The question of whether O’Rourke can make history will be decided largely in the state’s largest cities. His campaign is banking on historic turnout in Democratic strongholds like Austin, Houston and Dallas. Republicans have long won most of their campaigns by driving up the votes in deeply red conservative Texas — places like Tyler, Lubbock, Midland and Beaumont, where Cruz has made repeated visits in recent months. For Cruz to win, he needs rural Texans to turn out the way they do in a presidential year.
But O’Rourke has sought to undermine the usual GOP playbook in his pursuit of votes in rural Texas. While the congressman has said he never expected to outright win in those regions, he is hoping to win just enough votes there to add to what he hopes will be massive turnout on his behalf in the cities. His success or failure largely rests on whether his gamble on rural Texas pays off.
On Tuesday, there are a few regions both campaigns will be watching, including the suburbs of Houston, where the GOP hold on power has been thrown into doubt by a rapidly diversifying electorate. Both campaigns will be watching Amarillo in the Texas Panhandle, where Cruz is likely to win but where O’Rourke has found a following among progressive evangelicals opposed to the administration’s crackdown on refugees. And they will be watching Longview in East Texas, another area Cruz should win but where O’Rourke has attracted massive crowds.
But the mostly closely watched counties are likely to be in the Dallas/Fort Worth area — including Denton County and Collin County, which have tended to back Republicans but where Democrats appear to be surging. One of the most closely watched House races in the country is Texas’s 32nd Congressional District, which includes Collin and Dallas counties. GOP Rep. Pete Sessions has been statistically tied in the polls with Colin Allred, a former NFL player turned voting rights attorney, in a race that has been driven in large part by the debate about access to health care. The race is considered a bellwether for O’Rourke’s chances in the Dallas region.
Perhaps the most closely watched county of all, however, is Tarrant County, which includes Fort Worth. It is the last big Republican city in the state — and one that O’Rourke has focused on flipping, appealing to black voters and new voters. If the city votes Democrat, Republicans suggest Cruz is in big trouble — which is why the junior senator from Texas stopped there late last week, calling it the “biggest, reddest county in the biggest reddest state” — and one he needs to win.
“As Tarrant County goes, so goes the state,” he said. The returns will show whether he is right.