Patrick’s campaign strategy in rural Texas may suggest he’s trying to shore up the party’s most reliable base of voters in an area that both Beto O’Rourke and Mike Collier have spent considerable resources to win over this election cycle.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, up for reelection in November, started a bus tour of mostly rural Texas in late August, making stops in small towns all over the state.On one weekday morning in late August, Lt. Gov.’s campaign had an announcement to make: After laying low throughout the summer, he was ramping up his reelection effort with a statewide bus tour, with plans to make 131 stops.
It is not surprising given the political environment. Polls show every GOP statewide official has a clear — if not overwhelming — lead over their Democratic opposition, and they want to selectively campaign while minimizing situations where they can be knocked off message, especially by unfriendly media.
“We’ll win rural [Texas], but we cannot take it for granted,” Patrick said during a stop in Gaines County that an attendee livestreamed on Facebook. “We’re going to win, but the difference is we have to run up the score.” Since the bus tour started, Patrick has begun airing TV ads, including one that plays defense on Collier’s signature issue — the reliability of the power grid. And more recently Patrick started airing his first anti-Collier TV ad, a stark departure from 2018 when Collier first challenged Patrick and was confidently ignored by the incumbent.
Springer suggested local media — some of whom are invited to Patrick’s events — still matters in rural Texas. The content that Patrick’s campaign produces from the bus tour paints the picture of a folksy — sometimes apolitical — romp through small-town Texas. He gave a motivational speech to the men’s baseball team at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton. He took a picture in front of the oldest continually operating courthouse in the state, in Cass County. He learned how boots are made at M.L. Leddy’s in San Angelo.
Democrats like O’Rourke and Collier are betting that they can win rural Texas by emphasizing their support for public education while Republicans embrace vouchers that use taxpayer dollars to subsidize private school tuition. GOP lawmakers in rural Texas have long been resistant to vouchers, convinced they would destabilize the public schools that are the lifeblood of the communities they represent.
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