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took the day off preemptively today and am taking the chance to catch up on the thread. here's what happened in texas yesterday:

as i posted in here, i got up early and did some work for beto. a couple of my friends are (were, i guess) paid campaign staffers or otherwise super-volunteers, so we met up, harassed UT students to go vote, and then knocked on some doors in target neighborhoods. we learned that the polling place in the neighborhood we were canvasing in was loving up in the morning, so we called it in to the texas civil rights project and i guess they got it fixed. in the evening we drove by the polling station and handed out water and snacks to the workers and people standing in line - there was still like an hour wait for people in line when the polls closed.

we went to a bar to watch the results where there was some democratic party thing going on - not sure if it was beto-specific or not. the reaction when they called the race for cruz was very muted, and it seemed like a lot of people were calling bullshit on it, as i mentioned in here at the time. to answer the question posed then, i had consciously set my expectations at what i thought was a reasonable level - i thought cruz would win, but by less than the polls were saying, which is about what wound up happening. i think most of the people i know in/around the campaign had about the same expectations, but of course they were more invested in the outcome than i was so it was harder for them to see. but i think they recognize the value of what they put together, both for this campaign and for the future, so there were good vibes all around. a lot of strangers involved with the campaign were really worrying me - i'm in a facebook group for volunteer opportunities for the campaign and a lot of people in there were starting to seem really unhinged in their expectations.

i can't say enough how much of a success this campaign was. a <3% margin for a republican statewide candidate is ludicrous. but beyond that, beto got enough people involved and engaged to drag two democratic state reps across the finish line in districts that were specifically designed to favor republicans (and tx-23 could still go D as well). three statewide officials, in races where margins are typically in the high teens, were within five points. they'll still gloat, and none of them should have even sniffed victory in a just world, but i think they're genuinely scared. in the state legislature, we knocked off two tea party republicans in the senate, which means dems only need to bring one R across the aisle to block a bill in the generally worse chamber. (this would have been a much bigger deal if we hadn't hosed up the special election from last month, but it's still big.) (also weirdly one of the dems that picked up a seat composed the music for the original english dub of dragon ball z or something like that?) and the state house flipped a dozen seats, which is huge because they'll get a lot more leverage in picking the next house speaker.

beto also showed two important things: that a democrat doesn't have to a) cling to the middle to be competitive in a red state, or b) accept pac money to run a relatively successful campaign. i hope those lessons, as well as the general sense of the importance of voter engagement, etc., carry on into future races.

2020 definitely doesn't look as rosy - ted cruz really does rub people the wrong way in a way that cornyn doesn't, and i honestly don't think beto is interested. either of the castros, as has been mentioned, would probably be too cautious/selfish to give it a go, and i don't think they have the style for it anyway. mark cuban might be dumb enough to give it a go but for my money i'd rather vote for gregg popovich

i also got one compliment on my stupid president shirt