Texas Dems Rounding Up New Voters Fast
as State GOP Concentrates on Mob Alerts

By Mike Hailey
Capitol Inside Editor
September 2, 2020

The Texas Democratic Party and U.S. Senate nominee MJ Hegar could be crushing their GOP rivals in the critical voter registration competition after contacting almost 500,000 prospective Joe Biden supporters in the past two days in an attempt to sign them up before Labor Day on Monday. .

While the Democrats' Texas Voter Registration Week appears to be on track to surpass the initial goal of registering 1 million Texans for the 2020 election in the next five days, the new leader of the state GOP is focused more on attempts to warn the established party faithful about violent socialists on a mission to destroy the United States.

The Republicans had high hopes heading into the spring with the super PAC called Engage Texas raising nearly $20 million for a massive voter registration initiative that failed to materialize as a consequence of an initial strategy that revolved on direct contact. Engage Texas folded in May with a $6 million surplus that it planned to spread among various GOP organizations.

The committee's white-flag shuttering put the onus on the state GOPs Texas Volunteer Engagement Project, which had the goal of registering 100,000 new voters before the October 5 deadline this year. But voter registration appeared to be a much higher priority with James Dickey when he was the state party chair before West ousted him the state convention on Zoom in July.

West - a former Florida congressional member who'd lost his first re-election race in 2012 - did not mention the Texas Volunteer Engagement Project in a weekly update for loyalists on Monday when he gave the subject of voter registration lip service at best at the end of the written briefing.

"The progressive Socialist left controls the so-called Democrat Party and we will defeat them here in Texas," West declared. "But, it will require all of us — who prefer to be victors, not victims — to register to vote and will commit to voting the entire GOP ballot."

While the state Democratic Party was reaping highly positive free publicity in major national and state news outlets with the ambitious voter sign-up program, West pursued a different approach with a pitch for President Donald Trump supporters to take the trouble to vote in down-ballot races as well as the White House contest that will be topping the ticket.

"We want you to be informed, educated, and then activated to get out and support the Red Storm that is rising. If you leave a voting position box empty, it is a vote for a Democrat (Socialist)," West warned.

"I must be honest, I expect the mob to show up at polling locations in order to coerce, intimidate, and stoke fear," West lamented. "That happened back in 2008 with the New Black Panther Party and Barack Obama and Eric Holder did nothing.

"Do not allow the mob to drive you away with their national socialist Brown Shirt tactics!"

West has spent a considerable amount of time on his new job blasting Republican Governor Greg Abbott for COVID-19 restrictions despite the potential for damage to GOP contenders in congressional and legislative races in a state where Democrats will seize control of the Texas House in November with a net gain of nine seats or more.

West - in an ironic twist that could be reverse psychology - drew attention to the fact that Democrats and many Republicans believe that the protests and rioting that's been under way across the county throughout the summer are a direct result of Trump.

"However, there is one point that is not debatable: the Democrat (Socialist) convention never condemned the chaos and violence on our streets, in the cities they control," the new state GOP boss added. "How absurd it is that the left is now claiming that the violence emanating from the very groups they spawned, support, dismissed, and embraced is the fault of President Donald Trump."