Since President Joe Biden’s term began, Texas has assumed its customary position at the vanguard of resistance to the federal government, while elections here have become quasi-referendums on a Democratic-controlled White House. Historically, this terrain makes for tough traveling for Democrats—certainly more difficult than the last time that GOP Senator Ted Cruz was on the ballot.
With each passing election cycle, what once looked like a watershed event—Democrat Beto O’Rourke’s near ouster of one of the Senate’s most detested members—now resembles little more than a flash flood. Since then, Democrats up and down the ballot have fallen short of liberals’ expectations and hopes, including with the El Pasoan’s own 2022 gubernatorial drubbing at the hands of Greg Abbott.
And yet, the march of electoral democracy continues, undeterred by matters of partisan competitiveness or existential ennui. Like death and property taxes, elections are inevitable (for now at least), and hope, by force of necessity, springs eternal.
