The state of Texas is a strange case of political warfare in the last couple of elections. While the big cities in the Lone Star State tend to lean more to the left, urban areas give the GOP overwhelming support, both financially and at the polls. Some of that might be due to traditional values, but this year’s elections for the head of the state and congress might show the simple case of not having good options representing Democrats.
Houston-native Kesha Rogers has taken an eight percent lead over her closest competitor in the Democratic primary for the Senate seat held by GOP member John Cornyn, according to a recent poll taken by the Univeristy of Texas/The Texas Tribune. The shocking trait about Rogers is her view of the current President of the United States, whom she’s compared with Adolf Hitler by showing pictures of President Obama with Hitler’s iconic mustache. She has also compared the Affordable Care Act with the genocidal policies of Nazis in the 1930s. If that wasn’t enough to paint a picture of the woman, she also runs on a platform of raising NASA’s funding for the purpose of building a defense network against incoming asteroids and believes the United States should begin to colonize Mars to prevent “mass extinction of the human species.”
Rogers is clearly not the representative the fragile democratic party wants to see hold a seat in the senate, as seen by Steve Brown, chairman of the Fort Bend Democratic party’s quote last year, stating, “If I can figure out what the silver bullet is to make sure that she is not on my slate after May, then I’ll definitely do that.”
As troublesome as Rogers appears to be, her rival for the vote falls to David Alameel. The wealthy dentist from Dallas, Alameel is seen as a bit of a Benedict Arnold in his own right, having bankrolled several Republicans in their pursuit of office, including Governor Rick Perry, and even the man he hopes to upset this fall, Cornyn.
These two candidates alone possess 62 percent of the total poll given to 1,200 registered voters online, but that’s the same number Cornyn possess by himself in the same study.
The Democratic party will have to unify and attempt to elect a serious underdog, like Maxey Scherr whose poll numbers set her at a distant third place with just 15 percent.
Scherr is a native of El Paso, Texas and is seen as the most progressive candidate, but suffers from lack of funding and name appeal. She will have her hands full with the two lead dogs at the moment, but if any Democrat has a legitimate chance to unseat Cornyn, this one would make the most logical sense.
The midterm elections are still a while away, but the chance that the Democrats could choose a candidate that isn’t the best is very apparent. If President Obama hopes to see the Senate remain blue, he will have to hope for a major upset in a state that doesn’t look like a good bet.
Costa is a senior majoring in journalism.
