Every election cycle for as long as I can remember, I issue the same call to the candidates for president of the United States.

Come on back to Texas and campaign in person, tell us to our faces, that you want our votes!

Why do they avoid the state? Well, we’re not a “battleground” location for the major-party candidates for POTUS. Democrats have all but given up on us, while Republicans take us for granted.

Let’s see. How is that changing? Well, Vice President Kamala Harris’s entry into the campaign has fired up Democratic loyalists across land …. including in Texas!

Recent history suggests that we well could become a battleground in 2024. I know we’ve said that before, only to be disappointed.

Donald Trump won Texas’s electoral votes in 2020 by just a little more than 5%. In 2016, Trump’s margin was 9%. Mitt Romney carried the state with a 15% majority in 2012 and John McCain won in 2008 with 12%. Do you see a pattern? If not, I’ll tell you that the GOP margin has shrunk over the past three election cycles.

Joe Biden pulled out of the contest believing his re-election chances had sunk to near zero., In stepped the vice president. She has raised hundreds of millions of campaign dollars in just two weeks! She is firing up the Democratic base! Thus, it appears to me that the candidates would not waste their time by visiting us in North Texas during this election season.

Look, I like politics. I like retail politics, when candidates have to look voters in the eye and tell us what they intend to do if we elect them.

I realize I am likely piddling into the wind on this request, but I’ll make it anyway.

Texas provides a huge pool of votes. My preference would be for VP Harris to win most of them. Based on what might be transpiring, there seems to be a shot — I’ll measure its probability later — that Kamala Harris could break through this barrier.