When will Texas become a swing state?

[SPC]

It seems unusual that a state where Caucasians are a slight minority (although still a plurality) is consistently Republican at the state and national level. When do you think the Hispanic population will reach critical mass a lead to Texas actually being a competitive state?

[Dgov]

Not for a LONG time.  The State is big enough and Republican enough to where the Democrats need to roughly triple the Hispanic population to have Obama win it with 2008 Percentages.

Hispanics made up about 25% of Texas' electorate, and voted for Obama 63-37.  Which means out of the roughly 8 Million Texas Voters in 2008, 2 Million were Hispanic, 1.26 Million voted for Obama, and .74 Million voted for McCain, giving Obama roughly 520,000 Vote edge from them.  McCain won the state by 940,000 Votes.

Which means, in keeping with the above numbers, the state would need to get about 15 Million more Hispanics in order for the state to flip on their votes alone.

Now assuming that the Democrats could get them to vote roughly equal to their actual percentage, the number drops to about 9 Million, which still amounts to roughly Doubling the Size of Texas' Hispanic population.

And this is all assuming they continue to vote Democrat by the amount they did in 2008, which is highly unlikely given that 2008 seems to have been a Democratic high point among them, and that they've been trending Republican in the state for the past 30 years.  Back in the 80s, they used to go 75-25 or even 80-20 Democrats.  Bill Clinton won more of the vote in the Overwhelmingly Hispanic Rio Grande Valley than Obama did, despite Perot winning about 5% of the vote there as well.

[The Mikado]

Worth pointing out that voter turnout is much higher among whites than blacks and Hispanics, so while whites are a few percent shy of being 50% of the population, they're a much larger share of the electorate.

There are a number of reasons why this is the case: many Latin American cultures have very different attitudes towards voting (where's the PRI man to pay me for voting for their candidate?) and recent immigrants are much more distrustful of the system.  Young 2nd or 3rd generation Hispanics have much higher turnout rates.  And, of course, it's always worth remembering that a significant slice of Texas Hispanics are 6th or 7th generation and are assimilated to the point where the last name is the only thing that really differentiates them from "Anglos."

The real problem for Democrats is getting out of the 40-45% box they're stuck in statewide.  For statewide candidates, there's an invisible line around 47% of the vote: "thus far shall you get and no further."  The candidate would need to convincingly win Harris County and Bexar County, dominate Dallas County, and crush in Travis and El Paso Counties, have very high turnout throughout the Rio Grande Valley, and keep GOP margins down in the rural areas while hopefully not be completely obliterated in the suburbs (which is the real base of the TX GOP these days).

[memphis]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

[Verily]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

This was because the "favorite son" vote actually helped Bush a lot in the Rio Grande valley (much less elsewhere); it is almost impossible to imagine Cameron County coming even close to voting for a Republican not from Texas, but it happily voted for Bush in 2004. In the long-term, yes, as the second and third generations grow up, the state will become more Democratic. However, this needs to be coupled with a weakening of the GOP in the suburbs to tip the state to the Democrats.

[memphis]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

This was because the "favorite son" vote actually helped Bush a lot in the Rio Grande valley (much less elsewhere); it is almost impossible to imagine Cameron County coming even close to voting for a Republican not from Texas, but it happily voted for Bush in 2004. In the long-term, yes, as the second and third generations grow up, the state will become more Democratic. However, this needs to be coupled with a weakening of the GOP in the suburbs to tip the state to the Democrats.

I find it hard to believe that Hispanics are uniquely inclined to vote for a "favorite son." Again, the white vote diden't change a bit. What has happenned is that the GOP has gone suicidal on the  immigration issue.

[SPC]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

Losing 6 points is insignificant when nationally the Republicans lost 10 points (especially so when ther favorite son was the candidate in the previous election)

[Bo]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

To be fair, though, Texas was 10% more Republican than the national average in 2004 and 10% more Republican than the national average in 2008 as well. So the trend towards the Democrats was minimal.

As for the question, I would probably say around 2020-2025.

