Back in November, Nate Cohn took a look at the election results in Texas and basically poured cold water on the idea that Democrats will be able to compete there anytime soon. Cohn’s job was made more difficult because exit polls were not conducted in Texas in the past election, so he had to base his analysis on county-level data. Still, he was able to make a convincing case that Obama had done much worse with white voters in 2012 than he had done in 2008, even as he performed significantly better with Latinos. Another interesting finding was that Texas has remained basically static relative to the rest of the country.
Despite favorable Latino turnout and support, Obama did worse in Texas than he did four years ago and lost by a decisive 16-point margin. Looking back further, Texas hasn’t moved to the left: the state was 19 points to the right of the national popular vote in 2012; hardly an improvement compared to 19 points in 2008, 20 points in 2004, and 15 points in 1996.
These results seem to confirm that the Republicans were successful in polarizing the electorate along racial lines, at least in Texas. If we think of their strategy as an effort to counter a growing minority population by increasing their share of the white vote, they did exactly that in the Lone Star State, and the result was that Texas stayed precisely 19 points more conservative than the country as a whole.
Cohn predicted that this strategy had reached it’s full fruition and that no more white votes could be squeezed out of the electorate. But as long as the Republicans retain this high level of white support in Texas, the state will remain reliably Republican for quite some time. Cohn also acknowledged that the next Democratic candidate, who is more likely than not going to be white, will probably fare better with white Texans than Obama did the last time around, but the Republicans have plenty of cushion before they need to worry.
What Cohn didn’t really contemplate was that the Republican Party would splinter and fall apart. What do white Texans think about the new Republican National Committee report that recommends that the party agree to a comprehensive immigration reform bill with a path to citizenship and that advocates acceptance of gay marriage?
Ron Brownstein brings up another issue in the National Journal. Governor Rick Perry has refused to accept federal money to expand Medicaid, which is significant because six million Texans lack health insurance. One study estimates that Perry’s decision will cost Texas $100 billion over the next decade and result in the loss of insurance for as many as two million of the state’s citizens.
Rejecting the federal money might not pose an immediate political threat to Texas Republicans, whose coalition revolves around white voters responsive to small-government arguments. But renouncing the money represents an enormous gamble for Republicans with the growing Hispanic community, which is expected to approach one-third of the state’s eligible voters in 2016. Hispanics would benefit most from expansion because they constitute 60 percent of the state’s uninsured. A jaw-dropping 3.6 million Texas Hispanics lack insurance.
Texas Democrats are too weak to much affect the Medicaid debate. But if state Republicans reject federal money that could insure 1 million or more Hispanics, they could provide Democrats with an unprecedented opportunity to energize those voters—the key to the party’s long-term revival. With rejection, says Democratic state Rep. Rafael Anchia of Dallas, Republicans “would dig themselves into an even deeper hole with the Hispanic community.”
A January survey from Public Policy Polling found Hillary Clinton narrowly ahead of Marco Rubio and Chris Christie with the Texas electorate, which shows that things may not be as static in Texas as the last election’s results might lead us to believe. The same poll found that she led Rick Perry by a shocking 50 to 42 percent, which is the exact same result found in a poll by Quinnipiac released today.
I’ve argued this before, but I think racial resistance to Obama’s presidency is masking the true weakness of the Republican Party. And things aren’t going to remain static. There will be consequences to the Republicans’ lack of unity on immigration and gay rights. With the RNC taking an official position on those issues that is anathema to, respectively, the racist and evangelical bases of the party, we can expect further erosion of the Republicans’ hold on the white vote. Some of those voters will be receptive to a Clinton candidacy, but the real problem will be lack of enthusiasm resulting in less volunteerism, fewer donations, and more third-party voting.
A more recent Public Policy Polling survey shows Clinton winning in Georgia. Here’s Brent Budowsky’s take on it.
The prospect of Hillary and Bill Clinton barnstorming across Texas and Florida in support of congressional and statewide candidates in 2014 is a tasty prospect for Texas and Florida Democrats. And there’s more …
A new poll from PPP shows Clinton carrying Georgia in 2016. Another new poll from Quinnipiac shows that former Florida Gov. Charlie Christ, running as a Democrat, would obliterate Republican Gov. Rick Scott in a 2014 match-up by a 50-34 percent epic landslide, while Democrat Alex Sink would pulverize Scott in a 45-34 percent landslide.
What happening here? I hereby dub this Budowsky’s 60 percent rule:
How many Texans and Floridians want to cut Social Security? Nationally 60 to 70 percent say no. How many Texans and Floridians want to cut Medicare? Nationally 60 percent or more say no. How many Texas and Floridians want to cut Medicaid? Nationally 60 percent say no.
How many Texans and Floridians want their government bought by crony capitalists and big donors per the Citizens United case? Nationally more than 70 percent say no. How many would prefer the public option to being gouged by insurance companies? Nationally more than 60 percent say yes. How many Texans and Floridians want to be gouged on their credit cards with interest rates that were once called usury (Texans and Floridians hate usury)?
Here’s the deal with the recent Florida and Texas polls. In Florida voters know Clinton and they know Bush and Rubio very well. It is predictive that Clinton so powerfully obliterates two Republicans Floridians know so well. In Texas voters know Clinton and Perry very well. It is informative that Clinton obliterates the Texas Republican that Texas voters know the best, and would also defeat other GOP hopefuls in recent polling.
I don’t know that Clinton would run that kind of populist campaign. And I hope that other, more progressive, Democrats could do nearly as well as Clinton. But these are eye-popping numbers. I was hopeful that the Republican edifice would collapse last November. Romney really was bad enough that it could have happened then. But it seems to be happening now, the moment that you take Obama out of the equation and measure a popular white Democrat against plausible Republican opponents.
