Let's talk about Trump's trouble in Texas and Democrats' deluge of dollars.... - Belle of the Ranch

Well, howdy there Internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about Trump's trouble in Texas and Democrats deluge of dollars.

The Republican party is facing a difficult midterm to say the least. Since his election, Trump's tariffs started dragging down the economy just like they did in his first term. DOGE was a bust that wound up hurting his base. His flagship piece of legislation was a disaster that only helped billionaires. His trade wars hurt farmers. Gas prices are soaring. Electricity bills are up after Trump promised to cut them in half. Then he tried to block the release of the Epstein files. Inflation was up.

Then Trump started a war with Iran that he still hasn't explained to the American people and definitely doesn't have a buy-in for it. There's a long time political quip that says all wars are popular for the first 30 days. Trump might be the first president in modern history to find a way to defy that.

Then the war itself caused more trade disruptions and an energy shock. Inflation is up. Gas prices are up, which means we'll see more inflation in the future. About the only things that are down are consumer sentiment and his polling numbers.

And congressional Republicans just sat in their chairs and watched passively while Trump did all of this. Needless to say, they're worried about the midterms and that was before Trump posted a picture of himself as Jesus and started a fight with the Pope. What a bizarre sentence to have to say.

Texas has been a reliably red state for almost 50 years and was generally a state they didn't even really have to campaign in. And even this year, the Senate Republican Super PAC didn't seem to plan on committing any money to ad buys there. Despite the possibility of a dummymander and the Republican party losing Latino voters. I'm sure attacking the Pope won't heighten that problem. They felt safe. Now that might change.

State Representative James Talarico is running for Senate. He just raised more in the first quarter of an election year than any other candidate for Senate. I'm sure you're waiting for the qualifier. Any candidate for Senate in X number of years in Texas, in a red state? Nope. He raised more in the first quarter of an election year than any other candidate for Senate. Period. Ever. Any state. He brought in more than $27 million.

The fact that the largest first quarter ever was by a Democrat in a red state that Senate Republicans had kind of decided to let sort itself out is definitely leading to some recalibration. Some Republican operatives are now predicting a blue wave so big they're talking about Texas and the need to defend it like the Alamo.

This is going to scramble a lot of other races. We talked about how the possibility of Texas going blue would drain resources from Republicans in other states as Republicans sought to defend their most important state. That was just taking into account polling and a potential dummymander. Talarico just gave them 27 million other reasons to divert resources to Texas.

As an aside, maybe Republicans shouldn't call it the Alamo. I'm not sure they understand who won there.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.