[memphis]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

Losing 6 points is insignificant when nationally the Republicans lost 10 points (especially so when ther favorite son was the candidate in the previous election)

Going from 51% to 46% is losing 10 points? Look for a moment at who is voting. White voters in TX voted exactly the same in 2004 and 2008. The GOP lost all 6 points in TX from non-white voters, a group that is guaranteed to get much larger in the next few decades because of the minor citizens that are already living in TX. Republicans need to get their act together in a hurry. Unless they can swing a new region, they're screwed without Texas.

[SPC]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

Losing 6 points is insignificant when nationally the Republicans lost 10 points (especially so when ther favorite son was the candidate in the previous election)

Going from 51% to 46% is losing 10 points? Look for a moment at who is voting. White voters in TX voted exactly the same in 2004 and 2008. The GOP lost all 6 points in TX from non-white voters, a group that is guaranteed to get much larger in the next few decades because of the minor citizens that are already living in TX. Republicans need to get their act together in a hurry. Unless they can swing a new region, they're screwed without Texas.

Sorry, my error. But still, going down 6 points when they nationally decline 5 points isn't that significant.

[Vepres]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

This was because the "favorite son" vote actually helped Bush a lot in the Rio Grande valley (much less elsewhere); it is almost impossible to imagine Cameron County coming even close to voting for a Republican not from Texas, but it happily voted for Bush in 2004. In the long-term, yes, as the second and third generations grow up, the state will become more Democratic. However, this needs to be coupled with a weakening of the GOP in the suburbs to tip the state to the Democrats.

I find it hard to believe that Hispanics are uniquely inclined to vote for a "favorite son." Again, the white vote diden't change a bit. What has happenned is that the GOP has gone suicidal on the  immigration issue.

Hispanics seemed to like Bush a lot for some reason. Maybe they felt that as a former Governor of their highly (relatively) Hispanic state that he understood them better than another Republican might?

Didn't Bush also make a deliberate effort to reach out to Hispanics in 2004?

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

This was because the "favorite son" vote actually helped Bush a lot in the Rio Grande valley (much less elsewhere); it is almost impossible to imagine Cameron County coming even close to voting for a Republican not from Texas, but it happily voted for Bush in 2004. In the long-term, yes, as the second and third generations grow up, the state will become more Democratic. However, this needs to be coupled with a weakening of the GOP in the suburbs to tip the state to the Democrats.

It's worth noting that second generation Hispanics are more Republican than their parents, and third generation Hispanics are more Republican than their parents. They all favor Democrats, but I believe I saw a poll where first generation Hispanics voted almost 80% Democratic, while third generation only voted 55% or so Democratic.

Personally, I think fully naturalized Hispanics (those who speak English as a first language, etc.) will be a key swing group in the future, not the Democratic block that they were in 2008.

[DS0816]

When will Texas become a swing state?

… 2012.

[SvenssonRS]

When will Texas become a swing state?

… 2012.

That is so comically bad, it's going in the Hackery Goldmine.

[memphis]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

Losing 6 points is insignificant when nationally the Republicans lost 10 points (especially so when ther favorite son was the candidate in the previous election)

Going from 51% to 46% is losing 10 points? Look for a moment at who is voting. White voters in TX voted exactly the same in 2004 and 2008. The GOP lost all 6 points in TX from non-white voters, a group that is guaranteed to get much larger in the next few decades because of the minor citizens that are already living in TX. Republicans need to get their act together in a hurry. Unless they can swing a new region, they're screwed without Texas.

Sorry, my error. But still, going down 6 points when they nationally decline 5 points isn't that significant.

Way to ignore my point entirely. The GOP is going to have to do better with Hispanics to keep Texas in the safe category. Their anti-immigrant hysteria is not helping them long term.

[Dgov]

Way to ignore my point entirely. The GOP is going to have to do better with Hispanics to keep Texas in the safe category. Their anti-immigrant hysteria is not helping them long term.

You seem to be forgetting a key point here--Hispanics are ceasing to be an immigrant community in the United States.  There are more Hispanics in Texas than there are in Mexico who want to move to the United States (according to Gallup), and the "Hispanic Baby Boom" is starting to take hold.  They are gradually moving into suburban communities and up the income ladder.

So basically the second and third generations are starting to dominate the Hispanic society, and those voters tend to be Socially and Fiscally more in line with Republicans than with Democrats.  Take a look at the voting patterns of the immigrants from the late 1800s--they started out overwhelmingly Democrat when they were immigrant and poor, and now Lean Republican once they've moved up the income ladder and out to the suburbs.  Remember when the Democrats used to get ~80% of the Catholic vote?

