Walk spherical Dallas, and you may even see some odd “maga” indicators on lawns. They should not reprising Donald Trump’s slogan “Make America Great Again”. They are from a gaggle against Texas’s governor: Mothers Against Greg Abbott.
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Nancy Thompson, a advertising knowledgeable and mom of three, based the group accidentally. She determined to protest exterior the capitol in Austin in August 2021, after Mr Abbott introduced that he wouldn’t enable public colleges to require masks. Her son was in hospital, and docs warned concerning the dangers covid-19 may pose, with vaccines not but accessible to children. She wrote “Mothers Against Greg Abbott” on a poster and noticed the acronym. “I thought it was going to be good satire, or it was going to be a disaster,” she says.
Ms Thompson shaped a maga group on Facebook. After the Texas Heartbeat Act took impact in September 2021, banning abortion after six weeks of being pregnant, her group gained members. (Last month Texas began banning abortion from conception.) The greatest surge got here after a college taking pictures in Uvalde in May that left 19 kids useless. Mr Abbott at first praised the police, saying “it could have been worse” with out their efforts. It has since emerged that they wasted 73 minutes earlier than confronting the gunman. Mr Abbott has refused to name a particular session of the legislature to think about methods to curb gun violence.
maga now has some 50,000 members, 80% of them moms. It is registered as a political-action committee, supporting Democrats working for workplace in Texas, together with Beto O’Rourke, a former presidential contender who’s difficult Mr Abbott for the governorship. Mr Abbott, in search of a 3rd time period, is in probably the most aggressive contest of his profession. The race for governor “tells a broader story about the consequences of Republican overreach in terms of abortion and gun rights”, says Mark Jones of Rice University in Houston. For years, Republicans have handed conservative laws interesting to main voters that doesn’t mirror mainstream opinion.
Mr Abbott has enlisted his spouse to relate considered one of his marketing campaign adverts. He is stressing a well-liked problem for Texans: border safety. The solely governor’s debate will happen on September thirtieth within the Rio Grande Valley, an space with excessive ranges of border crossings. Mr O’Rourke raised $27.6m from donors between late February and June, the very best quantity any Texan state candidate has raised throughout a single reporting interval. But Mr Abbott has much more ample funds to attract on.
Victory for Mr O’Rourke continues to be an extended shot. Polls present him trailing by round seven factors. But even when he loses, he may carry down-ballot Democrats into workplace, as his failed Senate candidacy in 2018 did. The best statewide race is for attorney-general, with the Democratic candidate, Rochelle Garza, polling inside three factors of the controversial, federally indicted incumbent, Ken Paxton.
Much will rely upon ladies and Hispanics, and whether or not Mr O’Rourke can mobilise younger voters. Some 973,000 Texans registered to vote from January to August, round 16% greater than in the identical interval in 2018, in keeping with Ryan Data & Research, a political-consulting agency. The end result will hinge on which maga prevails. ■
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