First off, I am NOT saying that Texas will flip this cycle. I just wanted to go post this for those who keep parroting "bLeXAs iS aLwAYs 10 yEaRS AwaAY". I think it's one of those things that you need to see to believe. Demographic trends ARE positive for Dems in the state. Growth is clustering in urban areas. 70% of the population lives in the Texas Triangle, with this population being young, diverse, and educated. All favorable demographics for Democrats.
"I don't believe you. I've heard that all my life, and it's still red."
Take a second and look at the presidential election results since 2000:
The state is not the ruby red keystone of the GOP that it once was. Since their peak in 2004, the GOP winning margin has shrank from almost 23 points to 5.6 points. Read that again, 5.6 points. The process is slow, but Dem vote share has steadily been gaining over the past 20 years, reducing the margin roughly 75%. It's not unreasonable to think that Blexas is possible in 2028 if it's Trump going up against a popular Harris incumbent.
"That's bullshit. Abbott won by 11 points. It's obviously still solid red"
Okay, and? State level races are a different ballgame. Biden won Georgia, and then Georgia turned around to reelect Kemp by 8 points. Beshear won Kentucky, but that doesn't mean it's competitive on a federal level.
TLDR: Texas is closing in on being competitive, and you're sticking your head in the sand if you think otherwise. Also vote in November and donate to Tester's reelection campaign.
Posted by HenryGeorgia
9 Comments
If dueling banjos can be blue, it’s not wild for Texas.
I thought for a minute this was about Texas secession and was about to say how that’s impossible without a civil war.
I 100% support Blexas, or secession, or whatever they’re calling it these days. 😉
Not that far-fetched at all, but it will require a concerted ground game over multiple cycles. If we shrink it to 3-4% in 2024 I am curious what kind of response we’ll get from the Texas legislature, they already try to suppress votes (no online registration for example).
I’ll believe it when I see it.
Picking 2000 as the starting point is pretty deceptive. The closest margins for Texas were the previous 1992 and 1996 cycles. The Presidential candidate in 2000 was George Bush, who was literally governor of Texas beforehand and in 2004 he got a huge boost from the rally around effect of 9/11. 2004 was literally the last time that Republicans won the popular vote in presidential elections.
I just hope Kamala doesn’t spend time there when she could be going to the actual swing states she needs
https://preview.redd.it/dkuyj9u66xid1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=0297ce818dad95666563d1f4c01ec30758869479
Stop trying to make Blexas happen.
One big problem with your data:
You started in the year 2000, when there was **a sitting Texas governor on the ballot.**
1992 was 40-37 in favour of HWBush, 1995 was 48-43 in favour of Bob Dole.
Both of those are ~5% margins. It is hard to tell Texas getting bluer from a natural reversion to the mean after a decade of Republican policies very focused on the voting Demographics of Texas. The election to election swings are also wild. The swing from Obama in 2008 towards Romney in 2012 is almost as big as the swing towards Hillary and Biden in 2016 and 2020.
You also haven’t looked at where those Democratic votes are coming from.
Trump won Texas in 2016 with 52% of the vote. He won 2020 with… 52% of the vote. The swing was less than .2 percent. McCain for the record got 55 and Romney 57. Meanwhile since 2008 the Democrats got 43/41/43/46.
What that implies is that Trump is a uniquely bad candidate in Texas, but his floor is still more than half the state and the Democratic gains are, in terms of percentage, almost all from people who went for Romney in 2012 and third party in 2016 moving to vote against Trump.
That’s the problem with drawing a conclusion based on five total elections—the individual impacts of candidates and circumstances of an election can obscure any larger trends. It could well be that literally anyone other than Trump pulls back to Romney numbers.