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The Democratic Strategist

Political Strategy for a Permanent Democratic Majority

Teixeira: Turnout and Persuasion in the 2018 Texas Senate Election

The following article by Ruy Teixeira, author of The Optimistic Leftist and other works of political analysis, is cross-posted from his blog:

With Beto O’Rourke apparently about to enter the Presidential race, it’s a good time to consider how he did so well in that 2018 Senate election. Patrick Ruffini of Echelon Insights recently published some detailed data on Twitter which I think are quite interesting.

The main takeaways are below. I was particularly struck by the findings on persuasion vs. turnout. The key to O’Rourke’s excellent performance was apparently persuading folks to vote for him, rather than simply getting more Democrats out to vote.

 Turnout leaned slightly right of ‘16.
 Backbone of Dem ‘18 voter surges: Whites in metros and young voters.
 Stronger Latino turnout than in CA or FL
 Dem gains entirely persuasion- (not turnout-) based

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