Bright spots amid a dark evening for Austin conservatives

While it was a rainy day in Mudville for the conservative remnant in the Austin area, there were more than a few silver linings that deserve mention as part of the overall picture of what happened during the 2018 general election.

* Frank Ward, the only Republican running to succeed the only Republican on the Austin City Council Ellen Troxclair, is headed to a runoff! The date is Dec. 11. 

* Chip Roy won election to Congressional District 21 to succeed U.S Rep. Lamar Smith. Along with him, the three incumbent Republican members of Congress also won reelection (Michael McCaul, Bill Flores and Roger Williams).
* Texas Sen. Donna Campbell won re-election, due in no small part to enthusiastic support in the northern portion of her district in Travis County. 

* It was the people vs. local government lobbyists in Pflugerville -- and the people won, defeating the proposed annexation of Pflugerville ISD into the Austin Community College District. 

* Kristin Ashy won her race for Austin ISD Board of Trustees.  

* Maria Amezcua was re-elected to the Manor City Council (she is the wife of Gabriel Nila, our recurring contender for Texas House District 46).

It would be easy to focus on the defeats from the Nov. 6 election -- the loss of Reps. Tony Dale (HD 136) and Paul Workman (HD 47), the defeat of Republican challengers Ken Strange (HD 45), Gabriel Nila (HD 46), and Cynthia Flores (HD 52), and the trouncing of all four candidates for Third Court of Appeals (David Puryear, Cindy Bourland, Scott Field and Mike Toth). It's even easier to point to continual struggles down-ballot at the county-level -- JP candidates Martin Harry and Chris Soileau, Mayoral candidate Todd Phelps, and even a cadre of Austin Republican Women running to take back their MUD board in Lost Creek, and probably a lot of races that did not appear on The Tracker's radar this time around. There's also the fork-in-the-eye from Propositions J and K failing in Austin -- you'd think financial transparency and voter approval of city code reforms would be non-partisan slam dunk solutions. Then there's the continued nod given to bond debt in smaller jurisdictions across the area during a time when hard-working families are being increasingly priced out of town (over $1 billion in Austin alone). And let's not even mention another term for Rep. Lloyd Doggett.

It's easy to blame Beto O'Rourke (e.g. $80 million in outside cash and the artificial spotlight of the Texas Democratic Party all-but denied to other candidates), Donald Trump's popularity/lack thereof, California expatriates, or "changing demographics." And each of these factors do play in. But the hard part is pointing to our victories Tuesday night as a light to our path forward.

Both Republicans and Democrats have successfully brought in record numbers of swing voters and new voters. We may have reached "peak swing" in 2016 and 2018 (comparable turnouts, which is remarkable). The challenge now is to convince voters that there are conservative solutions to our economic challenges. That we have well-qualified candidates who provide an alternative to the Democratic hegemony in Travis County. That Republicans and Democrats can work together on an overwhelming majority of issues that do not fall into the usual left-vs-right dichotomy but make plain sense (e.g. Proposition K).

Republicans in Travis County continue to fare about as well as Democrats do on the state level in Texas.  Congratulations to the Democrats this cycle for demonstrating that timing and good old fashioned grassroots shoe-leather campaigning can turn the tide. However, that means we can do it in Travis County given the right factors. It's only a matter of time, so let's start making the case now with the victories we have under our belt.

________
Credit: Thanks to Travis GOP Chairman Matt Mackowiak's excellent summary of the election results for filling in some of the blanks. Complete election results may be found here (local) and here (statewide).