HOUSTON – With the 2016 election campaign down to the last two weeks, Harris County Republicans got a pep talk Tuesday the GOP county chairman and Gov. Greg Abbott.
"Take back the White House. Yeah,” the Harris County Republican chairman shouted to a crowded room at the party's west Houston office on Tuesday afternoon.
There was a lot of promising to keep Harris County a Republican-voting county. But polls show the historically Republican-voting state is now a toss-up state.
"Harris County, are you ready to win an election?” The Texas Gov. Greg Abbott asked the gathering of party faithful.
He said Texas has elected Republicans to every statewide office for 20 years and that trend will continue. However, the Republican governor said his concerns for Harris County brought him to Houston as he campaigned for Republican judicial candidates.
He never mentioned GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, but he repeatedly mentioned Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
"She has all of these Democrats dreaming that Texas might turn blue, but you knew that it was a scam when she trotted out Wendy Davis as one of her surrogates," the governor said.
"Last time she was involved in a campaign, she lost by 20 percentage points."
Abbott is the second big time Republican to stop by Harris County in less than 24 hours. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas was in Pasadena on Monday night.
Republicans said these appearances are important. "I think the party really has been pulled apart a lot with a lot of our elected officials not supporting our Republican Party candidate," the president of the Village Republican Women, Buffie Ingersoll, said.
"And so I think it's terribly important that we all come together now and support all of our candidates all the way down the ballot."