Republican Party star Madison Cawthorn wins North Carolina US House race

Democrats see flipping states like Texas and Georgia as key to a possible landslide; Texas hasn’t voted for a Democratic presidential candidate since 1976, and Georgia since 1992. A New York Times and Siena College poll published Tuesday found Biden and Trump tied among likely voters in Georgia. “Until Democrats win a statewide election, we’re not a purple state,” said Brian Robinson, a Republican political consultant in Georgia. “We may be a purpling state. But until they win, this is a red state.”

Jon Ossoff, the Democratic candidate in one of the two contested Senate races in Georgia said it would break the Republican vise grip on the South and beat back the “Southern Strategy” of racial division that has kept the region solidly Republican for decades. A win, Ossoff said, would prove “it is no longer possible to divide Southerners on racial lines in order to win elections. Because there will be a multiracial coalition that is demanding more progressive leadership.”

In a recent interview, former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke made a similar case in regard to his home state of Texas. “Texas, more than any other state, has the ability to decide this on election night,” he said. “And what would be so powerful, and have so much political and poetic justice, is if the most voter-suppressed state in the union, with such a diverse electorate, turned out in the greatest numbers that put Joe Biden over the top.”

“Cities in states like Arizona and Texas are attracting young people, highly-educated people, and people of color — all groups that the national Republican Party has walked away from the last four years,” said the Oklahoma City mayor, David F. Holt, a Republican. “This losing demographic bet against big cities and their residents is putting Sun Belt states in play.”

Polls show the presidential race in Texas is effectively tied, and congressional polling for both parties has found Biden running up significant leads across the state’s once-red suburbs. A Biden victory there could be transformational, providing Democrats an opportunity to enlarge their House majority, shape redistricting and deliver a devastating psychological blow to Republicans.“Texas is really Biden’s to lose if he invests now, and that must include his time and presence in the state,” former Rep. Beto O’Rourke of Texas said. “He cannot only win our 38 electoral votes but really help down ballot Democrats, lock in our maps for 10 years, deny Trump the chance to declare victory illegally and send Trumpism on the run.”