Politico: “The Republican National Committee cut million-dollar checks to six state parties in August as it prepared for the fall campaign. But one payment stands out amid a torrent of money flowing to traditional battleground states: $1.3 million to once-brick red Texas. On one level, it’s an astonishing development. But for those paying close attention this year, it’s hardly surprising at all.”
“Texas is more competitive this year than it’s been in a generation. And even though Democrats have been talking about this coming for, oh, perhaps 20 years, Texas has flown far under the radar in 2020 as states more essential to the battleground map (like Wisconsin) or more gettable for Joe Biden (like Arizona) suck up all the attention. But eyes would have popped if you traveled back to 2008 and told Texans, when Barack Obama lost the state by 12 points while winning nationally by 7 points, that the 2020 presidential contest in the state would be polling inside the margin of error. Yet even in 2016, President Donald Trump won Iowa by a larger margin than Texas, and in 2018, Democrat Beto O’Rourke lost to Sen. Ted Cruz by just 2.6 percentage points. The state’s rapidly growing and diversifying cities and suburbs are chock full of college-educated voters, a core constituency Trump has struggled to hold within the GOP.”