Democratic vice presidential candidate Sen. Tim Kaine promised Friday that efforts to turn Texas blue will ultimately be successful, and he assured supporters that the Clinton campaign is serious about winning the Lone Star State.
“We take Texas very seriously, Hillary and I do,” Kaine said Friday during a morning campaign stop. “We look at what you’re doing … And we are very, very proud of what you’re doing. We can see the spirit, we can see the energy, we can a see a state that has been a red state moving in the best direction.”
The Virginia lawmaker continued, and referenced his personal involvement in turning the Old Dominion from red to blue.
“I even can recognize a little bit about you because of what we [did] in Virginia. See, Virginia was as reliably Democratic for a very long time as Texas was,” he said. “Virginia then went over heavily Republican about 15 years or so before you guys made that same move statewide.”
“In fact, we were so Republican in Virginia that when I ran my first statewide race in 2001, we had five statewide officials, all of them were Republican,” Kaine continued.
Prior to the 2008 election, the last time that Virginia voted for a Democratic presidential candidate was in 1964 for Lyndon B. Johnson.
The last time a Democrat running for president won Texas was in 1976 when the state voted for Jimmy Carter. Further, a Democrat hasn’t occupied the governor’s house since 1995, when Ann Richards left office after losing to George W. Bush.
The last Democrat to make a play for Texas governor, former state senator Wendy Davis, lost to her Republican opponent, Greg Abbott, by more than 20 points.
“We were as red as red could be in 2011,” Kaine said.
“Let me tell you about Virginia in 2016. All five of our statewide officials elected are Democrats. We have gone blue for Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012, and we’re going blue for Hillary Clinton in 2016,” he said.
Clinton’s running mate circled back to his earlier point, and assured his Democratic supporters in Houston that their efforts to turn Texas blue will likely pay off in a way that efforts have paid off in Virginia.
“And so, when I look at a Texas and I look at a Virginia, I just want to tell you here in Houston you’ve been out keeping hope alive for the Democratic Party and Democratic candidates. You’re going to see the same thing happen in Texas that we saw in Virginia,” Kaine said.
“There’s going to be a day when it’s going to start to move statewide and then it’s going to move very fast in your direction. And that’s because of the great work you’re doing,” he said, adding, “Just keep at it.”
