Beto O’Rourke is doing his best to turn Texas blue in the November general election. Fortunately for Republicans, Beto has a history of coming up short in his efforts. Nonetheless, he persists. Frankly, what else does he have to do with this time now?

He failed to beat Ted Cruz for the seat in the Senate in 2018, then he failed to gain traction in the Democrat presidential primary. In both those races, he was happy to welcome the adoration and financial support from Hollywood and Democrat public figures in Texas. He still failed. Texans, as it turns out, just aren’t that impressed by others telling them for whom to vote, not even celebrities. But maybe the third time is the charm, right? That must be Beto’s reasoning because he is following the same playbook in trying to get Joe Biden elected.

Today Beto announced that he and Powered by People, a PAC launched by O’Rourke to organize grassroots efforts specifically to boost Democrats in the 2020 election cycle for seats in the Texas House of Representatives, will hold a phone bank next Monday, October 12. Early voting in Texas begins Tuesday, October 13. The goal is to reach 1 million Texas voters. Beto will be joined by Oprah Winfrey, Willie Nelson, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Stacey Abrams, and Andrew Yang, among others. The event is called “Calling Texas: Million Voter Phone Bank”.

“So on Monday October 12th, we will host the Calling Texas: Million Voter Phone Bank, and we won’t be doing it alone,” O’Rourke says in an email obtained by The Dallas Morning News. “Here’s where the big news that I was telling you about comes in. We’ll be joined on the phone bank by (get this!!): Oprah Winfrey, Willie Nelson, Bernie Sanders, Julian Castro, Stacey Abrams and Andrew Yang, among others.”

Texas-sized voter phone bank with (get this!!!) @WillieNelson, @Oprah, @BernieSanders, @JulianCastro, @StaceyAbrams, @AndrewYang & MORE! We’ll call over 1 million Texas voters on the eve of Early Voting – sign up for a shift here: https://t.co/1nFumgj6tC

— Beto O'Rourke (@BetoORourke) October 6, 2020

New Texas residents and young voters are being targeted. Californians and people from other blue states moving into Texas for the opportunities the red state provides often bring their blue state political ideology with them. Beto hopes to turn Texas into California.

O’Rourke says in seven months Powered by People volunteers have registered over 100,000 new voters and made over 40 million attempts at voter contact. The group targeted residents who recently moved to Texas with a history of voting for Democrats.

“These new voters and these newly engaged voters could make the difference in critical elections up and down the ballot,” O’Rourke wrote.

The Texas House, controlled by Republicans, is only 9 seats away from Democrat control. It is the closet Democrats have been to controlling the House since 2001. Governor Abbott extended the early voting period this election by an extra week due to the coronavirus pandemic. He did so to offer less crowded polling places on Election Day. The hope is that people will take advantage and early vote instead of waiting until Election Day.

But wait, there’s more. Another political event set to happen was announced today, too. This time it is from Lincoln Project Texans. They hope to turn Texas blue with “Operation Sam Houston”. These former Republicans, the people who enriched themselves by working for past Republican candidates and the Republican Party, now are campaigning for Biden in Texas. Trump must be defeated, you know, to save the country and the Republican Party, or something. In their warped minds, voting for a Democrat who is trying to usher in a wild socialist/Marxist hybrid form of government with Kamala Harris and the Bernie Bros is the way to get the old GOP back. It is an insane way of thinking but Trump’s election in 2016 broke a lot of people, including some backwards thinking Republican grifters.

On Tuesday the Lincoln Project will announce Operation Sam Houston, a million-dollar effort that includes television and digital ads, according to a strategy shared with The Dallas Morning News.

The initiative comes a week after the Lincoln Project bolstered its mobilization of Hispanic voters in Texas, including hosting a Spanish language roundtable last week co-sponsored by the voting rights groups Mi Familia Vota and UnidosUS Action Fund.

“Texas has been moving towards a swing state for many cycles now,” Lincoln Project co-founder Mike Madrid said. “Donald Trump has dramatically accelerated that trend.”

The Lincoln Project members have plenty of money at their disposal – they are professional fundraisers and campaign staffers. They’d like to blame Donald Trump for turning Texas into a battleground state in 2020 but that trend began before the days of Trump. I cannot tell you how many meetings and seminars I attended during my days as a political activist in the Republican Party that sounded the alarm that the State of Texas would go back to being a blue state as the Hispanic population grew. Along with a growing Hispanic population, Texas also has a growing Asian population – actually the Asian population has been growing at a faster pace than the Hispanic population. Both demographics lean Democrat in voting.

This latest effort from the Lincoln Project in Texas will center around blaming President Trump’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic for the country and himself, too. They sound like Democrats, that’s for sure.

According to Advertising Analytics, the Lincoln Project has already spent just under $1 million in Texas, with $833,000 of that total coming the weeks of the Democratic and Republican conventions. The new ad push, according to Lincoln Project national press secretary Nate Nesbitt, will focus on “Trump’s malice and inhumanity in dealing with COVID, specifically that he knew the dangers in February and consistently lied about it.”

“And knew he was exposed and chose to expose others rather than quarantining,” Nesbitt said.

Nesbitt said the Lincoln Project’s latest activity would be directed at 600,000 suburban and rural Republican women and also focus on Trump’s “extremism and racism.”

Madrid said the “polling data is undeniable” and that “Republican voters are leaving Trump to vote for Biden. He added that Democrats are historically energized to unseat the president.

“The Lincoln Project has been watching this state closely for weeks and we’ve decided we’re not going to watch any longer,” he said. “Republicans are asking us to engage and now we are.”

All to which I say, malarkey. Republican women in Texas do not consider Trump extreme or racist. They have been supportive of him since he became the GOP nominee in 2016. That hasn’t changed in this election cycle. These consultants and pollsters were active in losing Republican campaigns in 2016 and apparently have learned nothing from that election. We’ll see how far they get this time around.