Check out the website: https://lenspoliticalnotes.com Political Note #278 Sima Ladjervadian TX CD 02,Political Note #229 Lizzie Fletcher TX CD 07, Political Note #257 Wendy Davis TX CD 21, Political Note #277 Sri Preston Kulkari TX CD 22, Political Note #241 Gina Ortiz Jones TX CD 23, Political Note #310 Candace Valenzuela, Political Note #271 Colin Allred TX CD 32 plus two nearby toss up races: Hiral Tipirneni AZ CD 06 Political Note #272, Xochitl Torres Small NM CD 02 Political Note #195
Political Note #314 Mike Siegel TX CD 10
2020 General election
Texas’s Tenth Congressional District was designed to make certain that someone like Mike Siegel https://siegelfortexas.org does not represent Austin. Despite the design, Mike Siegel might win. Beto O’Rourke carried the district in his 2018 run for the US Senate by .2% of the vote. Mike Siegel lost his election to represent TX 10 in 2018 51-47. In 2020, the people of TX 10 know him better.
The northern border of TX 10 runs unevenly from north of Austin to the western suburbs of Houston. Skinny at each end (especially the Austin end), the district grows fat in the middle so that it can include a lot of rural Republicans.
Mike Siegel was born and grew up in Oakland, California. For college, he went across the country to Brandeis University. After college he joined Teach for America, for which he completed his two-year stint back in Oakland. After Teach for American, he Co-Founded and taught at the Oakland ASCEND Elementary Charter School, Co-Founded and was the Executive Director of the Oakland Leaf project which operated after school and summer programs and organized high school internships. He stayed for five years, then went across country again to Cornell Law School.
Mike Siegel returned to Oakland as an associate at Siegel and Yee, his father’s law firm. His father is described as a Labor Lawyer and Civil Rights Lawyer and former candidate for Mayor of Oakland. Mike Siegel’s wife, Hindatu, the daughter of a Texas pediatrician, is also a former teacher. She trained to become a veterinarian at Cornell. Mike and Hindatu have two children, several pets, and live in Austin where she also sings in a choir. Connect the dots to understand their moves from Cornell to the Bay Area to Austin. He was from Oakland. She was from Austin. They moved from the Bay Area to Texas in 2015. Since then, Mike Siegel has been the Assistant City Attorney in Austin.
The Siegel family is diverse. It seems an idyllic, all-American Family Those who hate his father say different. They say Communist. In 2018, they claimed Mike Siegel is like his father, a Communist infiltrating the Democratic party to get rid of the then Chair of the Homeland Security subcommittee.
Mike Siegel is a Democrat. He’s running in a district where people know him better this time around. He is endorsed by Bernie Sanders and by Elizabeth Warren. Twenty national organizations beginning with the AFL-CIO have endorsed him. Twenty-five local organizations have endorsed him. More than fifty notables have endorsed him. Count him as a left of center, mainstream candidate. Mike Siegel and his wife are comfortable in a capitalist world. They own a business. His wife bought the veterinarian practice which she joined. They are focused on adding him to the Democrats in the House of Representatives. They are focused on defeating Mike McCaul.
How is McCaul different from a conventional wall-supporting, Affordable Care abolishing, impeachment opposing Republican? 1) He claims a bi-partisan record. Maybe not. Of Members of Congress with ten years of experience or more, he is the 17th most conservative according to Govtrack. 2) He has a particular interest in cybersecurity. He introduced a bill in 2013 to require the Homeland Security Secretary to coordinate with owners of infrastructure critical to national defense and to secure civilian information systems — upon industry request. 3) Now the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he tried to explain away Trump’s insistence he had not been briefed about the Russian bounties on American soldiers. 4) Finally, he is one of the wealthiest Members of Congress, largely through the generosity of his wife’s family. They own Clear Channel, now iHeart Media, which has 850 radio stations around the country, far more than any other corporation in the country.
Texas is changing. A few years ago TX 10 would have been a safe Republican district. Not any more. Pundits now describe it as leaning Republican. Be part of that change. TX 10 is not far from being a toss-up. Help Mike Siegel https://lenspoliticalnotes.com replace Mike McCaul. At the beginning of July, the incumbent had $1.2 million available for the rest of the campaign, about half of what he had already raised. Mike Siegel had $160,000, having spent almost 5 times that amount in a tough primary. The incumbent has nearly unlimited funds of his own. Mike Siegel needs to replenish his campaign fund. Help him do that now.
