Is Texas really in play in 2020?

David Druker:

President Trump’s high confidence in winning Texas is vexing some Republican insiders, who fret that his 2020 campaign is unprepared to handle a generational challenge from the Democratic Party for control of the state’s critical 38 votes in the Electoral College.

The Democrats flipped two suburban Texas congressional districts and another dozen seats in the state house in the midterm elections, while Democrat Beto O'Rourke nearly ousted Republican Sen. Ted Cruz. GOP strategists with deep experience in Texas are bracing for the possibility of more turbulence next year, with some worrying that Trump’s top political officials in the state are ill-equipped for the competition. Others are pleased with the campaign’s Texas leadership, but question party strategy.

“Personnel are fine,” said a veteran Republican operative with Texas ties who requested anonymity to avoid publicly criticizing Trump or the Republican National Committee. “But [I] still don’t believe Trump headquarters understands [his] exposure in Texas.” Another GOP operative, who is based in Texas, said the party needs to update its pitch to voters to account for an electorate that is evolving and becoming less Republican.

“This is a very poor sign about a real and needed focus on diverse populations and areas of the state that deserve to have a different campaign approach than what we saw in 2018,” this operative said, referring to the leadership of “Trump Victory” in Texas, which is a joint effort of the Trump campaign and the RNC. There is virtually no scenario in which Trump wins reelection without Texas.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick was recently named honorary chairman of Trump Victory in the state, with Taylor Mattox, a veteran of Gov. Greg Abbott’s successful campaigns, hired as state director. Stephanie Alexander is the regional political director overseeing Texas, along with other states. Patrick is predicting the president will win Texas by more than the 9 points that carried him in 2016.

Such bold claims have left some Republicans privately uneasy.

They wonder if the Trump campaign and the RNC appreciate the Democrats’ growing strength in a state that has supported the GOP consistently in statewide contests since the early 1990s. Democrats there have gained under Trump as white suburbanites that typically voted Republican moved Left. The Democrats also benefited from transplants who brought their liberal politics with them. Hispanic support for Republicans in Texas has generally remained unchanged.
...

The Democrats have not won a statewide office in Texas in over 20 years.  The Beto candidacy against Trump looks like an aberration that failed.  He had unanimous support from the media both in and out of the states and big bucks from West Coast liberals and still failed.  His campaign for the Presidency demonstrates what a goofball he was all along.  When he was running against Cruz those issues were largely ignored.

These analysts about Texas some to ignore contradictory evidence to their thesis.  For example, in South Texas a Hispanic Republican defeated a favored Democrat for a State Senate seat that had not been held by a Republican before.  Also, the Democrats open border policy is not popular with Hispanic voters on the border that have found themselves having to provide goods and services out of local budgets to deal with the migrants which are having to be released because of the ridiculous requirements of the Flores holding by a liberal judge in California. 

In 2018 Democrats made some headway in suburban districts taking advantage of the hostility built up by their bogus Russian collusion hoax.  Many of those votes have apparently abandoned the fever swamps of CNN and MSNBC when the hoax was revealed by Mueller.