Hegar-West Senate race tops the Democratic ballot

Texas Democrats will choose a U.S. Senate candidate Tuesday who could be pivotal in determining control of the U.S. Senate and even the White House come November.

Coming off a delayed runoff, either MJ Hegar, 44, a decorated retired Air Force helicopter pilot from Round Rock, who was born the year Jimmy Carter was elected president, or Royce West, who has been serving in the Texas Senate since Hegar was 16, will be vaulted into what will become one of the highest-profile Senate races in the country.

Either one would start out way behind U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, seeking his fourth term, in name identification and money. Cornyn just announced raising $3.5 million in the second quarter of 2020, his campaign coffers stuffed with $14.5 million in cash with plenty more where that came from - from both campaign donors and super PAC help - should he need it.

Hegar, by far the better fund-raiser of the two Democrats, had just under a million dollars in the bank as of June 30.

But with control of the U.S. Senate at stake - Republicans now hold a 53-47 majority - and former Vice President Joe Biden running neck-and-neck in Texas with President Donald Trump in recent polls, it is at least possible that Texas will emerge as a top Democratic target, at once terribly tempting because of how it would utterly change the political balance of power nationally, but also still way more a reach than a safety school in national Democratic calculations..

For most of the last half year, the Democratic choice in Texas seemed a fait accompli: Hegar a fresh face with a feature movie bio who has never held elective office but had a promising debut in 2018 falling just short of pulling off a big upset running against U.S. Rep. John Carter, R-Round Rock, in Williamson and Bell counties' 31st Congressional District.

In the Democratic Senate contest, Hegar had more money and more attention throughout, leading the field in a 12-person primary in March, finishing first with 22% to West's 15%. While not a terribly decisive win, it seemed to have launched Hegar on a clear path to a runoff victory in May - until the coronavirus pandemic arrived, pushing the contest back to July 14.

The pandemic effectively froze the race in place, to Hegar's advantage, until Memorial Day when the police killing of George Floyd awakened national outrage over racial injustice and provided an opening for West, an African-American lawmaker with a strong claim on matters of race owing to a career fighting on the front lines of issues of black empowerment and criminal justice reform.

The race broke wide open when the two candidates directly went at one another at a half-hour televised debate at the end of June on KVUE.

West started the fight by challenging Hegar, who had given a very small donation to Cornyn in the past and voted for Carly Fiorina, a then-defunct candidate, in the 2016 Republican party primary, on whether she really was a Democrat with Democratic roots and values.

Hegar fired back that West had grown wealthy by continuing to practice law while serving two decades in the Senate, a common practice in the part-time Texas Legislature, but one that, in her view, made him, like Cornyn, more a creature of a politically corrupt system than an agent of change and renewal.

West bristled at the charge, carrying with it, he suggested, a hint of embedded racism.

Since then, the back and forth has been intense in a sometimes harsh, kind of for-keeps way. But one would assume that in short order, the political exigency of defeating Cornyn, post-primary, will prevail. A strong Senate candidacy would be considered crucial in creating the kind of turnout that would give Biden every chance possible to defeat Trump in Texas, an outcome that would seal Trump's fate and scramble the political map for years to come.

While polls show either candidate currently lagging behind Cornyn, the senior senator's numbers are soft for someone who has served three terms in the Senate and before that held statewide office as attorney general and a member of the Texas Supreme Court.

This will almost certainly be the toughest Senate run for Cornyn, 68, who, after a long career as an agreeable figure, accumulating power in Washington without making too many enemies back home, must now seek a fourth term as a loyalist to the most unpredictable and polarizing figure to occupy the White House in memory.

Trump won Texas by nine points over Hillary Clinton in 2016, a narrower margin than that secured by recent Republican presidential candidates, and demographic change, through migration and the growth of a younger browner population replacing an older, whiter population, makes Texas potentially more Democratic every year.

Cornyn, from San Antonio, was first elected in 2002, defeating Dallas Mayor Ron Kirk by 22 points. In 2008, he defeated Rick Noriega, who had served in the Texas House of Representatives, by 12 points. The last time out, in 2014, was his least competitive race, defeating Democrat David Alameel, a dentist and investor, by 27 points.

Hegar would be seeking to complete the mission undertaken by Beto O'Rourke, who in 2018 came out of relative obscurity as a third-term Democratic congressman from El Paso, to make a sensational run for the Senate seat held by Ted Cruz, breaking fund-raising records and becoming a national phenomenon on his way to losing to Cruz by less than three points.

O'Rourke's great success was in the growing metro areas and suburbs, among white women, and independent voters who, with ORourke's fresh, open appeal, gave a Democrat rare second look. He energized young voters, particularly those in college.

But O'Rourke's success led him to disregard entreaties to run against Cornyn in favor of what turned out be an ill-fated run for the Democratic nomination for president.

Hegar appeared as a likely heir to O'Rourke's approach with an even more impressive personal story, serving three tours in Afghanistan, flying combat search and rescue missions, and winning a Purple Heart and a Distinguished Flying Cross.

She presents herself as tattooed, motorcycle-riding mother of two young boys, who will offer Texas voters a choice between, in Cornyn, "a spineless ... boot-licking ass-kisser" and, in her, a Texas "ass-kicker."

Down the stretch, Hegar has benefited from $2 million in TV advertising on her behalf by her campaign, the DSCC and Emily's List's Women Vote! super PAC.

West offers an alternative path to victory, one which looks to doing something O'Rourke failed to do, by mobilizing the party's base of voters of colors - Hispanic, Asian and especially African American - in something closer to Obama-like numbers.It is an argument that before George Floyd, West had trouble selling.

Without the kind of money that the Hegar campaign and its allies were able to spend, West has had to depend on a superior network of endorsements from elected officials across the state, many of whom have served with him in the Legislature, and leaders in Texas' large black community.

___

(c)2020 Austin American-Statesman, Texas

Visit Austin American-Statesman, Texas at www.statesman.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.