Welcome to Texas!
Whenever I think of coming home to Texas,
this is what I think of. Beef ribs.
I love these. And I am so happy right now,
I'm going to finish eating this plate off camera.
I know so many other people see Texas as either this,
this,
or this:
"I am so happy to be back in the great state of Texas."
GOP country.
Yes, Texas is a state that's spent the last few decades solidly in the red column.
And in fact, out of any state in the nation, Texas voters have gone the longest
without putting a Democrat in statewide office.
The state has also gone for every Republican presidential candidate since Ronald Reagan.
But could 2018 be a new dawn for Texas Democrats?
I think everything is on the line, everything that you could possibly care about.
This state could be the state that brings this country together at this divided moment.
And some have high hopes for Beto O'Rourke to turn Texas blue again.
You heard me.
Again.
Hey, fam. I'm Imaeyen, and this Sunday we've traveled to one of my very favorite places, Texas.
And we're here to find out the real odds of this state going blue in 2018 or 2020.
So stay with us and hit that subscribe button right now, because we're going on a journey,
and I promise to show you more food.
Though I'm not sharing this. No way.
The last time this state had either a Democratic governor or senator, TLC owned the billboard charts.
"So I creep ... yeeeeah ..."
Just creepin' on the down-low...
And now people are wondering if Beto O'Rourke can break that streak.
Beto O'Rourke is a senatorial candidate who's campaigning on
immigration reform, universal healthcare
and generally not being Ted Cruz.
Cruz has low approval ratings and this is the
first time he's even had a serious Democratic challenger for his seat.
And I gotta say, O'Rourke is unlike any other Texas politician I've seen in recent years.
So could this be the guy who ends up changing the course of Texas politics?
I'd say he has a pretty good chance of pulling off an upset.
The enthusiasm is real high.
I haven't seen anything like this in a while.
Meet political analyst Ed Espinoza.
His bold prediction is that 2018 is *the year* O'Rourke and other Democrats
pull off upsets unlike anything seen in two decades.
Espinoza is a data guy, and he broke down why he thinks it looks so optimistic.
For one, first-time voters in Texas favored Democrats by a margin of 5-1 in the last election.
And it wasn't just in the blue cities, it also happened in the red parts of the state, too.
And earlier this year in the midterm primaries,
Texas Democrats *doubled* their turnout rate from 2014,
and Republicans only increased their turnout rate by a tiny bit.
The truth is it's a real moment happening in Texas right now.
And we're seeing it, we've seen it in the primaries this year,
we're seeing it in the activism with the campaigns that are out there.
We're seeing it in the fundraising numbers.
We're confident that it's gonna make a difference in 2018.
For the first time in 30 years, every congressional district, even the most Republican,
has a Democratic challenger
And a handful of them are actually expected to flip to blue ,
even some that have been GOP strongholds since the '60s.
Texas Dems are also targeting the Republican state attorney general,
who's currently under indictment.
Espinoza says Democrats' hopeful outlook is all because of the changing of Texas demographics.
It's the Latino populations around the state and that this is a population that will rise, awaken
and seize its political power, but what you're also seeing are other groups from around the state.
It's all these new people moving to Texas who are saying to themselves, wait a minute, I'm a Texan too.
I can vote. I have a voice. I have something to say.
And that's what's challenging this Republican power right now.
Now for those of you chuckling at the thought of a blue Texas, guess what?
Texas *used* to be a blue state.
Ginger Rogers did everything that Fred Astaire did.
She just did it backwards and in high heels.
Growing up, this woman was my introduction to Texas politics: Governor Ann Richards.
She was sharp and witty –
and she was a Democrat.
That's right, the governor of Texas from 1991 to 1995 was a Democrat.
And way before her, there was this guy.
Their cause must be our cause too.
Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us who must overcome
the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
Lyndon Johnson was JFK's vice presidential pick because he was a Southern Democrat.
