TEXAS HOUSE RACES TO WATCH CASH

East Texas Race Tightens Beyond Belief
in Sign of Horror Show on GOP Horizon

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
October 21, 2020

A state House race that hasn't been on any radar screens appears to be more competitive than anyone could have ever imagined in a heavily Republican district in East Texas where the Democrats hadn't fielded a candidate for two entire decades until now.

But the House District 6 bout that features GOP State Rep. Matt Schaefer of Tyler and Democratic college student Julie Gobble would if it's really close be a sign that a blue tsunami of historic magnitude is heading for Texas with landfall slated for election day less than two weeks from now.

Republicans inside the Austin beltway are resigned to losing control of the Legislature's lower chamber with their odds falling more each day with President Donald Trump out of control without any apparent concern for down-ballot candidates in swing races.

Democrats expect to pick up a dozen Texas House seats at least in the general election on November 3. The more conservative estimates on both sides of the aisle have the Democrats with a net gain of 10 or 11 seats. The Democrats have an excellent shot at flipping several more Texas congressional districts after knocking longtime Republicans out two years ago. The prevailing sentiment is that Trump will beat Democrat Joe Biden in a close contest at the top of the Texas ticket after the final votes are cast 13 days from now.

Schaefer has to still be considered to be the favorite on paper nonetheless in HD 6 where U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Trump both garnered 67 percent of the vote in 2018 and 2016 respectively as the Republicans leading the tickets in the last two cycles. But Gobble has clearly been a superior candidate by every measuring standard - and she has a monopoly on the momentum with a campaign that's gone from prohibitive underdog to serious contender in a contest that could be a harbinger for a wave like no one has ever witnessed in a presidential election.

Gobble raised more than twice as much campaign cash as Schaefer during the three summer months - a development that might not be saying all that much when considering that the incumbent rounded up less than $15,000 in that span of time. Schaefer's biggest contribution in 2020 heading into the final month before the election was a $5,000 check that he scored from Superior Firearms of Texas LLC in Tyler. Schaefer's most lucrative show of support last year came with a $5,000 donation from fracking billionaire and self-proclaimed bishop Farris Wilks of Cisco.

Gobble in the meantime appears to have shown up based on contributions that she started receiving in the past few months from Democrats from all parts of Texas and the United States. Gobble needed 82 pages to list all of her donors this summer while Schaefer's campaign finance report for that period only covered 21 pages. The big trial lawyer money is probably flowing now to the 25-year-old Democratic nominee in HD 6.

If Gobble wins or comes close, the Democrats at that point could have a chance to flip as many as two dozen House districts with the sky as the limit in the first election for the White House to ever be held in a pandemic on par with the coronavirus crisis. Suburban Republicans who appeared to be safe like State Reps. Stephanie Klick of Fort Worth, Valoree Swanson of Spring and Lyle Larson of San Antonio would be in trouble if the fight between Schaefer and Gobble is as tight as it's started to seem to be. But GOP incumbents in solid red rural areas from State Rep. John Frullo of Lubbock to State Rep. John Cyrier of Lockhart could be vulnerable as well if Schaefer is.

More than half of the 83 state House seats that the GOP currently controls could have been vulnerable if Schaefer is really at risk if Democrats hadn't written off two dozen without candidates on the fall ballot.

Schaefer on the other hand has been a prime target as a tea party lawmaker who'd been the original president of the hard-right Texas Freedom Caucus. Schaefer has one of the lowest rates at the Capitol when it comes to passing legislation. His most significant accomplishment came in 2017 when he persuaded a sufficient number of GOP colleagues to tack a show me your papers amendment to a bill that would have given Texas the most draconian immigration laws in the country.

Schaefer had given Democrats a gift when he blamed a mass shooting in the Midland-Odessa area on godless depravity amid the implication that the fact that a gun was the lethal weapon had been irrelevant.

But Schaefer unwittingly handed a potential opponent a nuclear weapon on a silver platter when he cast the only opposing vote in committee against a state budget that earmarked a massive amount for public education and property tax relief.

When given the opportunity to defend his positions on the extreme right on which Gobble has seized with a passion, Schaefer refused to participate in a debate that had been scheduled between the two major party competitors in HD 6.

None of the Republican state legislators here have any achievements to tout on the campaign trail since their votes last year for a landmark boost in school funding plan that they've been planning to slash to avoid a tax bill in the 2021 regular session to cover the ever-soaring costs of the COVID-19 contagion in a state that was the summer epicenter thanks to Trump and Governor Greg Abbott's mishandling of the Texas response.

Schaefer pulled off a major upset in his first race for the House in 2012 when he ousted a longtime conservative incumbent in the primary election by running even farther to the right. Schaefer had attacked the late Leo Berman for breaking a term limits pledge. Schaefer has apparently changed his position on term limitations, however, as he seeks a fifth term in the House this fall.

The current Capitol Inside forecast has Democrats wrestling 15 Texas House seats next month from a helpless and hapless GOP after predicting that 11 would flip in 2018 when the Republicans lost a dozen. The consensus opinion at this point two years ago had been that the Democrats would pick up five or six House seats.