{"id":53532,"date":"2022-11-21T02:40:14","date_gmt":"2022-11-21T02:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=53532"},"modified":"2022-11-21T02:41:20","modified_gmt":"2022-11-21T02:41:20","slug":"texas-gop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=53532","title":{"rendered":"Confused by GOP dominance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p>I am going to admit what ought to be obvious: The Republican dominance of the Texas political landscape is confusing in the extreme to me.<\/p>\n<p>Every GOP statewide candidate running for election or re-election in the just-completed midterm campaign won by a lot over their Democratic challenger. Leading the way, of course, was Gov. Greg Abbott, who won re-election to a third term by 11% over Beto O&#8217;Rourke &#8230; who I believe now needs to get back to working a day job and bringing home a paycheck. Beto&#8217;s days as a pol appear to be over.<\/p>\n<p>The rest of the ballot showed similar victories. Perhaps most stunning to me was the result of the Texas attorney general&#8217;s contest. GOP incumbent Ken Paxton pounded Democratic challenger Rochelle Garza by a margin similar to what Abbott scored.<\/p>\n<p>What baffles me is how Paxton managed such an impressive victory while campaigning under the shadow of a state felony indictment that came down in 2015, just after Paxton took office. The indictment alleges securities fraud. Paxton hasn&#8217;t gone to trail yet. It is not even clear when that will happen.<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, there have been questions relating to the way he runs the AG&#8217;s office; seven top deputies quit and then blew the whistle on Paxton, alleging that he does favors for a top donor, suggesting criminal behavior.<\/p>\n<p>Texas Democrats keep talking a good game about wrestling some of these offices out of GOP hands. Every election cycle, though, produces the same sorry result: Republicans win by comfortable margins.<\/p>\n<p>Yes, the state&#8217;s population is growing rapidly. Its demography is changing to what &#8220;experts&#8221; suggest is a more Democrat-friendly electorate.<\/p>\n<p>I want the state to become more of a battleground, with the two major parties battling head-to-head over ideas, philosophy and policy. I am tired of Republicans winning these fights and then foisting their far right-wing agenda on a population that doesn&#8217;t buy into it.<\/p>\n<p>When will it change? I do not know. I am just going to keep wishin&#8217; and hopin&#8217; the day comes sooner rather than later.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><a href=\"mailto:johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com\">johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I am going to admit what ought to be obvious: The Republican dominance of the Texas political landscape is confusing in the extreme to me. Every GOP statewide candidate running for election or re-election in the just-completed midterm campaign won by a lot over their Democratic challenger. Leading the way, of course, was Gov. Greg &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=53532\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Confused by GOP dominance<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[7043,2006,4603,4622],"class_list":["post-53532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-state-news","tag-beto-orourke","tag-greg-abbott","tag-texas-democrats","tag-texas-gop"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53532"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53532\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53535,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53532\/revisions\/53535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}