The good news is that celebrity endorsements usually don’t end up meaning very much in political campaigns. The bad news is that just before the first presidential debate took place, some Hollywood celebs decided to start their own fundraising campaign to Turn Texas Blue.

Texas is a battleground state and Democrats are amped up, giddy with optimism that this is the year that the state goes blue. They did well in the 2018 election cycle, riding a wave of enthusiasm over Beto O’Rourke’s challenge to Senator Ted Cruz’s re-election. Cruz delivered a victory but it was a closer race than traditionally seen in the last couple of decades in Texas. Democrats are looking for lots more victories in the state in November.

Battleground Texas began in 2013. I use this group as an example of the work on the ground to turn Texas blue. The group has been laying the groundwork and organizing with the intent of doing just that – turning Texas blue again. I attended the group’s first organizational meeting in Houston back then out of curiosity and began writing about the group to sound the alarm that change was coming. Frankly, few Republicans took the movement seriously, and only after the 2018 election cycle has the fruits of the left’s labor been undeniable. Harris County (Houston) is now completely blue. The city has been for quite some time but now the county is, too. There is no denying that Texas is now a battleground state.

The presidential race is too close for comfort here, to be honest. I’ve lived in Houston since 1998 and spent many years politically active here as a Republican woman. I’m not an alarmist but I’m concerned. I still think that Trump will win Texas and John Cornyn will win his re-election but tons of money is flooding the state from the Democrats. Just the fact that I’m concerned about the Republican candidate for president winning Texas is unnerving.

Hollywood celebrities are joining the efforts of state and national Democrats. Remember how they all threw-in for Beto in 2018 and then when he first began to run for president? Well, they couldn’t get him elected in Texas and he quickly faded in the Democrat primary for the party’s presidential nomination, too, so this effort seems like a last-minute push born of over-confidence. Let them spend their money on Sleepy Joe in Texas. We’ll know soon enough if it works.

The pitch from the celebs is for their supporters to donate $38 dollars to the Turn Texas Blue campaign. Texas has 38 electoral votes, you know.

The group of celebrities, which includes Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Amy Schumer, Mark Ruffalo, and Pink, asked for supporters to chip in $38 for Democratic causes in Texas to buoy Biden’s chances of securing the state’s 38 electoral votes — one of the biggest delegate prizes on Election Day.

“There’s no debate: If we #TurnTexasBlue, Trump is through. $38 for 38 electoral votes. Match me: 38for38.com,” they tweeted, sharing a message that has gone viral across social media.

The “Turn Texas Blue” campaign began percolating on social media ahead of the first presidential debate in Cleveland, Ohio, between President Trump and Democratic nominee Joe Biden.

These Democrats are right – if Trump loses Texas, it is impossible for him to win the presidency. Trump won Texas by nine points over Hillary in 2016. That was the closest the Democrats came to winning the state since 1996. According to Real Clear Politics, the latest polling shows Trump up by 4 points and Cornyn up by 10. Republicans can’t get complacent now, though, and that is a concern. Republican voters have taken the state for granted for too long and times are changing, largely due to demographics of the state.

There’s no debate: If we #TurnTexasBlue, Trump is through.

$38 for 38 electoral votes.

Match me: https://t.co/ZvcHqQ8F38 https://t.co/U37HrQa6kp

— P!nk (@Pink) September 29, 2020

There’s no debate: If we #TurnTexasBlue, Trump is through.

$38 for 38 electoral votes.

Match me: https://t.co/tOSutVAgEc https://t.co/CgJf9qFcK1

— Julia Louis-Dreyfus (@OfficialJLD) September 28, 2020

The people who make a living reciting words written by other people are all repeating the same message. $38 for 38 electoral votes.

Mark Ruffalo asked for only $10 in his plea the day after the others asked for $38, though.

Texas is in play!! I support @TexasDemocrats. With so much on the line, will you chip in $10 today too? https://t.co/5O1QofZ5QM

— Mark Ruffalo (@MarkRuffalo) September 30, 2020

Hideous Hillary was the keynote speaker for a fundraising dinner for Democrats in Austin last week.

“I don’t need to tell you, Texas is the biggest battleground state in our country,” Hillary Clinton told Texas Democrats last week in a video speech during a fundraising dinner.

The Cook Political Report shows Texas as a “leans Republican” state. The blitz of campaign ads is real in Texas, certainly in the Houston area. Texas Republicans are hoping Trump can put the state on his campaign schedule. The state chairman says he has delivered the message that he’d like the president to visit Texas at least once more before the election, especially to North Texas – the Dallas area. He thinks Trump can do better than in 2016 and that Republicans can do better than in 2018.

More broadly, West expressed optimism about Republicans doing well in November, saying he’s “not overconfident, [but] confident” that the party will see better successes this year than it did in 2018. He also said he thinks Trump “will be able to at least maintain” the 9-point margin the president carried the state with in 2016, suggesting that he “may even exceed it.” Recent polling has shown the race between Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for president, is much closer than that in Texas.

Early voting starts in Texas on October 13.