It seems forever since Texas went into full lockdown mode over the Wuhan coronavirus, but it’s only been a week. Since I was already working from home full-time, I’m doing fine, but I can understand how more social people might be climbing the walls by now. Here’s a quick roundup of notable Texas coronavirus news.
(The “per county” cases can be found on the “Admin2” tab on the lower left.) For those unfamiliar with Texas geography, Denton and Collin are both Metroplex suburban counties, while Fort Bend is directly southwest of Harris.
Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday tightened travel to Texas by ordering some motorists from Louisiana to self-quarantine for two weeks.
The new restrictions, effective noon Monday, came as President Donald Trump extended social distancing guidelines through April 30, preventing all nonessential travel in the country.
Louisiana’s status as a hot spot for the novel coronavirus grew Sunday to more than 3,500 positive cases statewide. Under the new rules, drivers with commercial, medical, emergency response, military or critical infrastructure purposes for entering Texas would be exempted.
A spokesman for the Department of Public Safety said Sunday the agency was not prepared to comment on the details of the new measures.
If the local HEB is any measure, the worst of the panic buying appears to be over, though there are still hole in the shelves. Meat was abundant, I was able to find olive oil (missing last week), and everything except toilet paper seemed obtainable.
All in all, we seem to be doing a lot better than New York and California. Which is usually the case in non-emergency times as well…
From the outset of Donald Trump’s entry into the world of politics he espoused a series of key tenets around what he called his “America-First” objectives:
The U.S. needed to have control over our borders, and a greater ability to control who was migrating to the United States. A shift toward stopping ‘illegal’ migration.
The U.S. needed to stop the manufacture of goods overseas and return critical manufacturing back to the United States. A return to economic independence.
The U.S. needed to decouple from an over-reliance on Chinese industrial and consumer products. China viewed as a geopolitical and economic risk.
Donald Trump was alone on these issues. No-one else was raising them; no-one else was so urgently pushing that discussion. In 2015, 2016 and even 2017, no-one other than Trump was talking about how close we were to the dependence point of no return.
Given the status of very consequential issues stemming from the Chinese Coronavirus threat; and the myriad of serious issues with critical supply chain dependencies; wasn’t President Trump correct in his warnings and proposals?
The idea driving this is not to stop all transmission of coronavirus (nice though that would be), but to flatten the curve so that American health care resources are not overwhelmed.
In Italy, you can say goodbye to Grandma. “Doctors are being told that they’ll likely need to deny care to senior citizens and those with other health conditions as the virus explodes across the nation.” (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
The Chinese Communist Party has gone into overdrive pushing the lie that the #Wuhanvirus started in the US. It started in #China, and it was spread around the world thanks to Chinese government negligence and lies. They are 100% responsible for every death. #Coronavirus#CCPvirus
Before the coronavirus epidemic, U.S. companies were heading for record-low profitability in China as business conditions deteriorated and China’s economy slowed to its lowest rate in decades, according to a new survey of U.S. companies with operations in China…
American companies surveyed by AmCham reported their lowest levels of profitability since the Chamber first began asking the question 18 years ago: 61% of members described their 2019 financial performance as profitable or very profitable, an eight-percentage point drop from the year before.
He is charged with embezzling more than $1 million in union funds and properties to buy “luxury condos” in California, “lavish” dinners with “premium liquor,” five sets of custom-made golf clubs, horseback riding on a beach, and other non-union expenses that prosecutors allege the UAW covered up by mislabeling them as payments to vendors or meals for UAW officials, according to Matthew Schneider, U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan.
Sadly, Troy Hurtubise is no longer around to design a monkey-proof suit…
Woof, woof, woof, woof, woof:
The World Health Organization has announced that dogs cannot contract Covid-19. Dogs previously held in quarantine can now be released. To be clear, WHO let the dogs out.
Everyone and their dog is doing a Wuhan coronavirus roundup, so let’s make this update Texas-specific (which may make it easier to get into the other roundups).
This New York Times map says 33 cases, which presumably includes foreign and cruise ship evacuees in quarantine at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
There are a bunch of people on Twitter saying they’ll just attend the Greenpoint carnival instead of the rodeo. Which is like saying that, instead of seeing Avengers: Endgame in IMAX, you’re going to go home and watch a VHS of the Roger Corman Fantastic Four on your 13″ tube TV.
