You give Trump way too much credit. He’s not a political mastermind. He’s a racist game show host with dementia. He won last time because he ran against Hillary Clinton, a candidate who had something like a 40 percent approval rating.

Voters are tired of his schtick. The novelty has worn off. The Trump show has jumped the shark.

All the lines of attack against Sanders have already been used and been shown ineffective. Probably the only real ammunition he might have is talking about Sanders’ heart, but the socialism stuff will only appeal to the rubes in his base. Nobody else gives a shit about that.

Also, voting behavior among swing/undecideds is weird. People vote mostly based on party loyalty, but the rest mostly aren’t that ideological, so it’s hard for pundits to really predict how they react. A lot of them vote purely on a general impression of the candidate as trustworthy or authentic or they just like their personality.

My mom has been a Republican for most of her life but when she was young she campaigned for McGovern. She would have voted for Bernie in 2016, but she ended up voting for Trump just because she hate Hillary. She lives in Arizona.

My dad is a Republican party precinct chair in Houston and he watches Fox News religiously. He’s a total wingnut who thinks Bernie is gonna take his freedom and send people to gulags. He thought the same bullshit about Obama.

Anyways, in aggregate, Sanders is looking pretty good in Texas overall. He’s only 2 points behind Trump in the latest poll. (avg. 4 points). That’s about within the margin of error. He could realistically flip Texas. People assume Texas is a Bible Belt redneck state, but it’s highly urbanized and it has a huge Hispanic population (which is Sanders strongest nonwhite base of support.) Historically, there is a precedent for an uncouth sexist asshole flipping Texas blue. That’s how Ann Richards became governor.

Long story short, I feel pretty good about it.