DEMOCRAT INSURGENTS WITH POLL RESULTS WHERE I HAVE THEM – Lots of candidate worth supporting. Where no recent poll is available, judgments are from the Cook Report
Alaska AK Alyce Galvin to defeat incumbent Don Young (Lean R) (Galvin 43-41, 43-42)
Arizona 06 Hiral Tipirneni to defeat incumbent David Schweikert (Toss up)
Arkansas 02. Joyce Elliott to defeat incumbent French Hill (Likely R)
California 25. Christy Smith to defeat incumbent Mike Garcia who won the May special election. (Toss up)
California 50 Ammar Campa-Hajjar to defeat Darrell Issa for this open Rep seat (Likely R)
Colorado 03 Diane Mitsch Bush to defeat Lauren Boebert for this open Rep seat (Mitch 43-42)
Florida 15 Alan Cohn to defeat Scott Franklin for the open Republican seat. (Lean R)
Florida 16 Margaret Good to defeat incumbent Vern Buchanan. (Likely R)
Georgia 07 Carolyn Bordeaux to defeat Rich McCormick for this open Republican seat. (Lean D)
Illinois 13 Betsy Dirksen Londrigen* to defeat incumbent Rodney Davis (Londrigan 43-41)
Indiana 05 Christina Hale to defeat Victoria Spartz for this open Republican seat (Hale 50-45, 51-45) (Spartz 47-40)
Iowa 04 JD Scholten to defeat Randy Feenstra for this open seat (Likely R)
Kansas 02 Michelle De La Isla to defeat Jacob La Turner for this open Republican seat (Likely R)
Kentucky 06 Josh Hicks to defeat incumbent Andy Barr (Likely R)
Michigan 03. Hillary Scholten to defeat Peter Meijer for this open Republican seat (Likely R)
Michigan 06 Jon Hoadley to defeat incumbent Fred Upton (Lean R)
Minnesota 01 Dan Feehan* to defeat incumbent Jim Hagedorn (Hagedorn 41-38)
Missouri 02 Jill Schupp to defeat incumbent Ann Wagner (Toss up)
Montana AL Kathleen Williams to defeat Matt Rosendale for this open Republican seat (Lean R)
Nebraska 02. Kara Eastman to defeat incumbent Don Bacon (Toss up) (Schupp 48-45)
New Jersey 02 Amy Kennedy to defeat incumbent Jeff Van Drew (Kennedy 46-45, 51-46)
New York 01 Nancy Goroff to defeat. Incumbent Lee Zeldin. (Lean R) (Goroff 48-46) (Zeldin 47-42, 47-40)
New York 02 Jackie Gordon to defeat Andrew Garbarino for this open Republican seat. (Toss up)
New York 21 Tedra Cobb* to defeat incumbent Elise Stefanic. (Toss up)
New York 24 Dana Balter* to defeat incumbent John Katko. (Lean R)
North Carolina 09. Cynthia Wallace to defeat incumbent Dan Bishop. (Likely R)
Pennsylvania 01 Christina Finello to defeat incumbent Brian Fitzpatrick. (Toss up) (Fitzpatrick 47- 35, 53-39, 50-35) Finello 40-38) (Tied 46-46)
Pennsylvania 10 Eugene DePasquale to defeat incumbent Scott Perry. (Lean R)
Texas 02 Sima Ladjervardian to defeat incumbent Dan Crenshaw. (Likely R)
Texas 21 Wendy Davis to defeat incumbent Chip Roy. (Toss up)
Texas 22 Sri Preston Kalkuri to defeat Troy Nehls for this open seat. (Tied 39-39)
Texas 23 Gina Ortiz Jones* to defeat Tony Gonzales for this open Republican seat. (Lean D)
Texas 24 Candace Valenzuela to defeat Beth Van Duyne for this open Republican seat. (Toss up)
Virginia 05 B. Cameron Webb to defeat Bob Good for this open Republican seat. (Lean R)
Washington 03 Carolyn Long to defeat incumbent Jaime Herrera Beutler (Likely R)
Wisconsin 07 Tricia Zunker to defeat incumbent Tom Tiffany who won the May Special Election. (Solid R)
