Democrats vying for U.S. Senate seat woo AFL-CIO

MJ Hegar sought to remind folks of her status as the front-runner in a still ill-defined and wide-open race for the Democratic nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, with a rip-roaring closer at the AFL-CIO convention Saturday.

“He knows he’s going home, y’all. Cornyn is vulnerable. He knows it. It’s why he’s got people chasing me all over town videotaping everything I’m saying, trying to catch me saying something wrong,” the decorated combat veteran told the more than 400 delegates and guests gathered at the Omni Austin Hotel at Southpark. “If we send an ass-kicking Texas woman to D.C. to deliver a healthy dose of Texas values ... we’re going to be able to send our boot-licking pantywaist of a senator packing.”

By presenting only the six most formidable candidates in the field of 12, the event winnowed the choice to a manageable number for a discussion, moderated by Texas AFL-CIO President Rick Levy. The candidates all generally pledged to support labor’s agenda on health care, apprenticeship programs, immigration reform, pension protection and organizing rights.

But with scarcely more than five weeks before the March 3 primary, it is possible to imagine a scenario in which votes are so evenly distributed that almost any two of the candidates on the stage Saturday could end up in a May 26 runoff that seems inevitable.

An endorsement by the Texas AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education - its political arm - before the close of its convention Sunday would have been a huge leg up in the Democratic contest. Levy said the labor organization’s executive committee met Friday with the other candidates who were not on stage.

But with a two-thirds vote required, the gathering ended without endorsing a candidate for Senate.

When Beto O’Rourke, who came within 3 points of defeating Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, decided to run for president instead of challenging Cornyn, Hegar — who ran a strong but losing race against U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, in 2018 — jumped in and got a quick fundraising start amid the expectation that she might be able to clear the field.

That didn’t happen, though she did get the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee in December.

“So I know that I may not necessarily fit the bill of what a politician looks like, because I'm not the typical industry-funded politician, nor am I the most polished candidate and that is often what you attribute to someone who is electable,” said Sema Hernandez, a community organizer from Pasadena who has raised far less money than any of the other candidates with whom she shared the stage.

But Hernandez, who was stirred to electoral activism by Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, recalled that in the 2018 Democratic Senate primary, she received “a quarter of a million votes on $4,000,” winning 23.7% of the vote in finishing second to O’Rourke.

The last University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll in October had Hegar in first, but with a scant 12% support, leading Hernandez at 6%, and former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards and state Sen. Royce West of Dallas with 5% each. Former congressman and 2006 Democratic gubernatorial nominee Chris Bell of Houston was at 3%.

The overwhelming majority of those surveyed had no idea whom they might vote for.

Ideologically, Hernandez and Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, a co-founder of the Workers Defense Project and Jolt, which seeks to politically activate young Latinos, are the most progressive, embracing Medicare for All and the Green New Deal. West and Edwards are hewing more to the middle, liberal but not left, as the path to victory against Cornyn.

That is the same ideological terrain being trod by Hegar, though both West and Edwards are African American, and each has a vote-rich base — West in Dallas and Edwards in Houston.

West, 67, who was first elected to the Texas Senate in 1992, touted his endorsement by 10 of the 12 Democrats in the Texas Senate (including himself) and 48 members of the Texas House, and recently by the Tejano Democrats.

“One of the things that's really important to remember when we think about the election, that it isn't just about picking the person that you know, picking the person that you might be familiar with, it's about picking the person who can unseat John Cornyn,” Edwards said.

Despite O’Rourke’s success in 2018, turnout among black voters lagged, and Edwards thinks she can grow that vote while also exciting younger voters. She just tuned 38.

But Hegar said that in 2018, “we beat the spread in Texas 31,” which she said is “much redder than the rest of the state.”

“We doubled the turnout in that district,” Hegar said. “We're going to do that statewide and set turnout records.”

Obliquely responding to critics who say she is too middle-of-the-road to excite voters in 2020, Hegar said, “Independent voters in Texas 31 voted for me, not because I stood in the middle, not because I couldn't take a side.”

CORRECTION: The story was corrected to indicate that state Sen. Royce West has the endorsement of 10 of the 12 Democrats in the Texas Senate, including himself, and not 10 in addition to himself.