HCA January 2021 Luncheon
Tuesday, February 9, 2021
HCA January Luncheon
By: Avery Nielsen
 HCA held their first luncheon of 2021 hosted at The Junior League in Houston, Texas on January 28, 2021. HCA was honored to have Jacquie Baly Craig as the luncheon speaker.
Jacquie Baly Craig, president
of BalyProjects, has her bachelor’s in political science and master’s in city planning. She serves as part of faculty and residency at University of Texas and has taught public policy for over 12 years at University of Houston. Baly is a government affairs
consultant and is frequently seen and heard on Fox 26, KTRH and KSEV as a political analyst.
Baly spoke about current Houston politics and the comparison to national politics. She began the presentation by discussing the 2018 Texas Senate
race, where Texas received national attention because of the belief Texas would flip from a republican to a democratic state, which did not happen she said. A large reason Texas continued to stay republican is from the Latino demographic, Baly said. “Latinos
became a deciding factor in Texas politics, and will continue to be a decisive demographic in Texas because they are growing by leaps and bounds,” she said.
Baly continued by comparing local politics from the 2016 and 2020 presidential election.
In 2016 President Trump won Texas by 800,000 votes, however Baly said that democrats were hopeful in 2020 because of the growing population. “We’ve seen the trend going the last decade. If you’re in a large city, the urban areas are voting more democrat,
but the rural and suburban areas are voting more republican,” said Baly.
In 2020 President Trump won Texas by over 630,000 votes, said Baly. In comparison to the 2016 election, in 2020 Baly said Biden won the urban areas by 23 percentage points
compared to Clinton with 20 percentage points. However, President Trump prevailed in the rural and suburban areas. “You saw all of the border counties, they were not supporting Biden,” said Baly. She discussed how many Latinos supported Trump because
of his beliefs of coming to the country legally and his initiatives. “President Trump launched a very wide initiative with the Latin and Latino community. It was very successful in states like Texas and Florida,” said Baly.
She continued
her presentation by discussing the republican tent and the expansion especially in Texas where President Trump followed a grassroots campaign. Baly stated how they saw lots of dollars being spent by the Democratic National Committee. “In some instances,
republicans were outspent by their democrat counterpart ten to one,” said Baly.
She narrowed in on the Texas House of Representatives races. The democrats focused their efforts on nine of 150 seats in hopes to gain majority, but did not prevail,
she said. The most dramatic example of spending, Baly said was congressional district 22 where Sri Kulkarni doubled the fundraising of Troy Nehls. “Reports at least 55 million came from national democrats into the state of Texas, that’s how important
Texas was for the Democratic National Committee,” said Baly. For Texas senate, Baly said the Republican State Leadership Committee used a grassroots campaign. “Knocking on doors, making sure that they made those calls, sent out social media ads, a lot
of ads in general, would be the key to getting to a lot of our voters,” said Baly.
Baly continued to explain the voting demographic of Texas and where Republicans are lacking votes. “Suburban women used to be the stronghold of the republican
party for decades, and with the rise of President Trump, we’ve seen suburban women fall away from the republican party,” said Baly. Republicans are creating an outreach tent for suburban women, Baly explained as an effort to the keep the groups votes.
Since 2018, Beto O’Rourke has not stopped campaigning, explained Baly. O’Rourke has focused on a grassroots
campaign and created many groups through the years, she said. “He is now trying to sign up all of the new voters, because Texas is one of the two leading states in the United States that has seen a significant amount of growth,” said Baly. Texas’ thriving
economy, Baly said is why Governor Abbott believes there’s an influx in population. “[Texas’] healthy enterprise, and capitalism, and entrepreneurial spirit is what continues to make us thrive,” said Baly.
Baly circled back to the question
about Texas’ party stance. Many analysists believed that the changing demographic would flip Texas, but so far Texas has remained republican. “As I tell my students, everything is cyclical, so the same way Texas was blue when I first got here, there’s
a chance it’s going to be blue again, it’s just not happening as quickly as some have predicted,” said Baly.
Baly ended by opening the floor to questions. A question over straight ticket
voting was asked to Baly. The 2020 elections were the first elections Texas did not use straight ticket voting. “As a result, it saved a lot of people, including a lot of state-wide races,” said Baly. When Texas used straight ticket voting, Baly explained
how many people are unaware of who’s running for judge and would vote either republican or democrat depending on which party they wanted. “When you’re going down the entire ballot, you are more familiar with who’s on the ballot, and your making your own
individual choices, as to opposed to just voting all [one party],” said Baly.
HCA would like to thank Jacquie Baly Craig for speaking at the January Luncheon. Thank you to Gulf Coast Stabilized Materials and Advanced Drainage Systems for being
the luncheon sponsors.
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