ALEX HOBEN
editor-in-chief
alexandra.hoben@my.tccd.edu

Some students are having difficulties sifting through information and decisions regarding approaching the election.

The upcoming midterms, including the race for governor Texas between incumbent governor Greg Abbott and challenger Beto O’Rourke are drawing closer. With early voting starting in Tarrant County on Oct. 24 and sample ballots now available, many are preparing for the election season.

NE student Bryon Broadway has been keeping up with his research and said he is focused on two major things.

“Honestly, the most important thing about this election to me is about a woman’s right to choose,” he said. “And further basis on that would be voting freedoms here in the state of Texas.”

NE student Ty Coleman echoed that sentiment, saying it was embarrassing that the public still had to vote on the matter of abortion rights. 

“Just the fact that it’s still going on is just ridiculous,” Coleman said.

Regarding the candidates, Broadway said that while O’Rourke is a good Democratic candidate, he may not be the right one for Texas.

“I think that Beto is an overtly emotional candidate, and he is unfit to run as a Democrat in the state of Texas,” Broadway said. “But I do think he is a very, very good Democratic candidate for a different state.”

For Abbott, Broadway expressed his frustration with how his attorney general, Ken Paxton, recently fled from being served a subpoena and has been under indictment for securities fraud for seven years. Even though Abbott’s been in office for seven years, he has not seen much change.

“You’ve been in office too long, haven’t done too much and you need to get out now,” he said.

Both Broadway and Coleman agreed that they believed there wasn’t a good candidate in the pool for this election.

“The same seven years versus a man who’s just going to get emotional on a podium once not enough support happens in the state house” Broadway said. “So we’re just going to end up with a governor who just yells at a podium for four years.”

Not all share that viewpoint, South student Gary Jackson said he thinks there is a well-balanced selection of candidates this year.

“The reason is that each one of them has various positions and issues that they are standing by, and they all make good points,” Jackson said. “It is just the matter of what issues would you like to be addressed as a voter.” 

He believes the main issue is gun control and making sure who can buy them.

“Right now, how do we get control of 18-year-old kids purchasing guns of any kind and then using them for mass shootings?” Jackson said. “We must have tighter gun control over who is able to buy one.”

One of the major issues that should be addressed by the candidates is the immigration situation at the border, Broadway said. He’s gotten conflicting information that is incredibly confusing.

“The entirely opaque situation down at the border, and I mean that from both the liberal and from a conservative side of things,” he said. “I don’t know what’s going on at the border. I don’t think anybody really knows. Is it bad? Is it good? I don’t know.”

Broadway also said how he wished his peers would research more into Texas government so they can realize it’s not just the governor’s election that’s important.

“I think that even if Beto wins, enough young people aren’t going to do the right thing and vote in Democratic or moderate Republicans into the House of Representatives here in the state of Texas,” he said. “And ultimately just because you get a different governor — if you look at our constitution — the governor does not have any powers.”

He has been trying to keep talking about it and keep people informed, but he’s tempted to take out the sixth-grade government books again.

“Now, here in the state of Texas, we don’t have any funding so those books are going to be written from 1981, but the point still stands,” he said.

He said the president and governor positions have been given far too much attention to the point where they’re like figureheads.

“The death of democracy here isn’t corruption. It’s the fact that we’re giving these executives too much power and we believe that they have this power,” he said. “At the end of the day, the legislative branch is supposed to have more power than the president, and then the governor.”

Broadway believes many people are going to vote independently this year but says that unless it looks like that candidate will actually win, they shouldn’t vote for that person.

“The biggest lie here in the United States in general is just the idea that you can’t waste your vote, and you definitely can,” he said.

Broadway compared elections to horse races. Anyone can pick whatever horse they choose, but only two horses run on that track: Republican and Democrat.

“Independent voters really want to make a difference in the world? They need to actually rally around one candidate, and they actually need to help them succeed at the local level and then up to the state level,” he said.

Coleman said he wishes the information provided in politics was more straightforward so that students and those with not as much time to read articles could still participate.

“We have a system where it highlights freedom and you should want to learn about your system that is different than any other place in the world, but I just get overwhelmed and honestly quite pissed off at how everything is run,” he said. “Just give it to me straight. What’s going on? And I’ll decide which one I like worst.”