Johnson would go on to become the president who signed the Civil Rights Act,
the Voting Rights Act, and he gave us Medicaid and Medicare – landmark legislation and policies.
So that's the Texas I knew growing up, but that was years and several Republican governors ago.
So how did Texas lose its blue streak?
After the civil rights movement, white Texas Democrats started to leave the party in droves,
and they found a home in the Republican Party.
Then came the state's economic boom in the late '70s and early '80s,
and we begin to see people from out of state flock to Texas,
bringing with them more conservative ideals and more stringent religious beliefs.
And Texas becomes a haven for those seeking fewer taxes and less federal regulation.
Fast-forward to 1994 when that growing conservatism made George W. Bush governor,
and the state has never looked back.
Texas is ready for a new generation of leadership, and I will provide it.
Since then, state Republicans' partisan redistricting, also known as gerrymandering,
has helped keep the legislature overwhelmingly Republican.
They have been able to hold onto a state that doesn't necessarily look like that government.
But again, one wave election with a lot of gerrymandering layered in can do a lot of damage.
And we're hoping to undo that in 2018.
But many Republicans say that won't be easy to undo.
Texas will be red as long as I'm alive.
Andy Hogue is a spokesperson for the Travis County Republican party,
and he thinks that while some districts might flip in November,
there's no way Beto O'Rourke will win the Texas senate seat.
He's still a Democrat and he still supports abortion.
He still supports expanding programs and higher taxes to fulfill the Democratic agenda.
I still don't think he's gonna crack 43 percent, personally.
Hogue thinks O'Rourke is nothing more than another flash-in-the-pan Texas Democrat
that gets a lot of attention but then fizzles out,
like the last Democratic candidate for governor who ended up losing by 20 points.
Wendy Davis. Now she was a state senator here in Texas
who made national headlines, international headlines even,
for supporting abortion rights, and that made her a celebrity,
but it wasn't enough to carry her through.
Ultimately I think it's gonna all boil down to the fact that people are going to vote their values.
But Espinoza told me something that could change the way you've been looking at Texas politics.
Well what we like to say is Texas is not a red state, it's a non-voting state.
He's right. Texas ranks 46th in voter turnout.
In 2016, only about half of Texans voted.
"We're volunteers with an organization called Jolt and
we're trying to mobilize the Latino community
to get out and vote."
"So we wanted to know if we could count on your pledge to vote?"
So that's where groups like Jolt come in.
Jolt's an organization that's trying to get young Latinos to the polls,
a group they believe is crucial for the state to elect Democrats.
Texas in a general, people always think, like, oh, white, cowboys right?
People riding horses, ranchers, farmers, things like that,
but that's not Texas.
Texas is nearly 40% Latinx and by 2030 we will be the majority.
In fact half of everyone under 18 right now is Latinx.
That's so many young people who are turning 18 every day.
So if we really had, you know, people going out and voting in large numbers,
Texas politics would look very different.
I think it matters that we're out here.
Having a good conversation about it is gonna be important for us.
As a community we need to come together and show we're a powerful force,
across, especially, Texas.
So could efforts like this one
and excitement like this
be an early indication that Texas is on the move again?
And what would that mean for 2020?
"When you think of a progressive Texas, you think of a Texas that speaks for
the full diversity of the population that lives here.
People who live in different cities, people who look different, people who are of a different age
and of a different race.
Those are voices that should be represented in everything we do,
but what we have right now too often is a government that tends to be adversarial
with many populations in the state.
That's not representative of a population. That's not representative government at all."
If we were to really change Texas, we could change the country.
We could change what the outcomes are in upcoming elections.
Regardless of what happens in Texas, there's one thing we know to be true.
Their barbeque is delicious every election cycle.
I told you I'd show you more food.
Hey fam, thanks much for watching.
Don't forget to like, share and subscribe
as you watch us have basically a dance-off in the middle of Austin, Texas.
We had an amazing time on this shoot, and we'll see you next Sunday.
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