Valdez squeezes past White, faces big Abbott challenge next

May 24--DALLAS -- Lupe Valdez was beaming Tuesday night as she accepted the cheers of supporters at a downtown Dallas restaurant in her hometown for making history as the first Latina and the first lesbian to become the Democratic nominee for governor in Texas.

"I am constantly hearing this is going to be such an uphill battle," said Valdez, elected four times as Dallas County sheriff. "Please, tell me when I didn't have an uphill battle. I am getting darned good at uphill battles."

Valdez didn't appear until after 10 p.m. owing to the closeness of her 5-point victory over Andrew White of Houston, whom she had led 43 to 27 percent in the March primary. What won it for her in the runoff were big margins on her home turf and in the overwhelmingly Latino counties along the Texas border.

By the time she spoke, Texans For Greg Abbott had already released a new web video focusing on Valdez's flubs and contradictions during the primary and runoff campaigns, and, even as she was speaking Tuesday night, Dave Carney, Gov. Abbott's chief strategist, was tweeting, "Are there mercy rules in campaigning?"

It was a rhetorical question for Carney, the architect of Abbott's 20-point triumph over Wendy Davis in 2014, a margin the Abbott campaign would like to outdo this fall.

That will be difficult, Rice University political scientist Mark Jones said, even if Valdez's underwhelming victory over White, a Houston investor and son of the late Gov. Mark White, reflected "the serious doubts that even many progressive Democrats had about Valdez's competency to be the party's standard bearer in November."

Latino turnout

Still, Jones said, if Valdez can stir turnout at home she could help determine the outcome in a half-dozen state House districts in and around Dallas.

Of her own race, he said, "if Abbott wins by 15 points or less, that would be a symbolic victory." And Jones said he can't see how she could lose by more than Davis did.

"That's virtually impossible to do with Donald Trump in the White House," Jones said. "Wendy Davis had to struggle against all those Obama headlines. Lupe Valdez is obviously going to be helped by Trump tailwinds."

"Is she going to lose to Abbott? Yes," said Victoria DeFrancesco Soto, a lecturer at the LBJ School of Public Affairs who is affiliated with the Center for Mexican American Studies at the University of Texas. "But when we talk about Democrats in Texas, it's more of a long game."

"For Latinos, and I hate to use this word, but I am going to use it, the sleeping giant, to see someone who is a Latina at the top of the ticket helps to allay that apathy that has resided in the Latino community for so long," she said.

DeFrancesco Soto estimates that 25 percent to 35 percent of Texas Latino voters are "hard-core anti-abortion and are never going to abandon Abbott."

But, she said, "I think Valdez can get those Latinos who maybe didn't connect with Wendy Davis."

Are Texas Democrats running a risk with Valdez as their candidate for governor?

"The Democrats have been in the wilderness so long, there's a liberty to see what sticks," she said.

Campaign to come

Valdez improved as a candidate at the end, University of Houston political scientist Brandon Rottinghaus said.

"Valdez's last few weeks were much better than her first few weeks," Rottinghaus said. "What she lacked in policy she made up for in passion and that went a long way with voters looking to take the fight to Greg Abbott and the Republicans."

But, he said, White was mild compared with what's to come.

"A much greater opponent awaits in the general" election, Rottinghaus said. "Gov. Abbott got the race he wanted. He has already labeled her and has a major war chest to back it up. The question now is whether or not she can play to her strengths or if she'll be on defense for six months."

The Abbott campaign has challenged Valdez on her support for abortion rights, and her vociferous opposition -- what the Abbott campaign calls "fearmongering" -- to the ban on so-called sanctuary cities the governor signed into law last year.

Jason Casellas, another University of Houston political scientist, said that 35 to 40 percent of Latinos in a national 2016 survey supported the kind of cooperation between local police and federal immigration authorities that are anathema in sanctuary cities. But he said it can be a touchy issue, and the governor needs to be mindful, on that issue and others, not to overplay his hand.

"He has to be careful not to come across as disrespectful to Valdez as a woman, as a Latina, as a lesbian," Casellas said.

"Abbott's organization is fairly sophisticated, so I suspect they will pick their spots, but I would be surprised if the Abbott people overstep their bounds and go after her too hard," said Jerry Polinard, a seasoned observer of Mexican-American politics at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.

Polinard doubts Valdez will make a dent against Abbott. But if she is able to bring some Latinos to the polls in November who usually don't vote in the general election, he thinks it could have a "ripple effect" for other Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Beto O'Rourke, D-El Paso, whose challenge to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, is topping the ticket this fall, and who, in the Democratic primary lost to a little-known Latina candidate in many of the counties that carried Valdez to victory.

"I would think Beto O'Rourke is probably going around with a smile on his face today," Polinard said.

___

(c)2018 Austin American-Statesman, Texas

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

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.