At a town hall meeting in Austin today, Texas Democratic Party Chair Boyd Richie said that he thinks Harris County could see the kind of results in 2008 that Dallas County saw in 2006 when Democrats won every contested county-wide race in Dallas.

From the DMN Nov 8, 2006:

Voters swept aside years of Republican domination in Dallas County on Tuesday, electing the county’s first black district attorney, dumping the favored Republican county judge and giving dozens of GOP judgeships to Democrats.

“I’m not surprised,” said Craig Watkins, the underfunded and often written-off Democrat who rode a rising Democratic tide to edge out his better-funded Republican rival, Toby Shook, with 50.9 percent of the vote.

Dallas County GOP leaders placed the blame squarely on President Bush, and analysts said voters were fed up with national politics and the Republican Party. What was expected to be a gradual shift to the Democrats that began two years ago with the election of Democratic Sheriff Lupe Valdez instead turned into an overnight sea change.

Richie said at the town hall meeting, that the Democrats plan to organize the type of county-wide coordinated campaign in Harris County in 2008 that was so successful in Dallas County in 2006 and that was also used in 2006 in Travis County by the Democratic Party to win all six state representative seats in Austin, including the one previously held by Republican Terry Keel.

There is no doubt that voter dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq and the Bush administration in general has not abated since 2006, so another deluge of votes for Democrats on the county level in Texas is not out of the question.

It remains to be seen if a strong candidate will emerge on the Democratic side to challenge Harris County District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal, but he should be worried about his re-election prospects if the Democrats run someone as capable as Dallas County’s Craig Watkins.

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2 Responses to Is Chuck Rosenthal Vulnerable in 2008?

  1. Perry Dorrell, aka PDiddie says:

    There will be a very qualified challenger.

  2. Texas Moratorium Network says:

    Any hints who it might be?

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