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Armstrong, a physician in her 50s, decided to channel her anger at President Donald Trump two years ago by going door-knocking, for the first time ever, to help Fletcher, a Democratic congressional candidate in the suburban Houston district where she lives. In the midterms, Fletcher toppled nine-term Republican congressman John Culberson, a powerful appropriator, picking up a seat that had been comfortably in GOP hands after George H.W. Bush won it in 1966.
Armstrong worries that Fletcher, still a freshman, would lose her quest for a second term if Sanders, I-Vt., is at the top of the ticket and that Trump would handily win a second term. She said it was hard enough to convince voters to take a chance on a Democratic candidate last time when she could warn while canvassing about how Republicans were trying to destroy the Affordable Care Act without a replacement plan, putting people with preexisting conditions at risk. But Sanders's Medicare-for-all plan also threatens to upend the system, jeopardizing people's private health-insurance coverage. Houston is world-renowned for its medical centers, especially related to cancer treatment.
"People looked at Trump in 2018 and said this is not who we are. But Bernie also isn't who we in Houston are," said Armstrong. "I'm still tired of screaming at the TV after three years. I don't want four more years."
Texas is the second-biggest prize on Super Tuesday, behind California, with 228 delegates up for grabs. Houston, the fourth-most populous city in the country, has become a battleground within the battleground. Harris County, home to Houston, has more than 4 million residents, a bigger population than 26 states.
Former vice president Joe Biden is flying here this afternoon for a rally at Texas Southern University. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., spoke to a crowd of 2,000 at an outdoor rally on Saturday night. Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg stumped here this past Thursday with the mayor of Houston, who endorsed him. Sanders visited the University of Houston last weekend, where he celebrated his triumph in the Nevada caucuses.
Two polls published Sunday put Sanders ahead but by significantly different margins among likely voters in the Lone Star State, reflecting the degree to which the contest remains fluid and also how hard it is to predict what the electorate will look like in this evolving megastate. Sanders led Biden 34% to 19% in an NBC-Marist poll, with Bloomberg at 15% and Warren at 10%. But Sanders led Biden by only 4 percentage points, 30% to 26%, in a CBS-YouGov poll, which was within the margin of error, with Warren at 17% and Bloomberg at 13%.
But Sanders fares particularly poorly in the same well-to-do suburban areas that fueled the Democratic wave in the midterms and where Trump remains most vulnerable. The 7th District, where Fletcher already faces a tough reelection fight, is the sort of place that national Democrats fear they'd lose if Sanders leads the ticket. Mitt Romney carried the district with 60% of the vote in the 2012 presidential election, but Trump lost it to Hillary Clinton in 2016 with 47%. Establishment-minded Democrats worry that voters who don't like Trump or Sanders might stay home, especially moderates who voted for candidates like Fletcher in 2018. They fear that Sanders would galvanize more Republicans than he'd bring in the new voters he promises to mobilize.
Armstrong is undecided but anxious to vote for a Democrat in Texas's presidential primary on Tuesday who can block Sanders from winning the nomination. She really likes Warren, but she's mainly concerned about beating Trump. She's texted all weekend with friends as far away as New Jersey and Massachusetts to mull what she should do. "I would vote for Joe Biden. He's not my first choice, but I would if I thought he was the only one who could beat Bernie," she said. "I just don't want Bernie. There's a big contingent that doesn't want Bernie, but they're all splitting. … Do I vote my conscience, which is Warren? Or do I vote strategically, which is Biden?"
Carol Alvarado, a Democratic state senator who represents Houston, endorsed Biden on Sunday after his sweeping win in the South Carolina primary. Democrats picked up a dozen state House seats in 2018 and could win control of the chamber if they gain nine more in 2020. Several of their best pick-up opportunities are around Houston. Alvarado, who chairs the Senate Democratic Caucus, identified certain seats in both the state House and Senate that they're more likely to win if the former vice president is their standard-bearer.
