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There are a lot of things I thought I would never see happen in Texas politics. Just to pick a few across a vast and varied spectrum: Ann Richards’s election to the governorship in 1990 seemed miraculous — a sign that Texas had turned a corner and was finally heading in a progressive direction. Of course it didn’t, as we saw with her successor George W. Bush and his ascendancy to the presidency in the 2000 election, a step in a different direction but no less surprising to those who had seen, up close and personal, his pretty confounding lack of gravitas.
State Senator Wendy Davis in pink running shoes giving the anti-abortion boys in the Legislature what-for with her 2013 filibuster was another “this can’t be happening” moment. Some jolts have come on a micro scale, as when I recently learned that a group of liberal friends in Austin occasionally had breakfast with Karl Rove. A master builder of Republican dominance in Texas and elsewhere has transitioned from Evil Genius to Wise Man.
But the head spinning-est thing I have witnessed in a long time is Bernie Sanders’s rise to within spitting distance of victory in the Texas Democratic primary on Super Tuesday. Yes, the polls have tightened — Mr. Sanders surged after voting in Iowa, New Hampshire and Nevada, but it has settled into a close race with former Vice President Joe Biden. (Mr. Sanders was ahead of Mr. Biden by an average of about five points before the South Carolina primary results were factored in.)
But still. That Mr. Sanders is doing so well in the state that gave the country Tom DeLay (“The Exterminator”) and Ted Cruz (“Darth Vader”), among many, many other conservative politicians, is mind boggling, especially because — as every man, woman and child now knows — no Democrat has been elected to a major political office in the state since the days of Ann Richards.
Senator John Cornyn, whose fealty to President Trump remains unshakable, has been entrenched since 2002. Before Greg Abbott was elected governor in 2014, as state attorney general he used to brag about getting up in the morning and suing the Obama administration. (“I go into the office, I sue the federal government, and I go home,” he famously said.) And before Mr. Abbott there were just over 14 years of Gov. Rick “Whoops!” Perry, more recently departed as secretary of the Energy Department after learning on the job since 2017.
Maybe I am out of touch, but a candidate who calls himself a democratic socialist, promises to end fracking and savages oil companies wouldn’t seem to be the likely savior of Democratic politics in Texas. In fact, in 2016, Mr. Sanders lost to Hillary Clinton by more than 30 points here.
You could argue, as some do, that with so many candidates scrapping over the middle, it makes sense that Mr. Sanders, in the 20 percent-plus range, has the biggest total. You could say that after Mr. Biden’s strong stand in the South Carolina primary, things could change.
But let’s consider the surprising, if short-lived, Beto O’Rourke phenom. It suggested the existence of an untapped pool of left-leaning voters here — you may recall that the obscure if charismatic El Paso congressman came within about 219,000 votes of Mr. Cruz with a combination of young voters, Latino voters and newly registered voters (Mr. Cruz won in a squeaker, 50.9 percent to 48.3 percent). Some of the same people who engineered Mr. O’Rourke’s rise — but not his fall — are former and current Sanders organizers who postulate that Texas isn’t a Republican state but a nonvoting state.
It’s also a rich state with a lot of poor people, many of whom are part of an ever-expanding Latino population. The Legislature’s commitment to improving schools and preserving the environment (much less providing protections from climate change) remains desultory at best. Texas still has the highest number of residents without health insurance — about 17 percent — which makes a Medicare for All promise pretty enticing. As a community organizer put it, “Our problem is not the employment rate, it’s the poverty rate.”
Yet all of these factors also explain why traditional Texas Democrats aren’t feeling the Bern. Those who are hoping for a purple if not blue Texas live in fear that Mr. Sanders’s name at the top of the ticket will eradicate the gains made in 2018, when moderate Democrats finally got a small purchase back in state and national politics. Flipping the Texas House has, for the first time since 2003, looked like a real possibility — unless Mr. Sanders scares moderate voters away from the polls. Democrats here are 10 seats away from winning a House majority, a difficult but not insurmountable fight.
Taking the House is crucial because of the coming 2020 census and redistricting. The Republican-dominated Legislature has long drawn the maps and so has maintained control, allowing its members to prioritize, for instance, a fight over transgender bathroom access — “No men in women’s bathrooms!” — over decent funding for public education.
To these moderate and, yes, old-line liberals, a bet on Mr. Sanders is one Texas cannot afford. As Keir Murray, a Houston-based political consultant puts it, allowing the Republicans another mandate in Texas means more low-wage jobs, and more people who don’t get decent schools for their kids and who don’t get the future they deserve. “Bernie is going to lose and be a disastrous candidate for Texas,” he says. “And as a Texan, that’s what I care about.”
That last statement may be the least surprising of 2020.
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