Sid Sees GOP Up Texas Creek with No Paddle
in Absence of Republican Voter Resurgence

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
October 27, 2020

Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller summed up the state of Republican panic in Texas succinctly on Tuesday when he issued a five-alarm warning on the increasing prospects for a cataclysmic ending for the GOP here next week at the polls based on the record-shattering early vote.

The folksy and sometimes controversial state farm chief revealed in an email that Democrats have cast more votes than Republicans up to now in Texas according to his own analysis of the turnout during the first two weeks of the early voting period that ends Friday.

Miller said that he found the results of the review to be "DEEPLY CONCERNING" as a sign that Democrat Joe Biden is on track to carry Texas barring a belated GOP voter surge in a state that recent polling shows to be up for grabs at the top of the ticket in the general election one week from now.

Miller warned that Democrats in such an event would capture the majority in the Texas House where he served for a dozen years before an unsuccessful re-election bid in 2012 and subsequent victory in the race for his current post two years later. After picking up 12 seats in 2018 as a consequence of a Trump backlash at the ballot box, the Democrats could reclaim control of the Legislature's lower chamber with a net gain of nine seats next week.

"If Texans don't IMMEDIATELY reverse this trend, we could be looking at an electoral bloodbath," Miller said the electronic call to arms.

But the second-term agriculture commissioner warned that the damage wouldn't stop there with a prediction that the Democrats would flip a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission as well without a frantic rally by GOP loyalists in a collective push to keep the state from going blue this fall.

"That means President Joe Biden complete with the end of the fossil fuels that drive our economy, reversing the Trump tax cuts, re-regulating the economy, the end of private health insurance, and throwing Israel under the bus again to coddle the Iranian Mullahs.

"If that isn't enough to motivate you, if the voting ended RIGHT NOW, Republicans would lose the Texas House.

"We can say goodbye to property tax reform and hello to "defund the police" across our metro areas!," the Texas farm boss added. " Losing the House also means that the Democrats will control redistricting, consolidating their power, and making it harder for Republicans to win future races!"

The closet thing to good news for the party faithful between the lines of the Miller email was the fact that he said nothing about the possibility of U.S. Senator John Cornyn being dragged down in defeat in the battle on the ballot below a president who seems to be more radioactive with each passing day.

Miller, who Trump has referred to in the past as his man in Texas, has aligned himself with hardline conservatives who have been sharply critical of more moderate Republicans like Governor Greg Abbott and Cornyn. Miller teamed up with new Texas GOP Chairman Allen West and activists on the hard right at a rally this month at the Governor's Mansion to protest the emergency actions he's taken during the coronavirus crisis including the statewide mask order.

While the Miller sky-falling communique was designed to light a fire under a disllusioned Trump base, it didn't mention that his hopes for a successful re-election race in 2022 could be dead if the outcome of the general election turns out to be as bad for the Republicans as he envisions without a Texas voting trends reverse.