I’ve often compared the red/blue divide in our politics to two tectonic plates that are locked together. Every so often, there is some slippage along the fault line that causes a minor political earthquake, but things usually settle back into a stable state. No one can quite predict when The Big One will come, but there’s always the potential for a huge shift that will permanently rearrange the divide and leave one party with an insurmountable advantage.
We’ve had two presidential elections, in 2000 and 2016, when the party with fewer voters nonetheless won the election due to an advantage in the Electoral College. In Congress, we’ve seen control switch back and forth during this same period. The one thing that would change everything is if Texas and its 38 Electoral College votes suddenly moved into the Blue column. Without Texas, it’s inconceivable that a Republican could win the presidency. The Republicans currently enjoy a 27-11 advantage in their congressional delegation, and they hold both U.S. Senate seats. Both of those majorities are key to the Republicans’ current control of Congress.
Based solely on demographic analyses of Texas, it has looked like the Democrats might be competitive in the presidential election by 2024 and perhaps have an outright advantage by 2028. Those estimates don’t take into account the possibility that racial, ethnic or gender groups might change their voting preferences. If whites vote even more heavily Republican or Latinos become more like swing voters, then Texas may remain reliably red for a longer period of time. But if the reverse happens, or if, say, white women move sharply away from the GOP in reaction to school shootings and the #MeToo movement, then Texas could be competitive in 2020.
Early voting for the midterm election primaries started in Texas on Tuesday, and the Dallas Morning News reports that the Democrats are turning out at close to presidential year numbers.
Of the 51,249 Texans who cast ballots Tuesday on the first day of early voting, more than half voted in the Democratic primary.
The total number of voters from the 15 counties with the most people registered is high for a midterm year. In 2016, a presidential election year, 55,931 Texans voted on the first day of early voting for the primary. But in the last midterm election in 2014, only 38,441 Texans voted on the first day.
Even more surprising is the turnout among Democrats. Since the last midterm election, the party saw a 51 percent increase in first-day early voting turnout, while Republicans saw a 16 percent increase.
Some of the individual county numbers are striking. Democratic turnout surpassed 2016’s numbers in Harris, Dallas, Collin and Denton counties. It basically equaled 2016 in Bexar and Travis counties. The Republicans didn’t even come close to matching presidential year numbers.
It’s been widely noted that Hillary Clinton actually came closer to winning Texas than Iowa, which was surprising because Iowa went for Barack Obama twice. To close the remaining gap, the Democrats need to get out their base and make a lot of converts. Short of that, they need to wait for demographic change to do its work while maintaining their current levels of support. The early voting numbers don’t reliably predict the results in individual races. There are some factors, like a higher than usual number of open seats, that might help explain why turnout is up so much. Without question, though, the numbers indicate an unusual degree of interest in the upcoming elections, and it’s much more pronounced on the left.
Texas could become a case like Virginia, where once the Democrats seize the advantage, they really never give it up. Republicans can still win statewide in Virginia, but it’s not going to happen very often. When it comes to winning states in a presidential election, Virginia is already moving to the bottom of the Republicans’ list of “purple” states. The GOP can survive this by winning in blue states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, but they cannot survive losing Texas.
I think the true test of whether Texas might turn blue by 2020 is going to be Senator Ted Cruz’s reelection effort. If he wins comfortably, then it means that nothing much has changed in the Lone Star State. If he loses, however, then I think Texas will be a true battleground state in the next presidential election.
Seismologists will tell you that’s impossible to tell when The Big One is coming. But it could be this November.
Harris, and Collin counties because the Metroplex weather has been lousy the entire week. Rainy and cold.
It’s not happening this year. Democrats turned out in much higher numbers than the Republicans for the 2008 primary, for fairly obvious reasons, but Obama was never competitive with McCain in the fall, and none of our statewide races were close.
They won’t be close this year, either, unless Cruz beating O’Rourke by 8 points counts as close. (In Texas, actually, that would be pretty close.)
I know that demographics point to a realignment in Texas sometime in the next ten years, but I won’t believe it until I see it. This has been a one-party state for most of the last 140 years, and while libs/progressives sometimes break through (Ann Richards, James Allred in the 30s), conservatives have maintained a stranglehold on the electorate and thus the legislature the whole time. If I ran DNC, I’d still invest resources here, because I’m a 50-state strategy guy for reasons I won’t list here. But I wouldn’t hang any hopes on any changes anytime soon. We may flip a couple of house seats in the fall but that’ll likely be all we can get.
For most of those 140 years, Texas was a Jim Crow state in which the Southern Democrats (i.e. conservatives) disenfranchised a significant fraction of the state’s eligible citizens in order to maintain their power. Since then, they’ve resorted to gerrymandering and some voter disenfranchisement when they can to maintain their power (now as Republicans, of course). If (and this is a really big “if” the SCOTUS outlaws gerrymandering when it can clearly be shown to effectively disenfranchise certain parts of the voting population as is the case in WI and NC (and most likely TX) then game over. This is still a very long shot given the Robert’s Court’s dismal history on elections. But still.
In addition, for a state like TX, the past really shouldn’t be seen as prologue. The current political milieu is really unstable and conventional wisdom and past history is no longer a reliable indicator of the future. That can be just as bad for Progressives (see Trump, Donald J.) as it is for conservatives (basically the vast majority of the population under age 40).
I don’t know. Cruz is NOT well liked in Texas. The average R is disdainful (as opposed to Coryn who looks like your rich uncle). It has long been the case that D’s could win if the R was disliked and the R turnout was light.
Getting rid of Cruz would be a great thing. I’m not so sure what it means for the immediate future of Texas Republicans, tho.
Texans would rather secede than let the state turn blue or even purple. And probably would if that happened.
It would never succeed, because neither Democrats nor Republicans would let it go. Democrats because they believe in American; Republicans because they want to be competitive in national elections.
In which case, all Fed money would go away and the state’s economy would collapse. “Texit” (var. of Brexit) would also be even messier than Brexit because of the huge federal investments there (NASA, military bases and who knows what else).
Maybe they will just “nationalize” them like South American countries do.
Also, fwiw, the bellwether county in Texas is Tarrant. Fort Worth is largely blue collar and is essentially purple, but the big suburbs to the east vote solidly Republican, so the county as a whole leans Republican.
This will change over time, much like the state. But how fast? Hard to say. But I think it’s fair to say that as Tarrant County goes, Texas goes.
. . . County Jail tonight.”
6:05 on Sunday mornin’
I’s sposed to’ve left for Memphis late last night
But I stopped at one of them old highway places
And because I did I’ll sleep in Tarrant County Jail tonight
Well I started out tonight with good intentions
But I ended up gettin’ sideways drinkin’ wine
Well the last thing I remember we was rollin’
And something hit my head and knocked me from my conscious mind
I’m a victim of life’s circumstances
I’s raised around bar rooms and Friday night dances
Singin’ them old country songs
Half the time ending up some place I don’t belong
I said, “Jailer, hey, what y’all got me charged with?”
He looked at me and halfway closed one eye
He said, “You mean to say you don’t remember
Cuttin’ up some honky with that bone-handled knife?”
I’m a victim of life’s circumstances
Raised around bar rooms and Friday night dances
Singin’ them old country songs
Half the time ending up some place I don’t belong . . .
–delbert
Maybe, probably not.
Much more important to garner good candidates everywhere this November than putting in hope that Texas flips.
Weather may become a factor that will push TX blue.