Austin Independent School District has banned travel to hard-hit states, including “California, Florida, Kentucky, Maryland, New York, Oregon, Washington and Utah.”
Welcome to a Friday LinkSwarm! There are five Saturdays in February this month, something that won’t happen again until 2048.
Giant water main break in Houston shuts down lots of schools and streets. The pipe, which is 8 feet across and supplies 40-50% of Houston’s water, burst during repairs. There’s a boil notice in effect for Houston for the next 24 hours. (Hat tip: Kemberlee Kaye.)
Why we need to secure the border to fight coronavirus: “U.S. Border Patrol agents apprehended 1,155 Chinese migrants this fiscal year after they illegally entered from Mexico, Canada, or coastal boundaries. More than 95 percent came over the southwestern border between October 1, 2019, and January 31, 2020.”
Woke Rule No. 1 is that anything with “Principles” in its name is a grift. Now, something called “Principles First” – ugh – is trying to shoehorn into CPAC’s spotlight with its “National Summit on Principled Conservatism” to be held in D.C. on February 29th, and for the low, low, almost certainly lib tech tycoon-subsidized price of $10, you can attend this sexless Never Trump Freaknik.
It’s an opportunity to get one-on-one with all your favorite relevancy-challenged B-list MSNBCNN guests for a full day of complaining about Donald Trump and having them show you on the doll exactly where Trump hurt them. Brace yourselves for impassioned pleas by impotent weirdos to vote for the crusty commie curmudgeon because Trump sends mean tweets, plus plenty of “Oh well I nevers” and “We’re better than thats” as Pearl Clutchfest 2020 gets well and truly lit. Just don’t be surprised if the marquee outside reads “Puppet Show and Never Trump.”
From political consultants who are no longer consulted to writers who are no longer read, this is the Woodstock for conservatives who never actually conserved anything.
Excited? Worried you might miss out? Calm down. There are plenty of tickets left. And I hear they’ve got loads of Doritos and Zima at the buffet, if you can squeeze in between the ravenous Bulwark staffers stuffing their talk holes.
Who’s coming to this soiree? Well, just imagine the universe’s worst county fair dino-rock concert line-up, and this is its political equivalent. Mona Charen! Bill Kristol! David Frum! It’s basically the Swamp’s version of Bachman Turner Overdrive, Blue Öyster Cult, and Average White Band – except this band of totally white people are well below-average, though I’m sure we’ll get a fussy email reading “Excuse me, but we have a/an __________.” The closest thing to diversity I could detect in their line-up was the aptly named Heath Mayo – he’s diverse because he’s a younger kind of white person. I’m sure Mayo is ready to unleash the full benefit of his life experience upon the eager crowd – he can explain how learning about Reagan in high school in 2008 totally changed his life.
Sadly, Ana Navarro isn’t on the bill, but she probably has important work to do completing Dr. Stephen Hawking’s string theory research. And there’s no sign of Jennifer Rubin, probably because the event occurs during the hours of daylight.
Young Turks founder fights unionization. “In the staff meeting, the network’s co-founder and influential host, Cenk Uygur, urged employees not to do so, arguing that a union does not belong at a small, independent outlet like TYT, according to two workers who were present. He said if there had been a union at the network it would not have grown the way it has.” See, it’s always different when they do it…
There’s a California bill that would require porn stars to get a license. Inspector: “Yeah, I’m going to need to see your license.” Porn star (opens blouse): How about these licenses?” (Bowchickawowow…)
Hosni Mubarak dead at age 91. Of all the strongmen who have ruled Egypt, Mubarak falls in about the middle; less brutal than Morsi or Nasser, but more corrupt than Sadat or Sisi. His real downfall came from trying to install his son as a dynastic successor, at which point the army let the popular revolt oust him, leading eventually to the Muslim Brotherhood’s brief reign. He kept the peace with Israel, was a fairly reliable US ally for the region, and suppressed the Muslim Brotherhood (obviously not well enough).
