As Democrats dream of a blue Texas, tight House race will give a glimpse of how far they’ve come
Despite the demographic changes in the district, Nehls has a couple major advantages over Kulkarni. The district has supported the GOP in the last six U.S. House elections and still leans red overall.
In addition, his name recognition as a local elected official gives him an edge over Kulkarni, who has had to work harder to introduce himself to voters. That could help Nehls’ campaign as it faces a huge fundraising deficit: Nehls has raised $1.5 million during the 2020 cycle, less than a third of the nearly $4.9 million taken in by Kulkarni’s campaign.
The district includes most of Fort Bend County, one of the more populous in the state. Nehls has won two previous countywide elections.
It also holds a sliver of Harris County, the state’s most populous county where Houston sits, and part of Brazoria County.
Jones expects Nehls to carry the Brazoria portion of the district and Kulkarni to win the Harris piece. Therefore, he believes the winner of the Fort Bend area will prevail in the election.
Olson won the Fort Bend portion of the 22nd District by more than 4 percentage points in 2018. Democrat Beto O’Rourke defeated Republican Sen. Ted Cruz by about 12 percentage points in the county as he narrowly lost statewide.
Early voting rates have exploded in Fort Bend during the coronavirus pandemic. By Monday, more than 54% of the county’s registered voters had cast ballots with four days of early voting remaining, according to the Texas Tribune. Total early turnout was about 53% in the county in 2016.
It is unclear now whether the high turnout portends increased voting rates overall, or is a result of people who would normally cast ballots on Election Day doing so ahead of time.
The Nehls and Kulkarni campaigns did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.
Kulkarni has for the second straight election run with health care as his leading issue. He most recently targeted Trump after the president, during an interview on the CBS program “60 Minutes,” repeatedly would not detail what he would do to replace the Affordable Care Act if the Supreme Court strikes it down.
“Today, the president revealed what many of us have known for a long time now: there is no plan to replace coverage for pre-existing conditions if the Affordable Care Act is repealed,” the Democrat said in a statement Friday. Kulkarni backs a public health-care option, which Democrats will likely pursue if they control both chambers of Congress and the White House next year.
Nehls has said he will work to keep the ACA’s protections for people with preexisting conditions. Republicans have made the issue a point of emphasis this year after Democrats hammered the GOP over Obamacare repeal attempts on the way to flipping the House in 2018.
Access to health-care coverage has become a bigger issue during the coronavirus pandemic. The outbreak has hit the Houston area particularly hard. Harris County’s nearly 160,000 cases are fourth most in the U.S., while only eight counties have seen more than the 2,783 deaths in Harris, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.
Cross said Covid-19 has also received more attention in the 22nd District than in many other parts of the country because the health-care industry is a major employer. She added that the economic downturn caused by the outbreak compounded issues already created by lower oil prices before the pandemic.
Biden threw in one more potential wild card in the race when he said during the last presidential debate that he would transition away from oil. He later tried to clarify that he wants to get rid of fossil fuel subsidies.
Both Kulkarni and Nehls have tried to balance the often competing interests of protecting a major industry in their area and slowing climate change that has left Houston vulnerable to extreme weather. The region saw catastrophic flood damage from Hurricane Harvey in 2017.
Biden’s oil comment could have created difficulties for Kulkarni. Still, experts say the top of the Republican ticket poses a formidable challenge for Republican candidates in the 22nd District and other areas of the state Democrats hope to turn blue this year.
“If Nehls loses, it will be largely due to the burden imposed on his candidacy by Donald Trump,” Jones said.
Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/28/texas-house-election-sri-kulkarni-troy-nehls-22nd-district.html