THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Well, he is a Texas sized asshole and his campaign from the beginning has been a Texas sized pile of shit so while the final outcome is debatable, he has brought the election to a point close enough to debate.

“This year, it appears anything is possible, but a Clinton victory in Texas remains extremely unlikely,” said Mark P. Jones, a political science fellow at the Baker Institute of Rice University in Houston.

But some Democrats, pointing to the recent polls, see it differently. They predict a large turnout by black and Latino voters. And they have become energized as the Clinton campaign has opened offices and run TV ads in Texas and as local Republican-to-Democrat defections have made the news. Lauren Parish, a Republican judge in East Texas, said on Friday that she was leaving the party and becoming a Democrat because she saw “no way of reconciling my Christian beliefs with the manner in which the Republican Party is conducting itself.”

Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said of Mrs. Clinton, “I think she can carry Texas.”

“We’re looking at this cleareyed, but we have never been this close in a presidential election, at least for many years,” he said. “This election may be different because Republicans irresponsibly nominated someone who is just so far out there in every aspect.”

Lionel Sosa, 77, a Republican media consultant in San Antonio who created ads for Ronald Reagan and other Republicans, said he would vote for Mrs. Clinton, calling it a “protest vote.”

State Representative Richard Peña Raymond, a Laredo Democrat who is the Texas political director for the Clinton campaign, said that as Mr. Trump has angered women, Mexican-Americans and moderate Republicans, he has helped Mrs. Clinton gain support.

“The longer this campaign keeps going, the less support Trump has in Texas and the more support Hillary has in Texas,” he said. “Each day is a good day for Hillary and it almost appears like each day is a bad day for Trump. I don’t think it’s specific to Texas.”

Trump's campaign has had two complimentary effects. It has driven some Republicans to vote Democratic or at least not vote for Trump. And it is bringing people to the polls who have not voted before or had given up trying to elect decent people. This year their choice is a no-brainer. We will have to wait until Election Night to see if it is enough.