Today’s elite facepalm: “Immigration to America is down. Wages are up. Are the two related?” Hey, you just might be on to something with that radical ‘supply and demand’ theory there, Einstein… (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
With Harvey Weinstein’s rape conviction, let’s remember what a huge Democratic Party donor he is. Also: “He faces an L.A. criminal trial soon, where 90 women have filed complaints against him, including well-known actresses Gwyneth Paltrow, Uma Thurman, and Salma Hayek.”
How a treasure trove of aviation drawings was saved from destruction thanks to a single engineer, including those for the P-51 and the B-25.
Scientist: Here’s a journal article. Editor: Think you could provide the raw data? Scientist: (Hissses, holds up arm to shield the crucifix from it’s sight, withdraws paper.)
Fox News host Laura Ingraham reported Wednesday evening that she obtained a chain of State Department emails stemming from a standard request for comment from New York Times journalist Ken Vogel, whose reporting helped generate scrutiny of Hunter Biden’s ties to Ukrainian gas company Burisma. Hunter Biden, 49, is the son of Democratic presidential front-runner Joe Biden, and Republicans have called for him to testify during the Ukraine-related Senate impeachment trial against President Trump.
On May 1, 2019, Vogel contacted State Department official Kate Schilling about a story he was working on regarding an Obama administration meeting in January 2016 with Ukrainian prosecutors and mentioned the name of the CIA analyst believed to be the whistleblower whose complaint sparked impeachment proceedings that led to two articles of impeachment: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.
“Democrats Warn That American People May Tamper With Next Election.” “‘When the Founders wrote that founding document thing, they never imagined there would be electoral outcomes that Democrats did not agree with.’ Democrats also said they even have hard evidence that the 2016 election was compromised by Republicans voting for Trump.”
Final Brexit bill passes. The EU is reportedly quite eager to hurt its largest trading partner to spite its face…
Giant warehouse explosion in Houston. No reports of injuries, but the explosion was said to be heard 20 miles away… Update: Now hearing it was a manufacturing facility, with a propylene tank as the suspected cause, with two dead and one missing.
The Chinese government has placed the city of Wuhan under quarantine in an attempt to stop the spread of the deadly, pneumonia-like virus called 2019-nCoV.
According to a Chinese news bulletin, all passenger transportation out of the city has been temporarily suspended. That means that the city’s 11 million residents, hundreds of whom have fallen ill and at least nine of whom have died from the viral outbreak, are trapped unless they receive special permission to leave.
The virus quickly spread to nearby Japan, Thailand, and South Korea, and a traveler from Wuhan also carried it to the U.S.
In the face of a global outbreak, the Chinese government has been trying to maintain control of the narrative, censoring media and deleting social media posts that don’t align with its official statements.
Last coronavirus death count is 26 people, with more than 30 million people under quarantine. By contrast, the 2014-2016 west African Ebola outbreak killed more than 11,000 people.
Smear someone as a “white nationalist” on the says so of the SPLC, just because they want to enforce border control laws? Enjoy your $5 million lawsuit.
Hungary’s Deputy Prime Minister Zsolt Semjen has stated that such programs “ha[ve] no business in universities” as they represent “an ideology, not a science,” with a market profile “close to zero.” Similarly, Orban’s Chief of staff Gergely Gulyas said, “The Hungarian government is of the clear view that people are born either men or women. They lead their lives the way they think best [and] the Hungarian state does not wish to spend public funds on education in this area.”
Media estimates of 22,000 for the Second Amendment rally are probably too low. “I think when all is said and done, the crowd of gun rights supporters attending Lobby Day on Monday probably was double the official figure and approached 50,000.”
In addition to Steve Adler all but personally inviting every transient drug addict in the state to take up residence in Austin, the killer was out on personnel recognizance bond after committing a burglary, thanks to yet another Austin City Council decision.
Amazon sues to stop to stop Microsoft $10 billion “war cloud” project for the Pentagon, evidently because President Trump is a big meanie who didn’t let them get the contract. Eh, Pentagon procurement bidding is pretty opaque under the best of circumstances, much less under the zillions of possible variations on setting up a cloud infrastructure. There’s no way whether to determine this is a real grievance or just sour grapes over losing a big contract.
