Political parties in Texas take different approaches to campaigning amid COVID-19 surge

Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor Mike Collier had about 30 in-person events on his calendar coming up in the next two weeks. Now that number is zero. Collier and many other Texas Democrats are seeing the landscape of their campaigns changing rapidly as the omicron variant of COVID-19 rages. Huge spikes in infections are leading to campaign events falling off the calendar nearly as fast as COVID tests are flying off pharmacy shelves. One of Collier’s opponents in the upcoming Democratic primary, Carrollton state Rep. Michelle Beckley, is also easing off of in-person campaigning. Beckley told The Dallas Morning News that all of her scheduled in-person meetings moved to virtual video conferences. But for Republicans, it appears that events large and small across the state are continuing unabated, even as the omicron variant surges.

The diverging approaches are a déjà vu of sorts. Leading up to 2020?s presidential election, Democrats largely eschewed traditional boots on the ground campaign tactics to avoid inadvertently spreading the coronavirus. Republicans, however, continued to hold campaign events. And after Democrats got trounced, much of the blame was laid on the party’s decision to not engage voters face-to-face, according to the Texas Democratic Party’s post-mortem of the election. The thought of Democrats sitting it out on blockwalking and knocking doors has some Republicans grinning ear to ear. “I hope the Democrats remember how great it was for them in 2020 and continue with those policies,” said Dave Carney, a longtime GOP campaign consultant who is working for Gov. Greg Abbott’s reelection campaign. Collier’s campaign, for instance, canceled a tour through the Rio Grande Valley and barnstorming through the Metroplex he had scheduled for later this month. A candidate endorsement convention planned for later this month of the Texas AFL-CIO, which is typically friendly to Democratic candidates, has now been moved to a virtual event.