With early voting starting today, voters will begin casting ballots for candidates in the Nov. 6 General Election, including county judge, Texas governor and U.S. senator.
Democratic candidate Beto O’Rourke of El Paso is challenging Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Cruz of Houston in the U.S. Senate race.
Political Science Assistant Professor Charles Olney said it is difficult to know with certainty who has the lead between Cruz and O’Rourke.
“It’s a very close race,” Olney said. “At the moment, it does look like Sen. Cruz probably has a one- to two- to three-point margin based on what we know from previous polling assessments and political science research. It is good to be an incumbent and to have a lead is definitely an advantage, so I would say it’s leaning in that direction, but still it’s very close.”
However, O’Rourke’s political campaign shows good signs, thanks to the enthusiasm and the money his campaign has raised, he said.
“[In] Texas, the president is pretty unpopular,” Olney said. “The Republican Party is well behind … for a variety of reasons. In Texas … the trend, over the last 20 years, has been moving more and more towards being from a solid red state to more of a purple kind of state, so there is a lot of people who’ve been really exciting and hoping for a chance see a Democrat win. … This seems like the first time there is a real serious chance in quite a while.”
Last Thursday, CNN hosted a town hall with O’Rourke in the McAllen Performing Arts Center. CNN invited Cruz, but he declined the invitation.
Asked how this will affect Cruz’s campaign, Olney replied, “If you are the incumbent, people already know you pretty well and you feel like, even if the race is close, you’re maybe a slight favorite. Debates kind of are only an opportunity to slip on a banana peel. The Cruz campaign, if I remember correctly, proposed that there’d be a second debate and the O’Rourke campaign said, ‘We’d prefer to do this town hall.’ So, it’s not really a matter of Cruz’s running from the issues.”
In regard to the DACA program, Olney said O’Rourke winning the election would not exactly mean things will change for the program that provides about 800,000 young people who were brought to the United States as children with temporary protection from deportation if they can demonstrate that they meet several criteria, according to whitehouse.gov.
“Him being in D.C. is not necessarily individually important, but if it shifts control of the Senate, it could be tremendously important,” the political science professor said.
Olney said that if O’Rourke wins, it could mean that the Senate is in Democratic hands.
“If you control the Senate, whoever has the most seats, even if it’s 51 to 49, they get to set the agenda and they get to control the committee,” he said. “Committees are generally, if there’s 19 members, there’ll be 10 and nine, but whoever has the majority, as long as those are working together, the committee chair comes from the majority party in the Senate and those committees have lots of power.”
Josephine Castro, a mass communication freshman, said O’Rourke is her favorite candidate for the Texas U.S. Senate election.
“I feel like him becoming the next senator for Texas is going to be, technically it is, historically changing given that we’ve never really had a liberal senator,” Castro said. “His policy about trying to legalize marijuana … is in fact, as of right now in the state of Texas, is basically the best approach … in the war on drugs.”
She said she also supports O’Rourke thanks to his openness to topics like gender equality, LGBTQ and minorities.
Castro also believes it is important for young people to vote.
“Even though our generation and millennials are people that are aimed towards voting, not a lot of them do and that’s why we have the president that we do now,” she said. “Trump supporters … did their part and voted for the president they wanted. However, I think a lot of our generation failed in not exercising our right to vote. … I think my generation needs to wake up.”
Natasha Altema-McNeely, a political science assistant professor, said Cruz has more probabilities of winning re-election because he is the incumbent candidate and has more name recognition, more ability to fundraise and he has a record.
“In this case, people in Texas recognize [U.S.] Rep. Beto O’Rourke because he is the representative of El Paso,” Altema-McNeely said. “However, outside of El Paso, people have probably had to learn about him, so some might argue that the name recognition isn’t quite the same for Beto across all of Texas.”
Despite the interest O’Rourke has gained from people, one of the disadvantages that might hurt his campaign is the concern for low voter turnout rates in the Rio Grande Valley, she said.
“What we’ve also seen from existing scholarship is that minority groups tend to turn out at lower rates than Caucasian whites,” Altema-McNeely said. “Of course, the minority group of concern is Hispanics or Latinos, so a lot of people are concerned given that Latinos, as well as African Americans, their turnout rates tend to be lower during midterm elections, so that’s a big concern as well.”
She said that “having the support of the Valley will be huge, but [O’Rourke] needs support from other parts of Texas as well.”
