2018 Texas Senate - Cruz vs. O'Rourke

10/26/18 -- As predicted, this race seems to have broken away from Democrats.  Ted Cruz is not going to win by 20 points like Greg Abbott, but a win is a win, especially in a largely negative environment for Republicans.

9/25/18 -- The latest Quinnipiac puts Cruz ahead by a comfortable 54-45 margin.  If you look at the polling data as a whole, the polls with more undecideds tend to show a close race, while pollsters who push undecideds harder show a Cruz lead.  This is consistent with a storyline suggesting that there are a large number of undecideds, perhaps intrigued by the Beto phenomeon, but who nevertheless lean Republicans.  But in this chaotic environment, we should still consider the race a tossup overall.

9/13/18 -- Beto O’Rourke has kept the race close, albeit in part on the basis of an Emerson poll showing over 20 percent of the electorate undecided.  Nevertheless, this race is going to drain Republican resources, and Ted Cruz could very much lose this.

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The rise of the Republican Party in the Lone Star State is a fascinating tale of how one party consistently bit off its nose to spite its face. Texas always had a small Republican Party in the panhandle, in the German counties north of San Antonio, and later in the growing suburbs of Dallas and Houston. But the two-party system mostly played out among Democrats. It was divided between conservative Tory Democrats, who plotted to depose Franklin Roosevelt as the Democratic nominee in 1944 and who supported President Eisenhower in the 1950s, and the liberal Democrats.

When LBJ was elected vice president, a conservative Democrat was appointed to replace him. In the ensuing special election, liberal Democrats either stayed home or cast a protest vote for Republican John Tower, whom they figured they could easily defeat down the road. The same dynamic played out in 1966, and by 1972 Tory Democrats were defecting to the Republican Party, while the Republicans' native base in the suburbs continued to grow.

Today the Republicans have controlled the governorship for 18 straight years, and both Senate seats for 19.  The Democratic Party still maintains strength, and may even regain majority party status in the future.  Sen. Ted Cruz faces a credible challenge against Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke, and the state swung heavily toward Hillary Clinton last fall.  The state is also, contrary to many expectations, heavily urban, so a swing toward Democrats in the suburbs could have an outsize effect here.  O’Rourke starts as the underdog, but this one is worth watching.