[Verily]

Once the children of illegal immigrant (who are themselves citizens) are old enough to vote. Texas went from 61% R in 2004 to 55% R in 2008, while the white vote remained at 75/25 R. As another poster would say, be patient.

This was because the "favorite son" vote actually helped Bush a lot in the Rio Grande valley (much less elsewhere); it is almost impossible to imagine Cameron County coming even close to voting for a Republican not from Texas, but it happily voted for Bush in 2004. In the long-term, yes, as the second and third generations grow up, the state will become more Democratic. However, this needs to be coupled with a weakening of the GOP in the suburbs to tip the state to the Democrats.

I find it hard to believe that Hispanics are uniquely inclined to vote for a "favorite son." Again, the white vote diden't change a bit. What has happenned is that the GOP has gone suicidal on the  immigration issue.

The 1996-2000 swings in the Rio Grande Valley say otherwise, particularly in machine counties like Webb and Cameron. South Texas Hispanics may not have loved Bush, but they liked him until at least 2004. (Also note that this isn't as obvious against a map of Texas as a whole because the Southern-charactered areas also swung hard to Bush in 2000, but unlike South Texas they did not swing back to Obama, indicative of a different and more paradigmatic shift there.)

Also (to Vepres), the multi-generation Hispanic statistics are heavily skewed by Puerto Ricans and Cubans, who make up the majority of multi-generation Hispanics in the country but are much less represented among immigrants, or in Texas. Such numbers are pretty much useless. Furthermore, turnout among immigrant Hispanics is so dreadful that, even if their Democratic tendencies decline with the generations, the Democrats benefit from more generations passing because the voting rate increases (not to mention children of illegal immigrants, the latter of which don't vote at all and make up a solid chunk of the population of Texas).

[Vepres]

Also (to Vepres), the multi-generation Hispanic statistics are heavily skewed by Puerto Ricans and Cubans, who make up the majority of multi-generation Hispanics in the country but are much less represented among immigrants, or in Texas. Such numbers are pretty much useless. Furthermore, turnout among immigrant Hispanics is so dreadful that, even if their Democratic tendencies decline with the generations, the Democrats benefit from more generations passing because the voting rate increases (not to mention children of illegal immigrants, the latter of which don't vote at all and make up a solid chunk of the population of Texas).

Still, I do think Hispanics will become a swing group, as Dgov said well:

You seem to be forgetting a key point here--Hispanics are ceasing to be an immigrant community in the United States.  There are more Hispanics in Texas than there are in Mexico who want to move to the United States (according to Gallup), and the "Hispanic Baby Boom" is starting to take hold.  They are gradually moving into suburban communities and up the income ladder.

So basically the second and third generations are starting to dominate the Hispanic society, and those voters tend to be Socially and Fiscally more in line with Republicans than with Democrats.  Take a look at the voting patterns of the immigrants from the late 1800s--they started out overwhelmingly Democrat when they were immigrant and poor, and now Lean Republican once they've moved up the income ladder and out to the suburbs.  Remember when the Democrats used to get ~80% of the Catholic vote?

[Verily]

Also (to Vepres), the multi-generation Hispanic statistics are heavily skewed by Puerto Ricans and Cubans, who make up the majority of multi-generation Hispanics in the country but are much less represented among immigrants, or in Texas. Such numbers are pretty much useless. Furthermore, turnout among immigrant Hispanics is so dreadful that, even if their Democratic tendencies decline with the generations, the Democrats benefit from more generations passing because the voting rate increases (not to mention children of illegal immigrants, the latter of which don't vote at all and make up a solid chunk of the population of Texas).

Still, I do think Hispanics will become a swing group, as Dgov said well:

You seem to be forgetting a key point here--Hispanics are ceasing to be an immigrant community in the United States.  There are more Hispanics in Texas than there are in Mexico who want to move to the United States (according to Gallup), and the "Hispanic Baby Boom" is starting to take hold.  They are gradually moving into suburban communities and up the income ladder.

