Writing this headline when Beto still has a 25% chance as winning is just as dumb as acting like he was gonna be the next president when he had a 35% chance of winning 6 weeks ago. 
I like Politico a lot these days. But they're definitely on the traditional side. This is a good example of how traditional political coverage involves making lots of **predictions** about election outcomes, in terms of which stories are written and how they're framed.
The other big problem with this article is that it seems to have been written in an alternate reality in which Texas is a purple state and not a red one that hasn't elected a Democrat to the Senate since Lloyd Bentsen.
If polls are exactly right:
—Beto will lose to Cruz by ~5 points.
—Ds will win 1-2 House seats (most likely candidates are TX-7, TX-32, TX-23) that they probably wouldn't have otherwise.
—Ds will turn out a lot of voters for the first time in a state with 36 electoral votes.
—Beto will lose to Cruz by ~5 points.
—Ds will win 1-2 House seats (most likely candidates are TX-7, TX-32, TX-23) that they probably wouldn't have otherwise.
—Ds will turn out a lot of voters for the first time in a state with 36 electoral votes.
Is that a bad result for Democrats? Yeah, it's a blue year and there's been a lot of (sometimes wasteful IMO) media attention to the race. But it seems like a pretty good result for Democrats, if you know anything about TX and scratch even half a nail's-width beneath the surface.
