MJ Hegar leads the Democratic pack for U.S. Senate in Texas, but most voters don't know the

[TexasTowelie]

by Ross Ramsey, Texas Tribune


MJ Hegar leads the Democratic pack for U.S. Senate in Texas, but most voters don’t know the candidates, UT/TT Poll says


U.S. Air Force veteran MJ Hegar, with a scant 11% of Texas Democrats supporting her, leads the Democratic candidates in the race for U.S. Senate, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll. The bigger piece of news might be this: 66% of potential Democratic primary voters said either that they don’t know who they’ll support or that they haven’t thought about it enough to have an opinion.

Asked whether they’ve heard of the candidates, most of the respondents threw up their hands. State Sen. Royce West of Dallas, the most well-known of the candidates, was known to just 22% of voters, followed by Hegar, an unsuccessful 2018 congressional candidate from Round Rock, 21%; Chris Bell, a former U.S. representative and the party’s 2006 candidate for governor, 20%; Sema Hernandez, who ran against Beto O’Rourke in last year’s primary for U.S. Senate, 13%; Beaumont pastor Michael Cooper and political organizer Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, 12% each; and Amanda Edwards, an at-large Houston City Council member, 10%. Everyone else was known to fewer than 8% of Democratic voters.

“It’s not depressing if you’re John Cornyn,” said James Henson, who runs the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin and co-directs the poll. “The generous interpretation is that the crowded field at the presidential level is getting most of the public attention.

“The Democrats have not been able to find a candidate with experience running statewide who is fresh in the minds of the voters and is willing to run at the state level,” he said.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2019/09/11/hegar-leads-democratic-race-us-senate-texas-uttt-poll-says/

[evertonfc]

1. Ill say this.

Youll probably have to have a nominee with some name recognition, to win in Texas. Beto was unique in style and still lost. It will probably be another election cycle or two before a D can defeat a R state wide. I know here in Tennessee, it may be a generation.