Down Ballot Prognosticating
February 12th, 2008 at 8:53 pm
Both the fun and the danger of rank speculation is that it’s usually only lightly tethered to reality. Of course, that won’t stop us here. The question on many a political mind in Texas these days is how will the superheated presidential primary affect downballot races? While we still don’t have that much to go on, here is our take. Please add your own thoughts.
The obvious place to begin is with the so-called Craddick Ds, those Democrats who gave their support to the Republican speaker. As we’ve written in past posts on this site, the Craddick D seats with the strongest chances of flipping belong to Mission’s Kino Flores, Houston’s Kevin Bailey, Edinburg’s Aaron Pena, and Austin’s Dawnna Dukes.
At first blush, it would appear a heightened primary might spell trouble for these folks. After all, the Clinton-Obama show will bring increased turnout and heightened partisanship. Voters are hungry for change. An anti-incumbent message about a representative who has sided with Republicans might be a winner in this climate. Yet on the ground it’s a little more complicated.
Two of the strengths Kevin Bailey can boast are strong union support and plenty of Craddick-sponsored money. Houston will be a key battleground in the presidential primary and expect a lot of that fighting to have union involvement. AFSCME is strongly supporting Clinton. SEIU presumably is supporting Obama. Bailey’s district is overwhelmingly Latino. His opponent, Armando Walle, is a young Latino up-and-comer. The district has some of the lowest voter turnout in the state. Those who have voted in the past are largely Anglo. Will an influx of new, largely Latino voters hurt the incumbent? In a word: Yes.
Kino Flores could well be vulnerable from the added interest. Kino was always in trouble from challenger Sandra Rodriguez’s message that he had abandoned the families of his district for his own personal agenda. With the Valley expected to go strong for Clinton, it’s hard to see how this presidential turnout will help Kino.
Aaron Pena seemed to be the first local official to announce that Clinton was coming to Edinburg tomorrow. Pena says he has a longstanding friendship with the Clintons and Garry Mauro, who is helping to run the show for Hillary in Texas. The campaign didn’t have anyone on the ground and he stepped up. Now that the Clinton folks are in the Valley, he won’t be as prominent, he says. Regardless, Pena’s association with the Clinton campaign is smart politics. But will the added votes the presidential contest drives to the polls break for the incumbent? Expect his challenger Eddie Saenz, who also supports Clinton, to attack Pena for taking money from Bob “Swift Boat” Perry and supporting Republicans in Austin.
Brian Thompson’s challenge to Dawnna Dukes was always going to be an uphill climb. He’s new to the district and short on money. Interest in Obama in the African-American community could make that climb even steeper.
Stay tuned for a future post where we will look at the Republicans, the race for U.S. Senate, and what the added interest might mean for the general election.