Journalist Glenn Greenwald charged with hacking in Brazil. Though in this case, “hacking” seems to amount to “publishing embarrassing information about members of the Brazilian government.”
In praise of Christopher Tolkien. It’s probably only a matter of time until Disney buys the Tolkien estate now…or someone far worse.
“Black voters ‘abandoned’ by Democrats warm to Trump.
Former NFL player Jack Brewer once raised campaign money for President Barack Obama, but now he’s among the increasing number of black voters who support President Trump.
“There is an awakening going on right now in the country,” Mr. Brewer said of black voters who traditionally support Democrats. “I’m going to take the guy who’s actually putting in the policies that are going to make life better for my young black son and my young black daughter, versus somebody who gives me lip service — like, unfortunately, the Democrats have done for our community for years.”
Mr. Trump and his reelection team are aggressively courting black voters amid a strong economy that has reduced black unemployment to 5.5%, lowest in history. The Trump campaign launched its “Black Voices for Trump” coalition in Atlanta last month.
Snip.
There’s some evidence that the president’s policies and campaign outreach are making inroads with black voters. Three polls in November showed Mr. Trump’s job-approval rating among black voters in the 30% to 35% range, a significant increase over other surveys that have generally shown black voter support of less than 10%.
“I’ll remind you, the president received 8% of the black vote in 2016,” said a senior Trump campaign official.
The president and his campaign advisers know that poll numbers and approval ratings don’t always translate into votes, but they think Mr. Trump has a good chance to significantly increase the level of support he receives from black voters in 2020.
“If you look at how they attacked him for being a racist during the [2016] campaign, I think his policies have [produced] results for the black community that have been extraordinary,” the campaign official said during a recent briefing.
Said another Trump adviser, “One thing the president’s done is to try to govern for everybody. Even those who didn’t vote for him in the last election are now seeing a lot of results in their communities, and we’re seeing the poll numbers amongst all those groups grow in a way that creates a lot of opportunities.”
Trump advisers point to other policies that are helping, such as criminal justice reform that lets more offenders win early release from prison and a second chance, and increased funding for Historically Black Colleges and Universities.
Mr. Brewer, a lifelong Democrat and entrepreneur who played for three NFL teams, said Mr. Trump is working much harder than any Republican candidate in his lifetime to reach out to black voters.
“Donald Trump will get over 20% of the black vote,” Mr. Brewer said in an interview. “That is what’s going to win the election. Why? Because there hasn’t been a Republican to even try to go in and talk to the black community. They don’t go there. They don’t even try. I think he’s trying, finally.”
It’s also worth noting that Corbyn’s interests and appearance—he’s a 70-year-old vegetarian with a fondness for train-drivers’ hats who has spent his life immersed in protest politics—strike many working class voters as “weird,” a word that kept coming up on the doorstep according to my fellow canvasser in Newcastle. He’s also presided over the invasion of his party by virulent anti-Semites and Labour is currently in the midst of an investigation by Britain’s Equality and Human Rights Commission thanks to his failure to deal with this. One of his supporters has already blamed the Jews for Labour’s defeat.
Snip.
Plenty of better writers than me—Douglas Murray, John Gray—have debunked the notion that the only reason low-income voters embrace right-wing politics is because they’re drunk on a cocktail of ethno-nationalism and false hope (with Rupert Murdoch and Vladimir Putin taking turns as mixologists). It surely has more to do with the Left’s sneering contempt for the “deplorables” in the flyover states as they shuttle back and forth between their walled, cosmopolitan strongholds. As Corbyn’s policy platform in Britain’s election showed, left-wing parties now have little to offer indigenous, working class people outside the big cities—and their activists often add insult to injury by describing these left-behind voters as “privileged” because they’re white or cis-gendered or whatever. So long as parties like Labour pander to their middle-class, identitarian activists and ignore the interests of the genuinely disadvantaged, they’ll continue to rack up loss after loss. Get woke, go broke.
