Abbott adviser: 'Democrat enthusiasm' endangers Texas GOP

Gov. Greg Abbott greets President Trump at Dallas Love Field, October 25. Gov. Greg Abbott greets President Trump at Dallas Love Field, October 25. Photo: JIM WATSON, AFP/Getty Images Photo: JIM WATSON, AFP/Getty Images Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Abbott adviser: 'Democrat enthusiasm' endangers Texas GOP 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

AUSTIN -- After months of assurances from top Republicans that they still hold a firm grip on Texas voters, a top campaign adviser to Gov. Greg Abbott is warning that recent Virginia elections should be a "wakeup call" to the Texas GOP.

In a private memo to Abbott's aides, senior political adviser Dave Carney cautions that despite the fact that Texas is solid red in recent statewide voting patterns, suburban voters could pose significant problems for Republicans in next year's mid-term elections.

"It would be easy for us to say Texas is not Virginia. It would be easy for us to say the Democrats in Texas aren't that well organized," wrote Carney, a New Hampshire-based political consultant who has served as an adviser to Rick Perry and Abbott and was the White House political director for George H.W. Bush.

"That would be a huge mistake."

A copy of the memo was obtained by the Houston Chronicle.

Some political insiders say the memo is significant because it signals for the first time that Republicans may not be as sure about their prospects for sweeping next year's mid-term elections, as as they have in the past two decades.

Democrats last won statewide office in Texas in 1994.

Other insiders suggest that Carney could also be warning against complacency by Republicans, who could lose seats if their turnout in next year's elections drops off because they expect they will win.

As for Democrats, they and their consultants insist the Republicans now appear to be recognizing what they have been predicting for some time: Because of Trump and a general unhappiness with current state of politics, 2018 promises to be a winning year for Democrats.

"We agree," said Manny Garcia, deputy executive director of the Texas Democratic Party, which has not won a statewide race since 1994 but for months has been predicting gains in a number of races next year. "Polls are showing a strong movement to Democrats in many areas . . . This is a trend that's going on across the country."

In the memo, Carney asserts that Republican losses in the recent Virginia elections "were not caused by Republicans running a bad campaign." Instead, he insists that the GOP got more votes for governor of Virginia than they ever had -- but still lost."

"Republican voters showed up but were overwhelmed by Democrat enthusiasm," the memo states. "This wasn't a case of a great Democrat turning out the vote."

In fact, he says, Ralph Northam, the Democrat who won the governorship, "is no Barack Obama. In fact, most observers consider Northam a bad candidate," so bad that progressive organizations stopped mobilizing voter turnout on his behalf before the election because of his opposition to sanctuary cities.

"The Northern Virginia suburbs saw turnout increase substantially while the rest of the state turned out at historic levels," Carney wrote.

Texas Republicans, he reasons, could face a similar turnout by Democrats -- especially among suburban voters in areas where Democrats have recently registered enthusiasm, such as Houston and Dallas.

"We will have to deal with these very same problems (and they could be much worse in another year) during our reelection," Carney warned. "No matter who the Democrat candidate is, Democrats will turn out to vote in higher numbers than ever before to voice their displeasure with President Trump. Without Hillary Clinton to push them away suburban voters will lean Democratic in reaction to the national political environment."

"Like Virginia, Texas is growing and in doing so it is becoming more suburban, more independent and more easily influenced by the national political environment," the memo states, noting that that Republicans lost their 66-to-34 advantage in the Virginia House of Delegates.

With three races still too close to call, Democrats now hold a 49-to-48 advantage.

"The enthusiasm gap that we face is real," Carney cautions. "It is going to take a concerted effort by the campaign to overcome it, not just for ourselves, but for the down ballot races that will be depending on us to pull them over the line."

For their part, Democrats point to recent wins over Republicans in other states -- including an upset Tuesday in Oklahoma in a predominately Republican suburban Tulsa district, the third such win by Democrats in the past two years.

Democratic strategists believe that is part of what Texas Democratic Party Chair Gilberto Hinojosa has called "the beginning of the blue wave," a prediction echoed by Texas Democratic strategist Harold Cook who says 2018 promises to an "atrociously terrible election year for Republicans."

Even so, despite the new GOP concern, political scientists of all stripes still say that significant Republican losses still don't appear to be in the offing in Texas, despite recent polls that signal growing angst among some suburban voters.

"The Texas system is so structured in favor of the Republicans, that would take such an enormous tidal wave of turnout for Democrats, and I doubt that we'll see that," said Glen Biglaiser, a political scientist at the University of North Texas in Denton. "The numbers now just don't work."

James Dickey, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas, said while he agrees with Carney's assertion that the GOP should not take anything for granted in 2018, "that's the way we've approached it all along."

"I don't see how Democratic wins in Democratic states is relevant to what could happen in Texas," he said. "We are taking this election very seriously and are not ceding any territory.

"We are not taking anything for granted."