Can Dems flip the suburbs?
By Richard Whittaker, Fri., Oct. 12, 2012
When GOP incumbent Paul Workman first took House District 47 in 2010, it ran cleanly along most of Travis County’s southern border. Redistricting shifted its core to engulf much of the old HD 48: That district, being defended by Democratic Rep. Donna Howard against Republican Robert Thomas and Libertarian Joe Edgar, now includes most of the western edge of Austin, meaning Workman’s is a mostly suburban seat. Conventional wisdom holds that, during redistricting, Workman deliberately sucked up every spare Republican-leaning precinct to build a veritable GOP fortress. Even other Republicans have accused him of this: During the primaries, challenger Ryan Downton attacked Workman for making it basically impossible for any other Travis County Republican to win a House seat. While some Democrats now describe HD 47 as unwinnable, infantry veteran and Dem challenger Chris Frandsen says, “I felt like a lot of the numbers we were looking at were based on 2010 numbers, not 2008.” He admits it’s still an uphill struggle. “If I can get all the Democrats to turn out at the 75 percent, 80 percent rate that we normally get at presidential elections, then I’m looking still at only getting 47 percent of the vote.”
