Sunday with the Senators: Texas

Could RFK, Jr Cost Raphael the Election?

Raphael “Ted” Cruz (MAGA) won his first Senate election in 2012. Before people really knew him. His predecessor, Kay Bailey Hutchinson, was the last moderate Republican from Texas. She decided to retire, and the primary contest was between Raphael and a mainstream candidate, Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst. Raphael’s campaign was run by Ed Meese, and that should tell you everything you need to know. Raphael won the general over Paul Sadler 56.4% to 40.6%.

People got to know Raphael. Like when he borrowed almost a million dollars with a low interest rate from Goldman Sachs (where his wife worked), and then didn’t report the loan properly and had trouble repaying the loans. So when he was challenged by Beto O’Rourke in 2018, the election was much closer, and Raphael won 50.9% to 48.3%.

I won’t upset you with how bad his positions are – but here’s his voting record. Read at your own risk.

Especially offensive to Texans was in February of 2021 when a bad storm caused a massive electricity generation failure resulting in a loss of power for more than 4.5 million homes, and 57 deaths. Full timeline. As a Senator, he should have been on the phone with the White House asking for a disaster declaration and any help that could be mustered. But no. This is him – on his way to Cancun.

He eventually came back, although the rest of his family stayed in Mexico.

Raphael is pretty much detested by his co-workers in the US Senate, as well as all reasonable people. Basically, everyone except his brainwashed voters. And it’s hard to know exactly who his voters might be, because Texas doesn’t have registration by party. Voters “declare” a party for a primary, and that is washed away at the end of the year. Therefore, we can’t look at voter registration stats to give us insight into whether Raphael is winning only Rethuglicans, or is able to pull from independents.

This year, the challenger is Colin Allred. Currently, Representative Allred is the Congressman representing the Texas 32nd. After he was graduated from Baylor University, he played football for the Tennessee Titans. He received a law degree from UC Berkeley, worked for HUD, and then was in private practice prior to being elected to the House.

Between January 2023 and quarter close on 30 June 2024, Congressman Allred raised more money in contributions than Raphael.

However, that doesn’t tell the whole story, as outside PACs have been spending big both on pro-Raphael and anti-Allred ads. Source.

Congressman Allred has, so far, walked a fine line between his support of Vice President Harris’ campaign, and running to the middle in an attempt to surpass President Biden’s 47% in 2020. Full details here.

If you look at the aggregated polling data, you’ll see that when a Republican firm polls, Raphael’s lead is 8 – 11% but falls to 3 – 4% when more legitimate pollster numbers are presented.

But the interesting thing is that if (and it’s a big if) RFK Jr (aka Worm Brain) can get on the Texas ballot, that may be enough to put Congressman Allred over the top. How, you ask?

If you want to study all the numbers relative to Worm Brain and the Texas race, you can read here and here. Bottom line from focus groups is that the people who back worm brain are “double haters”. Meaning they are opposed to both President Biden and Convicted Felon Trump, because they want “change”. (No polling nor focus groups have been undertaken yet, since Vice President Harris became our candidate.)

If you read the two links in the previous paragraphs, you’ll see that Worm Brain voters pull more from the Convicted Felon than they do from President Biden, and if “change” is what they’re looking for, they may segue to Vice President Harris. But that’s a digression.

The important thing is that Representative Allred IS CHANGE and Raphael is the same obnoxious coward that he’s always been. And those focus groups indicate that a percentage of Worm Brain voters (approximately 3 - 6%) will select whomever is running against any incumbent elected official on their ballots.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, could be the difference in terms of who represents the junior Senate seat from Texas. Will it happen? Unlikely. Everything would have to break just right. First, Worm Brain would have to get on the Texas ballot. He claims to have the signatures, but he hasn’t filed. If you look at the “RFK Jr. Ballot Access Tracker”, he claims to have access to 365 Electoral College votes, but he has only made the ballot for 115 of them, in 11 states. Then, the supporting voters would need to show up and vote. Anyone who signs a petition to get a third party or independent candidate on the ballot has a high probability of showing up because they took the time to sign the petition, but if their candidate doesn’t make the ballot, or drops out, they’re less likely to turn out. And Worm Brain may well drop out before the end of August. In addition, a lot of Democrats and reasonable thinkers would also need to show up to vote, AND Texas would have to avoid purging voters.

So, again, unlikely, but now you know.