Election Day is about six weeks away, and time is ticking for Texas residents who haven’t registered yet. The deadline to register to vote is October 7, according to election officials, but it might be a good idea to double-check your registration.
If it’s before the deadline, you can check your status by visiting votetexas.gov.
Early voting is just a few weeks away, beginning Oct. 21. There are some well-known candidates on the ballot, including incumbents with name recognition and deep pockets.
But some Texans think they actually have a chance — or even a long shot — to win. They believe changes in the state, such as more people moving from big cities to the countryside and more people moving to Texas from other parts of the country, might give them a better chance.
There are other reasons why marginal candidates may run, even if they don’t claim victory in November’s election.
Edward McKinley, who covers state politics for the Houston Chronicle’s Austin bureau, said his reporting grew out of his efforts in creating the voter guide.
“We were looking at some of the candidates who were running in districts that weren’t traditionally thought of as competitive,” he said, “and we went into our data analysis and looked at districts that were within about seven points of the margin in the 2022 election.”
McKinley said redistricting also may be a factor in the growing number of statewide races in Texas that are not won by a wide margin.
“Districts are redrawn every 10 years based on new U.S. Census data, and because Texas uses a political process to draw its maps rather than an independent, nonpartisan commission, there’s a very strong incentive for Republicans, who control the state’s political process, to simultaneously maximize the number of seats they hold and the safety of those seats,” McKinley said. “And the way to do that is to assign voters to districts in the state as effectively as possible.”
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More safe seats mean more elections by wide margins, McKinley explained.
“A good example is Desiree Venable of Bastrop. She’s a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel breeder. She’s young and smart. She said she looked at the map and she thinks she’s in Bastrop, east of Austin. She thinks Democrats may gain ground sooner than expected because people are moving out of Austin so quickly to other districts,” he said.
“Even though Republicans won reelection by a large margin last time, she thinks she has a good chance. That’s why she’s doing a lot of door-to-door canvassing, making a lot of phone calls and fighting hard to win.”
Even if a candidate does not achieve a major upset in this election, he or she and their party could still see political benefits.
“These unwinnable candidates split into two camps. There are the true believers who think, ‘Hey, things are different for me. I have reason to believe I can retake this seat.’ And, of course, everyone wants to win. But the other candidates generally define success as something other than winning,” McKinley said.
“So maybe they want to sharpen the party’s message on certain issues or certain demographics. Maybe they’re looking to recruit volunteers or build a statewide party database. Or maybe they’re taking the time to personally work and run again for another office. And they’re getting their name out there and promoting themselves.”
McKinley said there are many ancillary benefits to running, especially for Democratic candidates who can help with statewide party activities.
“Let’s say you have a statewide Democratic candidate, you have local Democrats who lean Republican in local races, you have the party’s voter registration database, you have volunteers,” he said. “These are all pieces that can work together to help the party be successful in the state in the long term.”
As for the likely outcome, McKinley said it’s too early to predict, but he’s not yet ruling out the possibility of something unexpected happening somewhere in Texas.
“I’m not really prepared to be a pundit,” he said, “but from a strategic standpoint, I think it’s campaigning. I mean, campaigning is a form of campaigning — going door to door as much as you can and making as many personal connections as you can with voters. I think there are a lot of people in the state who are really passionate and working hard.”
