marches and private Facebook groups to Indivisible chapters and candidate trainings held by groups like EMILYs List and its Texas counterpart, Annies List. Democrats have had waves before; but if they catch another one this fall, it will look a lot different than years past.
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The 2018 Election Started Tuesday With One Jaw-Dropping Stat (Original Post)
babylonsister
Feb 2018
OP
300% ... JUST FOR PRIMARIES !!! ... Pol Radio adds are PURPOSEFULLY saying democrat
uponit7771
Feb 2018
#2
RandomAccess
(5,210 posts)1. THREE HUNDRED PERCENT. Holy cow.
uponit7771
(90,347 posts)2. 300% ... JUST FOR PRIMARIES !!! ... Pol Radio adds are PURPOSEFULLY saying democrat
... or "life long democrat" because they KNOW reThugs are going to get mud stomped this November.
Texas is not a red state any longer
Gothmog
(145,320 posts)3. Democrats set early voting records at start of Texas primaries