Donald Trump, Ted Cruz outmuscled weak Texas Democrats. And Bill Waybourn had it easy | Opinion

Donald Trump is stronger than ever in Texas.

Or maybe the Democratic Party is weaker .

Those can be the only takeaways from a general election in which Trump wasn't the lagging Republican on the Texas ticket — he was one of the party's best performers.

Sen. Ted Cruz was the one celebrating his easy victory over challenger Colin Allred, a little-known Dallas Democrat out of his element running a statewide race.

But it was Trump's strength and the Republican Party's focus on a change of economic leadership and an orderly U.S.-Mexico border that sank Democrats across the state. The defeats cost the party even more of its scant few seats in the Texas Legislature, and neutralized Democrats' former South Texas stronghold.

The abortion issue alone was not going to make Democrats competitive in Texas. Gaining votes from suburban women didn't make up for votes lost among those who might have wanted something more to hang onto.

In the end, Cruz didn't even bring out all his weapons. He usually runs on the three-legged stool of Texas political campaigns — God, guns and oil.

This tine, Cruz only had to preach conservative faith-and-values against Democrats' LGBTQ sympathy and throw in some comments about how Democrats endanger West Texas' energy industry.

Texans didn't know Allred at all when the campaign started, and 20% of Democrats still didn't know much about him a few weeks before the election. A candidate from north Dallas might as well be from Oklahoma to party loyalists in Houston, Austin and San Antonio, and Democrats' problems left Allred unable to win voters on the border issue.

In Tarrant County, Democrats offered little in a way of a campaign. The party continues to exist on paper but rarely in public, and sheriff hopeful Patrick Moses of Mansfield only raised $8,000 against celebrity Sheriff Bill Waybourn's $200,000.

Democrats lost ground in countywide races and dropped a constable's race in Arlington to Republican David Woodruff.

Waybourn, fresh off winning a national sheriff's award but criticized for poor training and management that led to way too many prisoners dying in the Tarrant County jail, was his ebullient self in a victory interview with WFAA/Channel 8.

"We were keenly aware of the threat of the border and dealing with the cartel and dealing with the fentanyl issue," Waybourn said, apparently referring to the jail since the sheriff's office handles law enforcement only outside cities near the county fringe.

"We're a safe county, one of the safest in the country," he said, apparently referring to everywhere except in the Tarrant County jail.

In a bizarre moment, he dismissed the deaths in the jail by saying most of those prisoners "really died in the hospital," as if that somehow absolved his jailers. He added: "I can't raise people from the dead."

He was winning re-election with 55% of the vote, better than Trump or Cruz.