There have indeed been special elections since those numbers were correct. Texas Democrats picked up HD-48 in northwest Travis County, making it 86-64 in the Texas House.

Henry Cuellar is Hispanic too. The trick will be for Rodriguez to turn out the San Antonio and San Marcos neighborhoods to match the high voter turnout in Laredo, Cuellar's base.

Yeah... maybe we should start calling him "Landslide Henry"?

If Affleck wants to run for office, he should consider representing his district in the House. The biggest disadvantage of being a famous actor (media scrutiny) will be lessened by taking the race down the ballot and reducing the "sense of entitlement" gut feeling people will have. And the advantages, name recognition and money, will help more. Of course, he really should actually live in the district for a little while first, not just move there and run.

Great post. You're on fire today, Chris!

I really think that a strong showing in OH-02 will do a lot of psychological damage to Republicans. There may even be a few Republican Congressmen out there considering retirement or Democrats considering a run for higher office who might be prodded into action.

Obviously 8 was not good enough to block the proposal, though. We needed 11.

Quirk's exception: Intentional invocation of this so-called "Nazi Clause" is ineffectual.