"We could lose seats if we're having to talk about democratic socialism," she explained in an interview. "And if we lose those seats, that gives Republicans a larger majority - which matters for the next decade." She's referring to redistricting. The outcome of the 2020 state elections will impact who draws the boundaries that will be in effect until 2031. Alvarado said a Democratic-controlled legislature could also vote to expand Medicaid under the ACA, something Republicans have declined to do. "There's just so much riding on this election for the future of Texas," she said.
Houston is also the epicenter of the American energy industry, and Sanders's plan to ban fracking and pass a Green New Deal makes moderates jittery. When you fly into town, you see the scope of the region's dependence on fossil fuels in the form of tankers and refineries.
"People's livelihoods are directly tied to that industry," said Rep. Marc Veasey, D-Texas. He represents a Fort Worth district, where he notes that many African Americans and Latinos depend on energy industry jobs that Sanders could put in jeopardy. He said union members also regularly express "worry and concern" to him that Sanders's Medicare-for-all proposal would take away health-care benefits they've negotiated hard to secure from their employers.
Veasey lamented that Sanders being at the top of the ticket would make it harder to play offense against House Republicans like freshman Dan Crenshaw in the Houston suburbs. Veasey, who endorsed Biden in November, added that many of his Democratic colleagues would have little choice but to distance themselves from Sanders if he's the nominee in order to get reelected. "There's absolutely no question about that," he told me on Sunday evening.
The CBS-YouGov poll released asked likely Democratic voters in Texas which candidate has the best chance of beating Trump, regardless of whom they support. Interestingly, Latino voters said Sanders has the best chance of winning the general, topping Biden by a 24-point margin. Black voters thought Biden had the best chance, besting Sanders by a 25-point margin. White voters were more evenly split: 32% said Biden, 28% said Sanders, 18% said Bloomberg and 13% said Warren.
Anthony Blake, a 35-year-old management consultant, will vote for Sanders in the primary. "Sometimes I think you've got to fight fire with fire, as terrible as that sounds," he said. When I asked about the electability fears expressed by his fellow Houstonians, he pointed to several recent polls that showed Sanders leading Trump in head-to-head matchups and in many cases outperforming other Democrats. "The data doesn't really show that," he said, downplaying the concerns of elected lawmakers.
He added that he comes from a conservative family. "They've been Republicans for 30 years now, but they dislike Trump," he said. "They're terrified of Bernie right now, but they'll vote for him over Trump."
The NBC-Marist poll showed 1 in 4 likely voters in Texas remained undecided.Sarita Gomez-Mola, 70, is among them. The foreign-language interpreter, who lives in the 7th District, said she will cast her ballot for whomever she concludes on primary day has the best chance of blocking Sanders from clinching the nomination, which she acknowledged may be Biden. A friend visiting from New York encouraged her to think about Bloomberg, but she's "angsting" over which of the Democratic alternatives to Sanders could best unify the party.
"Will the Sanders voters support Bloomberg? I worry," she said. "But Bernie cannot hijack the Democratic Party. He's divisive, and we're lurching from one extreme to the other. There would be nothing but gridlock. If Barack Obama couldn't get his priorities passed, how is Sanders going to?"
Gomez-Mola's husband is a geologist who works for an oil company. "All his colleagues are Trumpers," she said. "They will all vote for Trump, no matter who he's up against." Likewise, she said, she'll vote for any Democratic nominee over Trump. "I was born in Cuba, and I'm very afraid of Sanders because of all the changes he wants to make," said Gomez-Mola. "But even if Fidel Castro came back from the grave and was the nominee, I'd support him over Trump. Castro was my nemesis all my life, but Trump is just that bad."
This is exactly what the Sanders campaign is counting on. The senator's strategists express confidence that dislike for Trump is so strong among Democrats that even moderates will coalesce and consolidate behind Sanders if he wins the nomination.
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