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E-mail This StorySunday’s convention could make Collin County deciding county in state Democratic caucus
BY DANNY GALLAGHER, McKinney Courier-Gazette
Sunday’s convention for the Collin County Democratic Party is in a unique position among Texas’ caucuses.
Victor Manuel, Precinct 3 Commissioner candidate and convention validation committee member, said the party had to move their upcoming convention from Saturday to Sunday, making it the last Democratic convention to be held in the state.
Manuel said party officials decided to move the convention to start at 1:30 p.m. Sunday due to increased voter turnout among Collin County’s Democratic base. The national spotlight turned its attention on Collin County after nearly 72,000 people voted for the Democratic candidates in the presidential primary, a county that has traditionally had strong Republican support.
“What I have seen is that the amount of debate and activity from the presidential cycle has filtered its way down where people who live in Collin County finally have a chance to make a stand for the Democratic contender,” Manuel said. “It’s something that quite honestly, something that my campaign is based on. Collin County has been a Republican stronghold, to put it bluntly, and since 2004, [Collin County’s Democratic primary votes] have grown by a third and that’s because that other group of 200,000 people that has come from all over the nation, and quite a few of them are not Republican or are from areas that have a more Independent streak or Democratic streak.”
Dan Dodd, Collin County Democratic Party chairman, said they had to move the convention from the Collin County Community College campus in McKinney to the Frisco Convention Center at the Embassy Suites Hotel to accommodate the additional crowds. He said they originally expected no more than 600 supporters on Saturday. Now they are expecting anywhere from 2,500 to 3,500delegates on Sunday.
“We didn’t know until the third day of the early election how big the crowd was going to be,” Dodd said. “The first day, we said ‘oh it’s just the first day.’ The second day, we said ‘well maybe there will be more than the first day’ and the third day, we said ‘maybe this will run all the way to end,’ so what we had to do was find another place.”
Manuel said county conventions are normally held on Saturday, but Collin County got a special request to move it to Sunday. Depending on Saturday’s returns, Collin County’s Democratic voters could be the deciding factor for the state.
“If happens to be on the edge Saturday night, people will look very closely to what we’re doing on Sunday,” Manuel said. “The only benefit is that pretty much every mid- to high-level candidate is going to have a greater inclination to come to Collin County.”
The unique time also gives Collin County the potential to attract many high level Democratic candidates and supporters to their convention. So far, former Dallas Cowboys running back and Barak Obama supporter Emmitt Smith and soap opera actress and Hillary Clinton supporter Heather Tom have confirmed they will appear at the Collin County convention on Sunday, Dodd said.
The convention also gives Collin County’s Democratic Party a unique opportunity to reinvigorate its support base and make it into a stronger, more unified party in the elections to come, Dodd said.
“That’s the challenge, because a lot of these people now came out because of the presidential candidates,” Dodd said. “The challenge is keeping them in the party and not making them issue voters or candidate voters but Democratic voters, and we need to start doing this with this convention.”
Contact Danny Gallagher at dgallagher@acnpapers.com. To post comments online, access this story on the web at www.scntx.com.
