The group Battleground Texas was begun with the idea that Texas is a state that can turn blue, but despite the money, volunteers and strategizing, Republicans expanded their margin of victory in this week’s elections.
Battleground Texas never promised a blue state by 2014, however, so there’s still a chance the group can keep its thousands of volunteers motivated.
"What Battleground Texas can do is they can say, ‘Look, now that we have lost these elections and we still live in the state that hasn’t yet turned blue, there’s a threat that we’re facing, but there’s also hope for the future because of the power we’ve built in communities across the state,'" says Hahrie Han, a professor at Wellesley College in Massachusetts who specializes in the role civic associations play in mobilizing political participation.
With such a resounding defeat, this argument will be tougher to make, particularly to deep-pocketed donors who will need convincing.
"Those donors are now going to look at the entire argument made by Battleground Texas that Texas can be turned purple or blue relatively soon with a heightened level of skepticism following Wendy Davis’s loss by 20 points," says Mark Jones, chair of Rice University’s political science department.
Moving forward, the group will need to mobilize millenials, Latino voters and women. If they don’t keep the momentum, Jones says for Texas Democrats, 2018 won’t look much better than 2014.
Here's our interview with Battleground Texas founder Jeremy Bird.