Will the Democrats learn from Labour’s mistake and make Jo Biden the candidate—or even Pete Buttigieg? I wouldn’t bet on it. The zealots of the post-modern Left have a limitless capacity to ignore reality even when it’s staring them in the face. As I said to a friend last night after the election results starting rolling in, fighting political opponents like Jeremy Corbyn is a bit like competing in a round-the-world yacht race against a team that thinks the earth is flat. It can be kind of fun, even exhilarating. But until they acquire a compass and learn how to read a map, it’s not really a fair fight.
The Babylon Bee explains impeachment. “Trump has committed some very serious offenses, from not being a Democrat to being a Republican. He also won the 2016 election, which rises to the level of high crimes and misdemeanors.”
Last week, a must-count indictment was unsealed against Ahmad Khawaja, the CEO of an online payment processing company. He and several others were charged with making and concealing improper and excessive campaign contributions, most related to the 2016 election cycle. Specifically, Khawaja is charged with two counts of conspiracy, three counts of making conduit contributions, three counts of causing excessive contributions, 13 counts of making false statements, 13 counts of causing false records to be filed, and one count of obstruction of a federal grand jury investigation.
Among the recipients: Hillary Clinton, Cory Booker, Adam Schiff and Amy Klobuchar. (Hat tip: The Other McCain.)
Israel has a new laser system to shoot down incendiary balloons launched from Gaza.
Seattle waitress now unemployed thanks to minimum wage laws. “Today I’m struggling because of a policy meant to help me. I’m proudly progressive in my politics, but my experience shows that progressives should reconsider minimum-wage laws that hurt the very workers they’re trying to protect.” Just like conservatives predicted.
I think I’m gonna end up seeing Rise of Skywalker on an airplane at some point, on the back of the seat in front of me. That’s about my interest level. There were inklings of it in the first movie, if you want to go back that far, but it really seems like the new trilogy wasn’t conceived of as a trilogy at all. It’s genuinely hard to believe. And not just because of what Disney managed to accomplish with their Marvel project, making an ecosystem of movies in different genres and then somehow crafting a kind of metamovie to conclude it. Obviously, they can do it. That they didn’t – and that they expected us to go along with it – is incredible.
Star Wars isn’t Holy to me. Like a lot of people who grew up when I did, I do like it. But there’s a hard cap on precisely how disappointed I can be in it. Seeing the whole thing transformed into some kind of cultural shibboleth when it can barely hold itself together narratively film to film, it’s like… these movies aren’t up to the task. It doesn’t even matter what task you had in mind. A full-throated defense of these things is either unconscious, freelance PR, corporate ring-kissing, or invertebrate worship of a graven idol. They shouldn’t come back to theatres until they can deliver something that isn’t such a gruesome indictment of their hegemonic cultural control.
Speaking of Disney cultural hegemony, Hollywood box office is is down 4% from last year, despite Avengers: Endgame. Just imagine the horrific 2020 Hollywood is going to enjoy in 2020 without a big tentpole and TDS-suffering actors suppressing box office with wokeoffs during the 2020 election. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
A Sydney resident came home to find a massive huntsman spider being dragged away by a spider wasp—and snapped this terrifying picture of the incident. https://t.co/NxcgV3DSqMpic.twitter.com/gGv4FWy9nP
A Texas resident grabbed his shotgun and shot and killed three men when they allegedly broke into his home, authorities said.
Early Monday morning, one of the two residents of a trailer home in Channelview — about 20 miles east of Houston — heard a “commotion” outside, according to Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez. He then saw several men in dark clothing — possibly one armed — force their way inside, the sheriff said at a news conference.
That resident ran to hide, while his roommate, armed with a shotgun, exchanged gunfire with the suspects, Gonzalez said.
The armed resident shot and killed three suspected home invaders, Gonzalez said.
A FedEx driver suffered a gunshot wound to the stomach before he pulled out his own gun and killed the armed robber who attacked him, police said.
The incident occurred in the 600-block of Unruh Avenue at approximately 7:10 p.m. on Tuesday night, WPVI reported.
The 32-year-old FedEx driver had just finished making a delivery at a home when he was confronted by the 27-year-old armed suspect, according to WCAU.
The robber stole multiple packages from the FedEx truck before he shot the driver in the abdomen, police said.
That’s when the driver pulled out his own gun and retired fire, hitting his attacker multiple times.
