Bernie Sanders stokes question for Texas Democrats: How would his nomination affect down-ballot?

[RandySF]

While Sanders supporters proclaim a growing movement that will bring out new voters needed to flip the state, nearly two dozen Texas Democratic officeholders, candidates, activists and donors interviewed for this story expressed concern — sometimes bordering on despair — that a Sanders Democratic nomination is the difference between being on offense or in retreat in Texas this cycle.

The longtime minority party in Texas started the year with aims to flip nine seats needed to wrestle control of the Texas House of Representatives ahead of a crucial redistricting year in the Legislature. And on a parallel track, national Democrats are targeting seven Republican-held U.S. House seats in Texas.

The key to achieving those goals was continuing to make gains in the suburbs, where educated voters have shown an uneasiness with President Donald Trump’s brash brand of politics. But many leading Democrats in Texas — Sanders supporters would call them “the establishment” — fear the focus of the races here will shift if the Democratic Party elects a candidate at the top of the ticket who embraces the label “democratic socialism.”

“There is so much hope ... knowing that if you have somebody like a Biden or a Buttigieg or a Klobuchar at the top of the ticket, we have extraordinary opportunities down-ballot ... and to make this race about Donald Trump and Republicans in Texas,” said Matt Angle, a longtime Democratic strategist in the state. “The concern is if Bernie is the nominee, then it’s about him.

“It clouds the narrative down-ballot,” he added. “It changes the narrative in a way that we didn’t expect to.”





https://www.texastribune.org/2020/02/25/bernie-sanders-texas-democrats/

[Sloumeau]

1. K&R

[BilltheCat]

2. shudder to think of it

[Cha]

3. KICK!