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Candidates Do Not Engineer Mass Backlash With Carefully Chosen Rhetoric
Republicans are caught in a landslide, Democrats did not cause one.
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This guy ring any bells?
His name is Taylor Rehmet, the Democrat who just became Texas state senator-elect after voters in his district swung 31 points to the left in a Saturday special election. Donald Trump won the district just over a year ago by 17 points. Rehmet won his race by 14, despite being outspent ten to one.
I will confess that Rehmet wasn’t on my radar at all until this week.
Democrats have been over-performing in special elections by double digits for a year now, but most special elections aren’t pivotal in and of themselves. Rehmet has not given his party a majority or broken a Republican supermajority. What matters most, typically, isn’t whether Dems manage to flip a particular red seat blue, but the magnitude of the swing. If Dems are contesting any race this side of R+20, it’s fair to assume they have some chance of pulling off an upset. And every upset is worth celebrating. But real power lies down the road, in the durability of the trend from R to D.
On the other hand, 31 points is a veritable fuckton. Enough to be noticed by every party committee in the country.
So I thought it might be useful to conduct a little thought experiment. Or maybe it’s a Rorschach test. To look back at this race and ask (depending on your vantage point) How did Rehmet pull this off? Or, alternatively, How did this happen?
Let’s start with where Rehmet put his money.
Doesn’t get more kitchen table than sitting at a table in the kitchen.
But note the contrast to news reporting on what made this very red corner of Texas willing to open its heart to a Democrat. According to the New York Times, Tarrant County is the epicenter of a backlash to right-wing book banning and other kinds of censorship and discrimination.
So which was it? If you have thoughts to share, particularly if you’re familiar with this state senate district, I hope you’ll share them in the comments section. But the question is, did Rehmet win this race because his cookie-cutter pocketbook-issue rhetoric galvanized a Republican electorate? Or did he ride a wave of backlash to Republican overreach, in which case his bland economic messaging merely served to make him seem non-threatening? To reduce the effects of partisan polarization?
Did Democrats cause a landslide or are they simply being swept along by one?
TWO SHAKES OF A LAMB’S TALE?
You can probably guess where I come down on that question.
But first I want to emphasize why getting the answer right is so important...