Thursday, May 24, 2018

Hidalgo v. Emmett

Before I start ripping the skin off the Texas Democratic slate (thanks to Horwitz in the comments yesterday for helping me get warmed up, by the way), I'll say something nice about the locals, .i.e. Harris County executive races.  Dr. Diane Trautman (County Clerk), this blogger being a longtime fan, and Marilyn Burgess (District Clerk) both prevailed in Tuesday's runoff and should be able to do the same against hapless Republicans Stan Stanart and Chris Daniel in the fall.

One of those is more hapless than the other, as even Harris Republicans clearly understand.


More on that race at a later date; from my inbox late yesterday came this press release and poll from the Hidalgo for Judge campaign that -- despite its D lean -- has to have surprised a few people.  Under the header "Hidalgo leads Emmett 53% to 47%" ...

The Lina Hidalgo campaign for Harris County Judge today released the results of its first county-wide poll, showing the Democratic challenger leading the Republican incumbent by a stunning six percentage points; among Harris County voters who plan to vote in the County Judge race, 53% plan to vote for Lina Hidalgo and 47% say they will vote for Ed Emmett.


The poll, conducted by Texas Democratic Party-authorized polling firm, Change Research, surveyed more than 1700 registered voters in Harris County on May 11, 12, 13, 19, and 20, and has a margin of error of +/- 3%. 

Perhaps more than the usual polling caveats apply.  There's no link to the poll in the email and none that I can find on Hidalgo's website; mighty Kuffner hasn't gotten around to this news yet.  (Speaking of slow reactions, if he ever wrote anything about the debate between Lupe Valdez and Andrew White, then I missed it.  Candidly I'm of the considered opinion that his blog has gone so far downhill so fast it's not worth much of my time any longer, but YMMV.  He very rarely blogs about anything I haven't already read in the Houston Chronicle or the Texas Tribune.  Like Blue Dog Ted at jobsanger, though, Kuff coughs up his 4-6 posts early every morning, so there's that.  Consistent quantity counts for something even when quality suffers.)

More from the poll:

94% of Harris County voters report feeling more interested (56%) in or equally as interested (38%) in the 2018 election as they have felt about prior elections.

President Trump is viewed unfavorably by 60% of Harris County voters

Voters report that the three issues that will drive their voting behavior most in November are:

1. Government transparency

2. Education

3. Jobs

Hidalgo is very likely the most progressive woman on the Harris County ballot.  Bar none ... at least until Janis Richards gets qualified to run for governor as an independent, which we should know about soon, as her 500 signatures are due in Austin shortly to be verified.  But most importantly, Hidalgo and Lupe Valdez and Sylvia Garcia and all of the rest of the Latinos and Latinas on the statewide and county ballot are a reminder that 2018 is a no-excuses year for Latin@ turnout.  Nobody should be compelled to buy any keys to turnout from Marc Campos, either; he's the same moron he's always been.  (I give Campos a lot of crap, but his blog wins awards this blog has never won, you know.  So I'm jealous of all the #winning.)

David Collins, himself a previous Harris Judge contender, approves of Hidalgo, and since I have not met her yet, that's good enough for me.

Let's expect that our endorsements don't piss off any bitter #StillbornHerz so much so that they can't vote for Lina out of spite for me or Collins.  I'd like to believe those folks are bigger persons than I am about petty purity politics, after all, but with the Churchill Downs stable of horseshit and slander I read against Laura Moser and continue to read about Bernie Sanders ... well, let's just say Kuffner is wrong again, but has a chance at being right in time for November.  Maybe he can use his clout to talk some sense into his team; something like, "there's not very many of those awful progs, and we can replace their votes with Republican crossovers, so just put PDiddie on 'ignore'" or something.

Stace is happy, so maybe we'll read more there about politics and less about Tejano music.  (Really and truly, dude.  It's not as bad as Greg Wythe's defunct blog posts about Trinity Euless football, or the latest from Lakewood Church, but it's close.  Go the full La Raza or get back to what you used to do best, is all I'm sayin'.  Us gabachos lack insight into the Mexicano mindset which we can't get from Lalo Alcarez or News Taco.  Don't regress to the level of Neil A-Queen-o, for cryin' out loud.)

Okay then.  The rest of my acid gets directed at all the white NeoDemocrats running for office who will spend the next five months chasing conservative votes.  Another clarification of the definition of 'progressive' is sorely overdue.  That's on the way, haters.  Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend and don't forget why we observe it.

4 comments:

Harry Hamid said...

I'm not optimistic about the Dems' chances in statewide races, mostly because I've seen this song and dance before.

"This is the Dems' year!" - TX Dems, circa 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, etc.

On the local level, though, who knows? The 2016 countywide races went so well that maybe they can even pull it off in an off-year election. It would be wild if some of these judicial races went Dem.

Gadfly said...

#StillbornHerz your riff on #StillWithHer?

And, otherwise, a page full of snarky venting! I take my hat off.

And, I don't use the word "progressive" for myself any more.

I accept that, in American terms at least, I'm some sort of leftist, and not a liberal or a progressive.

On Ted, other than him being a Hillbot in general is that he, as a fellow secularist, should be wary of Hillz to the degree she swam in the "faith-based" tank with advisers, etc. As did O'Bummer as prez, who actually expanded many of Shrub's "faith-based initiatives."

Beyond that, I just barfed over his fellating Mike Collier.

==

Thanks for the update on Richards as write-in.

Gadfly said...

Oh, you win my award as snarkiest blogger of May 2018.

I'll InDesign you a certificate to send to Campos, if you want. ;)

Gadfly said...

Oh, if you didn't see this on my Twitter yesterday, feel free to share it with Noah et al.

Centrists, in both the US and Europe, have less regard for democracy than either the left or the right.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/23/opinion/international-world/centrists-democracy.html