Texas Republicans' 2020 plan to make Trump look 'less polarizing' accidentally lands in the hands of Democrats
President Donald Trump remains a highly polarizing figure in the US and the 2020 presidential election is also set to be sharply divided over the man. Be it his unconventional words and action or the ongoing impeachment procedure, there is no dearth of issues related to the US president that leaves America’s society and politics highly divided and charged up.
But recently there has been a move from the Texas chapter of Trump’s own Republican Party to make him look less polarizing. This has been revealed by a document that has details about the GOP’s plans for the next election and leaked to the state’s Democrats earlier this week.
According to a report in the Dallas Morning News that came out on Tuesday, November 26, the Republicans committed a “bizarre political blunder”, a document laying out the GOP’s Texas election strategy for the 2020 elections was sent to the state’s Democrats. Its plan suggests attacking the Democratic candidates through websites and lessening the president’s “polarizing nature”.
The document, titled “Primary/General Election 2020 (Draft)”, called a draft for initial discussion by the chair of the Texas GOP and started appearing in Democratic emails on Monday evening, the Dallas report said.
“Starting after the Primary, the RPT will generate microsites for negative hits against the Democrat candidates in our twelve target race—we expect each microsite to be roughly $500,” the document said. “We will then begin rolling out these websites, prioritizing the races that were within 4% in the 2018 election.”
Democrats eye majority in red-state Texas
Texas, a Democrat-dominated state in the past that the Republicans wrested over the last many decades, is set to become a major battleground in the 2020 elections. After doing well there in the midterm elections last year, the Democrats are eyeing to emerge the majority side in Texas House for the first time since 2003 (they now trail 67-83) and they believe the Republicans are under pressure now.
“Republicans have already fumbled the ball and we aren’t even in 2020 yet," Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party was quoted as saying by the Dallas News. “They know they’re in deep trouble ‘given the polarizing nature of the President’ and expect ‘Republicans will refuse to turnout during the General Election because they don’t want to vote for him.’ The Texas Republican Party is desperate. Texas is the biggest battleground state and Texas Democrats are poised to win in 2020," he added.
Trump's 'polarizing nature' could keep certain Republicans away
Throwing light on Trump’s “polarizing nature”, the GOP document read: “Given the polarizing nature of the President, I suspect some Republicans will refuse to turnout during the General Election because they don’t want to vote for him - though I don’t know that we will know what this universe would look like without us or a stakeholder creating a model. Regardless, I suggest we set up a contingency budget to target these folks with mailers, digital ads, and texts to encourage them to turn out for U.S. Senate, State Senate, State House, and so on.”
It was though not clarified who the “I” was.
According to the document, the GOP in America's second-largest state is targeting 12 statehouse districts in Texas so that the party can maintain its majority.
James Dickey, chair of the Texas Republican Party, said on Monday that a staffer “drafted some initial thoughts for discussion”. He added that the Republicans’ plan to take back seats in the state they lost last year “should not be news” in a bid to downplay the embarrassment that might have been caused to the party.