Commentary: What the ballots showed in the Texas primaries

It was supposed to be different in Texas Tuesday night.

Democrats were supposed to dominate, while Republicans were supposed to be wringing their hands. But when the final numbers came in, that's not what the ballots showed.

The tale of the Texas primaries is a powerful reminder of the political axiom, "Nothing is good or bad, except by comparison."  And the decisions regarding which numbers to compare can result in wildly different headlines.

For example, Wednesday morning Axios ran the headline "Texas-sized wins for women, Dems."  In fact, 1.5 million Republicans turned out, beating Democratic turnout by half a million. How is that a "win?" Because the Democrats' million-voter turnout was a significant improvement over their numbers in 2014 or 2010. 

The Hill's headline told a similary story: "Dems double turnout in Texas from previous midterm."

Yes, the Democratic share of the vote—40 percent—is a huge improvement over 2014's 29 percent. But it's still, well, 40 percent. The real news isn't that Democratic turnout this year was so good, but rather, that during the Obama years, Democratic turnout in Texas was awful.  In fact, as recently as 2006 Democrats made up about 44 percent of the primary vote turnout.

"You saw record Republican turnout," RNC Chair Ronna Romney McDaniel said Wednesday morning. "We kept hearing about this unprecedented Democratic turnout, but Republicans showed up in droves."

And given that there were 111 Democratic candidates for Congress alone, each one driving up turnout, while the GOP had few competitive races, these turnout numbers look even worse.

"Every two years the Democrats find some sort of factoid to fixate on and convince themselves that this is the year where they make Texas competitive - and every two years it falls flat," GOP pollster Chris Wilson told Business Insider.

That certainly appears to be the case when it comes to Sen. Ted Cruz's seat.  His Democratic opponent, Rep. Beto O'Rourke, has consistently raised more money than the incumbent Republican (quite a feat in itself) and was the media darling of the race. But as the Texas Tribune noted, "his share of the vote [62 percent] was surprisingly low," and O'Rourke actually lost some counties to his unknown and poorly-funded primary opponents.

Regardless, Sen. Cruz is clearly taking the race very seriously. Despite winning more votes by himself (1.3 million) than the entire Democratic field, Cruz hit the airwaves with a parody country song as soon as the polls closed: "If You're Gonna Run In Texas, You Can't Be A Liberal Man."  The song comments on the fact "liberal Robert…changed his name to Beto"-- an interesting line of attack from Rafael Edward Cruz.

What do Tuesday's results mean for the GOP in November? "I'm quietly optimistic that Republicans can hold onto the House in the fall," says Ned Ryun of American Majority, a conservative activist group that trains candidates around the country.

"Voters are saying the most important issues are the economy, jobs and national security and they favor Republicans significantly on all three: By 11 points on the economy, 9 points on jobs and 19 points on national security. So I think the dynamic is that, coming into the fall, Republicans really need to sell their agenda," Ryun says.

Local Texas GOP consultant Derek Ryan agrees. "Six months ago, I don't think you'd have seen this many Republicans turn out. But now they're seeing more money in their paychecks and thinking 'Hey, I have something to lose here.'"

Ned Ryun also believes that the dynamic in the race for Texas Congressional District 7 will help Republicans nationwide. This suburban Houston district is one of 23 across the country that Republicans hold but supported Hillary Clinton in 2016. Centrist candidates are likely to give Democrats a better chance of picking up these swing districts, which may explain why the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee took the unusual step of dropping opposition research on one of its own candidates, progressive Democrat Laura Moser.

Moser, a journalist and liberal activist who grew up in Texas but until recently lived in Washington, DC, wrote in 2014 that she'd "sooner have my teeth pulled without anesthesia" than live in Paris, TX. She's also written articles mocking her experience at a black church service, as well as other troubling articles.

Unfortunately for the DCCC, Moser won enough votes to make it into the runoff, which means a high-profile and divisive battle royal between the Clinton Establishment and Bernie Sanders-Liz Warren wings of the party.

"I think you'll see messy primaries like this across the country," Ryun says, "Which will make it that much harder for Democrats to take back the House."

Still, there's no denying Democrats are enthusiastic. They were never going to be a majority of the voters on Tuesday night, but they've gotten their numbers back up to historic norms.  As David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report tweeted:

"Does this mean a blue wave is about to wash over TX? Most likely not. Does it confirm a spike in Dem enthusiasm relative to past midterms that should concern the GOP in a lot of places? Yes."

In:
• Democratic Party
• Republican Party
• Texas