In the District 34 U.S. representative race, Republican Rey Gonzalez, born in Harlingen and raised in San Benito, who holds a law degree from Dayton University School of Law and a doctor of medicine degree from Ross University School of Medicine, is trying to unseat incumbent Democrat Filemon B. Vela, a lawyer who was born in Harlingen and raised in Brownsville. In the 2016 general election, the two candidates faced each other for the same position, which Vela ended up winning.
Altema-McNeely said that at this time the election looks to be in Vela’s favor.
“Rep. Vela has a couple of things to his advantage so, again, name recognition,” she said. “He has his record of how he’s voted on various issues that are available to the public. I’m sure people recognize him. They are somewhat aware, I’m sure, of what he’s been up to, how he’s voted, what he’s done for the Valley, so those things will help him.”
However, Gonzalez might have a chance, thanks to his conservative views.
“The Valley is strongly Democrat,” she said. “Ideologically speaking, some people do hold conservative views because of religious beliefs. … [Gonzalez] appears to be on the conservative part of the ideological scale, holding, like, traditional family values, emphasizing gun rights and whatnot. So, that would appeal to some portions of the population.”
In the gubernatorial race, incumbent Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, is competing against former Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez, a Democrat.
Olney said if voters decide that they like the direction Texas is taking, Abbott has probably more chances to win re-election for a second term.
“Texas’ economy, generally, has been pretty good,” he said. “The whole U.S. economy is doing fairly well, so that’s not necessarily anything that the governor has done personally to affect that, but generally, if the economy is going well, executives tend to win re-election.”
Altema-McNeely said both of the candidates appeal to their respective parties’ interests.
“[Abbott] is going to support policies and push for positions on policies that match the positions of the Republican Party,” she said. “In contrast to that, Sheriff Valdez is a veteran. I believe she was a captain in the National Guard and she was a sheriff for a number of years. … She promotes LGBTQ rights, which is a big deal especially for a red state like Texas.”
Locally, former McAllen Mayor Richard Cortez, a Democrat, and Jane Cross, a Republican, are running for the Hidalgo County judge position.
Cross ran as a Democrat in the 2012 election for the U.S. House, against then incumbent U.S. Rep. Ruben Hinojosa, to represent District 15.
Cross is now running as a Republican in this election.
Although the fact that she has less experience might be an obstacle for her campaign, according to Altema-McNeely, it is difficult to say who has the lead in this race.
“She’s been very upfront regarding her lack of experience and lack of knowledge about certain things but from what she says, she seems eager to learn,” the political science professor said. “… It seems that maybe Richard Cortez might have more name recognition as the former mayor of McAllen.”
In the Cameron County judge race, Republican Carlos Cascos, who served in the position from 2006 to 2015, when he was appointed Texas secretary of state, is running against incumbent Cameron County Judge Eddie Treviño, a Democrat.
Similarly, to the Hidalgo County judge election, it is hard to determine who is more likely to win due to the closeness of the race, according to Olney.
“They are both quite popular,” he said. “Both have been county judges, Treviño currently is and he is trying to maintain the seat. [Cascos] has a position of secretary of state and he’s coming back to the Valley and says, ‘You know what, I’ll throw my hat back in the ring.’”
Olney said it is also difficult to know about the candidates due to the lack of information that is offered for local elections.
“People just don’t have very much to work with here,” he said. “Both candidates have said that they will be fair, even-minded and considerate. They’ve both held position before. … It would be hard to point to anything.”
He said the way to solve the disinformation problem that is present in the Valley is to copy strategies from other states, such as California, where a book is mailed to the residents with information about the candidates who are running for office.
“A lot of the reasons why people don’t turn out to vote is they feel like they don’t really know,” he said.
Altema-McNeely said it is important for students to vote not only because their voices matters, but to honor those who fought for the right to vote.
“When you look at the civil rights movements, in general, a lot of people sacrificed their lives in order for minority groups … to be able to actually vote,” she said.
Furthermore, Olney said increasing voter turnout will bring more support from the government to the Valley.
“One of the reasons why the Valley just doesn’t get a lot of attention from the state government is that we don’t vote very much,” he said. “From the perspective of legislators and people who are on the state government, they’re interested in representing everyone, but they have to pay attention to the politics. If they know there is a lot more people who are likely to vote in Dallas or the Houston area, they are going to pay more attention to Dallas and Houston. No matter who you vote for, just showing up to cast a ballot actually does make some difference.”
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