and alienated democrats in this primary? i think the real lesson from texas primary is that parties in washington have very little control over what actual voters do. and this is a case in point. now, look, clearly laura moser became a martyr after her own party in washington attacked her and she did better with the election day vote than with the early vote. and at the same time, she is still the underdog in the runoff. what i m going to be watching carefully in remaining primaries throughout the calendar and keep in mind this is the first of 50, is not whether democrats nominate candidates who are really far left or right, necessarily, it is whether democrats nominate candidates whose life stories resonate with voters in the district. i don t think that is the case with laura moser. which is why i m skeptical of her chances. i get you there. but what does the dccc do now? they already went tunnel saying they didn t want her. she s in the runoff. do they have to put their money
perris, texas, she said, she would sooner have her teeth pulled without anesthesia. national democrats were scared of having her as their nominee. they came in and said, laura moser, unacceptable, this quote would make her totally unelectable in this district. it looks like there was a backlash, it looks like she s going to finish in the top two, and advance to a runoff and have a chance of winning this nomination. which she benefited, was just the idea of democrats saying, washington democrats what are you doing telling us what to do. it looks like she might survive, in this district, this is one of the most competitive in the country. traditionally republican, suburb an, romney carried it easily in 2012, flipped to hillary by a point. the headline from that runoff, the candidate the dccc doesn t want in there is in the runoff, it looks like. so many people saying democrats have to play this
a number of opportunities here on the map. a number of republican seats like in the 23rd district, maybe the 21st, also this little one here, houston area, 7th district and the 32nd. those are four, republican held different reasons, democrats kind of eyeing them. what did we learn from these tonight? we re going to see a lot of runoffs, first of all. in texas, you have to get 50% to get the nomination. there s one particular race that we want to focus on here, that s gotten some national attention, it could have national implications, that is, let me see if i can call it up here. the 7th district primary, this is the houston suburbs, basically, the suburban part of houston, a little bit of the suburbs, democrats nationally, the dccc came into this race and tried to destroy this candidate, laura moser, running for the democratic nomination in this district. what she said a couple years ago, she got interviewed. she didn t want to live in
rural whites and you re continuing to see growth in hispanic, african-american and asian eligible voters and and this is really the change in the trump era, professional whites moving away from the republican party a bit. let s get down. the dccc is excited about the opportunity to win maybe three or four seats in texas but they have a complicated mess on their hands in this seventh congressional district, houston area seat. perhaps one of the top target in the sun belt. they went negative on a candidate that they thought was unelectable in their own primary and it clearly boomeranged. laura moser who they believe is unelectable because of thinks about living in perris, texas, and too many washington ties. but going negative in a public way seemed to boost her candidacy. what do they do now? do they go all in and try to destroy mozier in this primary
so many candidates running across the border in these congressional seats, over 100 candidates, four years ago only 41 candidates ran. so we do have enthusiasm. the turnout doubled from 2014. i think over the next 243 days, you re going to see more democratic participation, more voter registration, more excitement build as we look to the fall campaign. let s talk about a few key races there in houston. laura moser set to face lizzie fletcher in late may. some say democrats attempt to oust moser was because she was too liberal, but that ended up helping her yesterday. you know, people don t like you if you re from washington, d.c., they don t like you meddling in their politics especially if you re from texas. voters came out and gave the candidates they agree with a boost in the arm. we ll have a runoff on may 22nd.