So basically the second and third generations are starting to dominate the Hispanic society, and those voters tend to be Socially and Fiscally more in line with Republicans than with Democrats.  Take a look at the voting patterns of the immigrants from the late 1800s--they started out overwhelmingly Democrat when they were immigrant and poor, and now Lean Republican once they've moved up the income ladder and out to the suburbs.  Remember when the Democrats used to get ~80% of the Catholic vote?

But this is all either false or conjecture.

Catholics never voted 80% Democrat, or even particularly more than 60-65% or so (this varied by region, of course; Catholics in Louisiana may have voted 80% Democrat, but they were not recent immigrants anyway). And it took Catholic populations over a century to move from maybe 65% D to the modern 55% D, during a time in which massive other political shifts (Women's suffrage, the Civil Rights movement, the break-up of the Solid South, Asian and Hispanic immigration) changed the voting public and voting patterns in far more extreme manners than a 5% swing in Catholic voting patterns ever could.

Socially, the second and third generation Hispanics are more in line with the Democrats than the Republicans, even compared to their parents--consider, for example, the vote on Prop 8 in California, where established Hispanic areas voted against banning gay marriage (while areas heavy with recent immigrants voted in favor).

Fiscally, perhaps he is right that they are "more in line", or at least less out of line. But how much does this mean? Nothing, really; what matters is how they vote. Places like Ladera Heights, California are not fond of Republicans despite their wealth; why would similar wealthy Hispanics (still very much a rarity and underrepresented) change?

And, as I pointed out, there are no meaningful statistics suggesting that second and third generation Hispanics are less Democratic than their parents when controlling for origin (e.g., excluding Tejanos and Cubans from your sample, at the least, as they are very overrepresented among multi-generation Hispanics). Moreover, even if they were, that decline--say a 5% swing over 100 years, as happened with Catholics!--would be more than made up by increased turnout among a still strongly Democratic constituency.

[Sbane]

Also (to Vepres), the multi-generation Hispanic statistics are heavily skewed by Puerto Ricans and Cubans, who make up the majority of multi-generation Hispanics in the country but are much less represented among immigrants, or in Texas. Such numbers are pretty much useless. Furthermore, turnout among immigrant Hispanics is so dreadful that, even if their Democratic tendencies decline with the generations, the Democrats benefit from more generations passing because the voting rate increases (not to mention children of illegal immigrants, the latter of which don't vote at all and make up a solid chunk of the population of Texas).

Still, I do think Hispanics will become a swing group, as Dgov said well:

You seem to be forgetting a key point here--Hispanics are ceasing to be an immigrant community in the United States.  There are more Hispanics in Texas than there are in Mexico who want to move to the United States (according to Gallup), and the "Hispanic Baby Boom" is starting to take hold.  They are gradually moving into suburban communities and up the income ladder.

So basically the second and third generations are starting to dominate the Hispanic society, and those voters tend to be Socially and Fiscally more in line with Republicans than with Democrats.  Take a look at the voting patterns of the immigrants from the late 1800s--they started out overwhelmingly Democrat when they were immigrant and poor, and now Lean Republican once they've moved up the income ladder and out to the suburbs.  Remember when the Democrats used to get ~80% of the Catholic vote?

Hispanics already are a swing constituency. This is why pissing them off will cost the Republicans big time. Of course that is assuming Republicans continue their assault on Hispanics. This new push to end birthright citizenship is an excellent example. This might help in the short run but will backfire in the medium to long run.

[Derek]

There is no sign of that. It's more likely to become it's own country in which I would move to.

[Fuzzybigfoot]

I don't think it ever will be.  Someday it could fall into the "GOP Lean" column due to the increasing Hispanic populations, but I don't think it will ever be a true swing state.

[phk]

Probably doubt it.

Hispanics are prone to convert to Protestantism more so in TX than they are in CA.

[DS0816]

When will Texas become a swing state?

… 2012.

That is so comically bad, it's going in the Hackery Goldmine.

Keep your head buried in the sand. Election 2008 was painful for the Republican Party.

[feeblepizza]

In the 2020s or 30s, though it will always lean Republican

[Ameriplan]

When will Texas become a swing state?

… 2012.

That is so comically bad, it's going in the Hackery Goldmine.

Keep your head buried in the sand. Election 2008 was painful for the Republican Party.

So was 1932, but that didn't mean the party was finished.