As midterm elections near, the debates heat up
The 2018 mid-term elections will take place Tuesday, Nov. 6. All 435 U.S. House of Representative seats are up for reelection with 236 of them being held by Republicans and 193 of them being held by Democrats. The remaining six seats are vacant. Each district elects a representative to the House of Representatives to serve a two-year term.
Thirty-six of the 100 senate seats are up for reelection this year. Republicans regained the majority of the Senate in the 2014 election, which gave them control over both Houses of Congress after it was controlled by the Democrats from 2009 to 2011. Democrats need two seats to win the Senate and at least 24 seats from Republicans to regain the majority of Congress once again.
The state of Texas has 36 representatives in the U.S. House of Representatives. Texas has two state senators: Ted Cruz, since 2013, and John Cornyn, since 2002. Both Cruz and Cornyn are republican. Cruz is currently up for reelection while John Cornyn will be considered for reelection in 2020.
Cruz is currently running against Democrat Beto O’Rourke (D-El Paso) for Texas senator. O’Rourke has served as a U.S. Representative for Texas since 2013. Both candidates have agreed to three debates before Election Day.
The first Senate debate between Cruz and O’Rourke was held in Dallas, Texas, Sept. 21. The two candidates argued on issues such as immigration and law enforcement. O’Rourke encourages Dreamers to stay and not be afraid of being deported while Cruz sums up immigration in four words: “legal, good; Illegal, bad.” Cruz supports building a wall and encourages Texans to do everything humanly possible to secure the border.
The second debate was originally scheduled Sept. 30 but was postponed in light of the hearing in Washington, D.C. for U.S. Supreme Court nominee of Brett Kavanaugh, and has been rescheduled for Oct. 16. in Houston at the University of Houston.
The date for the final debate has not been decided but will be held at a studio in San Antonio. Each event will be an hour long and can be viewed on NBC News and CNN.
Another heated series of debates are also taking place in Texas between incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott and challenger Democrat Lupe Valdez.
Abbott, a former judge, served a two-year term in 1998 and a six-year term in 2004 in the state’s highest civil court during his judicial career in Houston. Abbott became Governor in 2014. Valdez served as Sheriff of Dallas County for four terms by election. She was the only Latina Sheriff in the United States and one of the very few LGBTQ+ Americans serving in the public office.
During their first and only debate at the University of Texas at Austin, Abbott ignored Valdez and kept defending his first term. Valdez continued to hammer Abbott in response to almost every question by accusing him of focusing on the wrong issues in his first term.
One dividing stance was the topic of the “Rainy Day Fund.” Valdez criticized Abbott for not creating a special session after Hurricane Harvey last year to go into the state’s savings account, which is known as the “Rainy Day Fund.”
“He calls a special session for bathrooms but does not call a special session when people are dying,” Valdez said in regard to the “bathroom bill.”
Another major dividing stance between Abbott and Valdez is the topic of whether teachers should carry weapons in school as a form of self-defense. Abbott believes that teachers should be armed in school while Valdez believes that teachers should have a defense in place but are not the ones who should be armed.
For many of the younger students on college campuses across the nation, the upcoming election will be their first opportunity to vote. A report by Harvard’s Institute of Politics (IOP) reveals a marked increase in the number of young Americans who indicate that they will ‘definitely by voting’ in the upcoming midterm Congressional elections through a new national poll between America’s 18- to 29-year-olds.
“Young Democrats are driving nearly all of the increase in enthusiasm; a majority (51%) report that they will ‘definitely’ vote in November, which represents a 9-percentage point increase since November 2017 and is significantly larger than the 36 percent of Republicans who say the same,” stated a The Washington Post article.
The net result is that those 60 and older make up much more of the electorate than those under 30. However, the shift in the percent of the electorate that’s under 30 is more subtle.
Lauren Eureste, a psychology major, is registered to vote but does not because she does not believe it will make a difference.
“I am not exposed to it [the debates] other than what I see on Twitter,” Eureste said. “I mainly see news outlets and some memes.”
In contrast, Denise Blza, a recent graduate of UHCL, believes that the more people who buy into the fact that their vote does not matter, the truer it becomes that every vote matters.
“Ironically, the argument that ‘my vote doesn’t even matter” is less true as more people believe it,” Blza said. “Elections have their consequences, and we set up our system up for everyone to make a decision together, not one individual person. Therefore, if you do not vote, you are not making your government work for you.”
The deadline to register to vote in Texas is Oct. 9. The application to register to vote can be found online or at your local U.S. postal office, library, Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS), Texas Health and Human Services Commission and other government offices. For more information, visit VOTETEXAS.gov.