The suspect made off with several packages as he fled the scene, while the wounded FedEx driver jumped back into the delivery truck and drove to a nearby ACME store to get help, WPVI reported.
Driver was stabilized at the hospital. The perp? Not so much:
Meanwhile, officers located an unconscious man in an alley in the 1400-block of Creston Street suffering from gunshot wounds to his back and chest, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
He was carrying packages that had been stolen from the FedEx driver, according to WCAU.
The suspect was transported to Einstein Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
Also in Pennsylvania: “A man was sent to an area hospital after being shot while trying to burglarize a home in Fayette County Friday night.”
Next up: Would-be armed robber dirtnapped by bystander:
Happy Friday the 13th! Going to be a short one, since I spent most of the week finishing up the book catalog I sent out yesterday. And there are a lot of big news topics (like the Horowitz report) I want to do longer posts on. Maybe this weekend…
Boris Johnson’s Tories won a huge general election victory, winning an absolute majority projected at 364 seats, a net gain of 47 seats. By contrast, Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour lost 59 seats, down to 203. That’s the largest majority Tories have enjoyed since Margaret Thatcher’s 1983 majority following the Falklands War. The combination of Corbyn and absolute opposition to Brexit has halved the number of seats Labour holds since Tony Blair’s first term. You know that second referendum Remainers were always nattering about? They just had it.
Howard County, Maryland is bringing back forced busing. Crime, rampant drug use, forced busing: It’s like Democrats are trying to turn the areas they control into The 70s Sucked theme parks.
“Austin Council Wants Even More Homeless Hotels.” Of course they do. The more homeless hotels, the more opportunity for graft…
Ann Althouse reads the latest entry in that time-honored genre, New York Times Profile Of Woman We’re Supposed To Find Sympathetic That Actually Makes Us Hate Everyone Living In New York City.
I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a blue alert, but I got multiple on my phone yesterday regarding Tavores Dewayne Henderson, accused of killing Nassau Bay Police Sergeant Kaila Sullivan at a traffic stop. A Houston SWAT raid to capture him came up empty.
Here’s the pic of the perp:
Nothing says “criminal supergenius” quite like getting a tattoo on your face. Other signs he’s a real winner: “Records obtained by ABC13 also show Henderson with pending charges in Harris, Montgomery and Galveston counties.” That would suggest that he does get around…
Henderson was said to be fleeing to Louisiana, but that was yesterday, so he could be just about anywhere by now. If you see this perp, call 911.
I know I’ve lavished a lot of time and attention to the clown car updates, but there are several other 2020 races worth looking at, some of them right here in Texas.
A bunch of Democrats are lining up to challenge Republican incumbent John Cornyn for the U.S. Senate. Now that the filing deadline has passed, let’s take a look:
Bell, a former Houston City Council member, represented a district in Congress from 2003-05 that included part of the city. In the 2006 gubernatorial race, he got 30% of the vote against then-Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, and two well-known independent candidates. He has since attempted a number of political comebacks.
In his filing with the FEC, Bell named former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski as his campaign treasurer. Bell said the Jaworski name “stands for integrity and the highest ethical standards in the eyes of many Texans – things that are sorely missing in today’s Washington and that I plan to talk about a lot on the campaign trail.”
Wait, did he just use “Galveston Mayor” and “integrity and the highest ethical standards” in the same sentence? Outside the Rio Grande Valley, Galveston has a reputation as the most corrupt locale in Texas, dating back to when the Maceo brothers ran Galveston for the mob and the Balinese Room had gambling tables that folded back into the wall whenever Johnny Law came walking down the long pier. My late uncle used to run a Galveston restaurant, and he said the entire political establishment was on the take.
Having run a high profile state race previously, and with a strong fundraising base in Houston, I see Bell as one of the favorites to make the runoff.
