The new Times/Siena poll shows the Senate race in a dead heat, which is frankly a devastating blow to the natural order of things.
Let’s be honest: nobody likes a surprise in late October. When I first saw the new Times/Siena poll showing the Texas Senate race between Ted Cruz and Colin Allred is officially a tossup, I nearly dropped my phone into a perfectly good bowl of gazpacho at my favorite K Street bistro. For a generation, Texas has stood as a beacon of electoral predictability, a comforting red monolith that required absolutely zero critical analysis on election night. Now, thanks to a sudden influx of competitive voting, that sacred norm is under siege.
The primary culprits here appear to be Hispanic voters, who are shifting in ways that fundamentally alter the state’s political geometry and create a highly favorable matchup for Democrats. I’m just asking the questions no one else will: is it really fair for a demographic group to change its mind after we’ve already locked in our punditry narratives? Think of the consultants. Think of the interactive map operators on the Sunday shows who spent three months programming Dallas to default to a serene, unquestioned crimson. By flirting with a Democratic upset, these voters are displaying a shocking disregard for the people who actually run Washington.
I sat down with several top-tier strategists this week, and the mood on background was grim. The sheer audacity of a competitive statewide election is tearing at the fabric of polite society.
It is frankly un-American to make a sitting U.S. Senator campaign for his own seat in the final weeks of an election.
Say what you will about Ted Cruz, but a source close to leadership tells me the Senator is exhausted. He had planned a lovely, restorative November trip to Cancún, confident that his constituents understood their role as silent rubber stamps. Instead, he is being dragged back onto the campaign trail to talk to voters and defend his legislative record—an indignity no incumbent should ever have to endure in a civilized republic.
This is what the base doesn't understand about optics. When you make a Republican senator sweat in Texas, you aren't exercising your democratic rights, you are introducing unneeded stress into the lives of hard-working television analysts who simply want to call the race at 8:01 PM and go to the green room. It is time for Texans to look deep inside themselves, do the right thing, and go back to voting exactly how my models predicted so the rest of us can get some sleep.