It’s 6 weeks till Super Tuesday. In Texas, that’s 6 more weeks of Biden, Bloomberg TV
Democratic candidates are piling into Texas, and this time not only for money but for votes.
Texas is usually a big cash machine for Democratic donations, but the wide-open race for Super Tuesday presidential delegates has candidates passing through town like 18-wheelers.
Joe Biden was in Arlington on Wednesday, although Arlington didn’t seem to notice. I didn’t even see a protester outside Esports Stadium, although I did see one Saturday when Mike Bloomberg commandeered the rooftop deck at a Dallas bar named Happiest Hour.
The protest sign said, “Don’t Allow Bloomberg to Turn Texas Blue,” a possibility which did not even cross anyone’s mind in Texas until he ran $17 million in TV ads.
Bloomberg alone is on track to run $40 million-$50 million in TV ads, and that still might not get him close enough to win the 15% of the vote required to take delegates, Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said.
Texas’ Democrats are more moderate than California’s. So Texas is the best place for Bloomberg and Biden to find delegates.
“The Texas primary will be a critical test for the Bloomberg strategy,” Jones said.
For Biden, the frontrunner here, Texas is where he can regain momentum if he doesn’t do well in more liberal states.
“He is relying on a large delegate haul in Texas to help counteract what he anticipates as a much more tepid showing in the California primary,” Jones said.
In Arlington, Biden spoke to African American pastors at a National Baptist church conference.
Instead of a bombastic campaign speech, he gave a low-key talk reminiscing about watching the civil rights movement unfold before he had a color TV, and then about the progress America made with “my buddy [President] Barack Obama.”
I wouldn’t call him sleepy. More steady.
In a speech devoted almost entirely to recounting civil rights history, he referred to President Donald Trump’s “poisonous and divisive politics.”
“Hate never goes away,” he said. “It just hides.”
He has three important local endorsements: U.S. Reps. Colin Allred and Eddie Bernice Johnson of Dallas and Marc Veasey of Fort Worth.
Biden is expected to carry the African American vote heavily in Texas and divide the Hispanic vote with U.S. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, who’s endorsed by former candidate Julián Castro.
“Biden really captures the mainstream lane,” said consultant Matt Angle of the Washington-based Lone Star Project.
“People who are very pragmatic, practical — they want somebody with the best chance of beating Trump. People who are a little more idealistic or ideological, they’re for Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders.”
Sanders and Warren are running 2-3 behind Biden in Texas, dividing party liberals.
Bloomberg is the insurance plan.
In Dallas, Bloomberg didn’t roll out any major local endorsements. But he did bring “Judge Judy” Sheindlin aboard his tour bus, the “Get It Done Express.”
“Bloomberg has a chance if Biden were to stumble — if he doesn’t do well early,” Angle said.
If not, Bloomberg’s campaign becomes the Out of Time Express.
This story was originally published January 17, 2020 at 5:45 AM.