Michael Cooper: Not the basketball player. There’s squat in the way of useful information on his website as of this writing, but Ballotpedia says “Michael Cooper earned a bachelor’s degree in business and social studies from Lamar University Beaumont. Cooper’s career experience includes working as a pastor at his local church, president of the South East Texas Toyota Dealers and in executive management with Kinsel Motors.” He came in second in a two man race for the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor in 2018, but only lost by 5 points to oil executive Mike Collier (who lost to incumbent Dan Patrick in the general). Got to say that, objectively, Cooper looks damn good in that cowboy hat and bolo tie:
Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards. Seems like a relatively mainstream liberal, at least compared to way too many presidential candidates. City Council to U.S. Senator is a big jump. She’s fighting with Bell for backers and West, Cooper, Lee, Foster and Love for the black base. Going to be hard to make the runoff, but if West or Bell stumble, she seems best positioned to take one of their slots.
Jack Daniel Foster, Jr. Appears to be a political neophyte in a race that already has several black candidates. Plus his big issue (which seems to boil down to “more money for community colleges”) strikes me as a county- or state-level issue, not the purview of a U.S. Senator. But I think he gets to 1% based solely on “Jack Daniel” in his name.
Annie “Mama” Garcia. Neophyte that seems to be running on Trump Derangement Syndrome, socialized medicine and gun control. 3% of the primary vote will be a challenge.
Victor Hugo Harris: A cipher, with no website I could find. I suspect that reminding Texas votes of a 19th century French novelist is an inferior election gambit to reminding them of whisky.
M.J. Hegar: A retread candidate who lost to incumbent John Crater in the Texas 31st congressional district race in 2018, albeit by less than 3%. Usually stepping up in weight class after a losing run isn’t a recipe for electoral success. Air Force vet. Seems better funded than other Democrats in the race. Policy positions are all polished liberal platitudes, which may not play to the Democratic base in an election year. An outside chance to make the runoff if white suburban women turn out for her in March rather than Chris Bell and all the black candidates split the black urban vote, but I still doubt it. Probably destined to fall somewhere between third and fifth place.
Sema Hernandez: Hard left/Social Justice Warrior/Democratic Socialist of America candidate. DSA had some successes at U.S. House races in 2018, but not in a senate race, and not in a state like Texas. Absent a huge out-of-state funding push for her, I don’t even think she even sniffs the runoff.
D. R. Hunter: Another cipher without a webpage. Unless he has a Samoan attorney and writes for Rolling Stone, I wouldn’t expect him to make much of an impression.
Midland City Councilman John B. Love III. Midland City Council is a stepping stone for a state House race, not the U.S. Senate. Not seeing signs of a serious campaign, and I don’t see him making any headway with Edwards and West in the race.
Financial advisor Adrian Ocegueda: Twitter. Came in sixth of nine Democratic candidate for Governor in 2018. His one issue is campaign finance reform, but I can’t make hide nor hair of what he actually wants to implement. Oh, and he wants West to drop out of the race. I’m sure that will happen any day now…
Leftwing activist Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez: Seems to be running as the hard-left Hispanic identity candidate. Don’t see her sniffing the runoff, and “Tzintzún” sounds like a lost South American city populated by the degenerate remnants of an eldritch people who worshiped some blasphemous Cthulhu Mythos god deep in the primordial past…
Dallas State Senator Royce West. The state senate is a pretty good stepping stone to higher office, and I don’t see any other big names from the Metroplex in the race. His issue stands are largely midleft boilerplate. He’s been in office since 2009, and in 2018 he ran completely unopposed, with no primary or general election opponant (not even a Libertarian or a Green), which suggests both political strength and the possibility that he’ll be rusty in a competitive race. A favorite to make the runoff.
Republicans
Cornyn has a few challengers on his side of the aisle as well:
Incumbent Senator John Cornyn. Cornyn won reelection in 2014 with the largest vote total and percentage of any statewide candidate, winning with 61.6% of the vote, which was two points better than Greg Abbott walloped Wendy Davis by. He’s been in office a long time, and sometimes longtime incumbents get complacent and lose. I don’t see that happening here. He’s going to win the primary and the general.
Bridge construction company owner Dwyane Stovall. He took a run at Cornyn in 2014, where he won lots of Tea Party straw votes, but came in third in actual primary voting with 10.7%. Made an abortive run at TX36 in 2016. A higher level of gadfly than Bierschwale, but just as doomed.
Former Dallas Wings owner Mark Yancey. More money than any of Cornyn’s other competitors, but WNBA owner money is not U.S. senate race money. He might come in second and still only garner 15% of the vote.
