Post Trump America Decision 2026, Part 7

How Even Before the Runoff Next Week James Talarico Was The Best Chance the Democrats Had Of Winning in Texas (But the Runoff Will Help)

In the summer of 2025 when the Texas legislature had begun the first of a seemingly endless battle of partisan gerrymandering battles my reaction was different then so many other Americans on either side of the aisle.

“Why are Abbott and the Republicans bothering?” I thought to myself. “Party keeps heading in this direction by 2030 they’re won’t be any left in Texas anyway.” This opinion was based very much on my own research in the subject reminding me yet again how much my party has been its own worst enemy in the 21st century.

As I wrote in a separate article about the Democrats and Dixie:

“During the 1970s Republicans were now being challenged by a new generation of moderate Democrats. Democrats had a monopoly on the black vote and the more Republicans ran to the right, the more it energized the base. Typically Democrats needed little more than a third of the white vote to ensure victory. These Democratic candidates gave high-minded but measured speeches about racial progress that flattered the prejudices of southern voters about how much the South had changed and combined with the Democrat’s New Deal heritage, they had easy entrée to working class whites and accused Republicans of being the country club set. Men like Fritz Hollings, Sam Nunn and Dale Bumpers and David Pryor would become fixtures in the Senate for years and…