Why RPT Slept
The biggest, reddest state in the country is wholly unprepared for the most consequential presidential election in 50 years.
There’s a common misconception that Texas is a deep red state, and that it always has been and it always will be.
Texas was a reliably blue state as recently as the 1990 statewide election, which was the last time Democrats swept the statewide elections in Texas.
Due in large part to a sweeping shift engineered by Karl Rove and led by Kay Bailey Hutchison and Rick Perry, in 1990 Republicans won TWO statewide races of consequence: Treasurer (KBH) and Agriculture Commissioner (Perry). It was a sea change in Texas politics that began an uninterrupted era of dominance that has not been cut into since. The era of dominance birthed the Texas Model, which has made Texas the unstoppable economic engine envied by every state and nation on the planet.
In 1993, when Democrat Lloyd Bentsen resigned the U.S. Senate seat to become President Clinton’s Treasury Secretary, the top Republican statewide official (KBH) ran for U.S. Senate in the special election and won, following that by winning both the primary and the general in 1994. She won again in 2000 and 2006. The future was here.
Beginning in 1994, Republicans began a string of consecutive statewide election victories that would make Nebraska blush. From 1994 to today, Democrats have not won a SINGLE statewide race in Texas. Read that again. Not one.
Not U.S. Senate, Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Comptroller (previously called Treasurer), Land Commissioner, Agriculture Commissioner, Railroad Commissioner (3 seats, not 1), Supreme Court or Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.
Want to know the combined record of Democrats in statewide races since 1998? 0–132.
Flash forward to today.
Texas remains a Republican state, with GOP majorities in the Teas House and Senate and all statewide offices.
The highest profile scare the GOP has had was in 2018, when Beto O’Rourke came 2.6% from defeating incumbent Ted Cruz, mostly due to Beto raising $100M in hard money in what was a very good year nationally for Democrats. On his behalf, more money was spent in favor of Beto in 2018 than any U.S. Senate race in history at the time.
This year, there are a host of competitive races at the statewide level, including President, U.S. Senate (Cruz vs. Colin Allred), Supreme Court (incumbent John Devine won his primary by less than 1%) and Railroad Commissioner (Christi Craddick will face an onslaught of left wing environmental money). The size of the majority in the Texas House is at stake, as are as many as three contested Congressional seats, Court of Appeals majorities in Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio, and other key races.
The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) is in the worst shape in the modern era.
Here are the undeniable facts:
> RPT currently has 5 full time paid staff (they should have 40 right now)
> RPT does not register new voters (and hasn’t for at least five years) despite the fact that 1,000 people move to Texas every day
> As of one week ago, RPT was $500,000 short of its minimum budget for the State Convention (which begins May 23 in San Antonio)
> RPT needs a minimum of $1.5M for Victory (the coordinated campaign to get out the vote). They have raised $200,000 and the Victory chair resigned this week in frustration (which has never happened before).
The cold reality is that RPT is inexplicably and unacceptably unprepared for the most important election in our lifetime. It does not have to be this way.
A serious state party with serious people running it would raise $5M in new money, hire 35 more staff, partner with our nominees, statewide officials, county parties, clubs and auxiliaries, register new voters, unify the party and work to win as many races as possible this fall. And then in January work constructively and collaboratively to pass as much of the RPT platform and legislative priorities as possible.
One thing is abundantly clear: It is time for change at RPT. President Donald Trump needs it. Senator Ted Cruz needs it. Texas needs it. America needs it.
The time is now.
It is for this reason that on May 17 I announced my candidacy to be Republican Party of Texas chairman — to save Texas.
We need President Trump to win Texas by the largest margin possible, to ensure Sen. Ted Cruz is re-elected and that all of our targeted races perform well.
Saving Texas is worth the sacrifice. I hope you will join me in this urgent mission.
Matt Mackowiak is the Travis County GOP chairman and President of Potomac Strategy Group. He has helped elect five members of Congress, served in senior roles for two U.S. Senators and a Governor, and worked in White House Advance in 2005. His widely read newsletter Must Read Texas has 90,000 subscribers and receives 40,000+ views a day. He lives in Austin with his wife Amy and their two dogs, Hope and Harry.
