Voting is a party. On leaving Houston’s NRG Sports Center, transformed into a huge polling station, Charlie Bonner put on his Stetson and painted his nails blue and red. The young leftist activist, gay and white, invited voters to a drive-in concert in a parking lot. About thirty spectators in the car came to listen to young rappers from Houston and some Democratic speeches. On frequency 89.9 of the FM band for those who do not want to open the window, Covid-19 obliges.
Horns replaced cheers to express approval to speakers. For months, Charlie Bonner has been trying to register young people on the electoral rolls and this evening of Thursday, October 29 is the crowning of a long campaign. She must happily accompany the opening, all night, of the polling station, a first.
As always in Texas, we did it big. The illuminated signs of the sports hall indicate three directions to follow: normal vote, straight ahead; voting by mail (for voters who do not trust the US Post and prefer to cast their ballot themselves), basically; vote by car (for those who are afraid of Covid-19), on the right, but passing under a tent, to respect the electoral code which requires that the ballot be held in a closed place.
The Democratic County of the Houston area, populated by 4.8 million people, has done everything possible to encourage its fellow citizens to vote. Voting is a celebration… for Democrats. This activism annoys Republicans, dumbfounded by the massive mobilization of voters and who have unsuccessfully sought to obtain the cancellation of more than 120,000 ballots deposited in cars. At the end of the advance poll, which ended on October 30, more than 9 million Texans had already voted (53% of those registered), which is more than the total Texas votes in the 2016 presidential election.
Obviously, there is something going on in Texas. The polls still give Donald Trump a lead (50.4% against 48.7% to his opponent, Joe Biden, with a 63% chance of winning, according to the benchmark site FiveThirtyEight). Such a narrowing of the gap is significant in this state of 29 million people where Jimmy Carter was the last Democrat to win, in 1976.
“A democratic state that does not vote”
The stake is decisive for November 3: Texas will have between 6% and 10% of postal votes to count (they must arrive before Wednesday, November 4), because the state has only granted this right to the most 65 years and the disabled. The results should therefore be known overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday or Wednesday during the day. And if Joe Biden wins the 38 big voters of Texas, the mass will be said: Donald Trump will have lost. No need to wait for the interminable count in Pennsylvania or Florida: this swing would mean a Democratic tidal wave and the impossibility for Donald Trump and the Republicans to contest the national election.
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