Texas Question

[jimrtex]

Huge population declines (50-90%) from peak around 1940.  Marginal farming area, switching to ranching.  Nobody moving in with newfangled ideas like Republicanism. 

If you draw a line from Beaumont to Childress (which is the county just to the west of the SW corner of Oklahoma), in the area to the NE, Irish are the dominant Anglo group, while to the SW, German  are the dominant Anglo group, which indicates that the area was settled from the South, and is more like southern Oklahoma, Arkansas, northern Louisiana, etc.  It was settled after the Civil War, so no slavery, or particularly large Black population.

No big oil booms, far from the cities that became Republican, or were settled later.  The panhandle votes like northern Oklahoma or Kansas.  This area votes more like SE Oklahoma or along the Red River. 

Take a look at the 2008 Republican primary map for Texas.  In Texas, you have to have a county chair in order to have a primary.  About 1/2 the counties in this area did not have a Republican primary.  The total population is a factor here.  If you have 10,000 people in a county, you may be able to find someone to organize the primary.  If you have 1,000 perhaps not; especially if all the local office holders are Democrats.  In a county like that, if you want to run for office, you run in the Democratic primary.

For example, in Cottle County, 471 people voted in the Democratic Primary, there was no Republican primary, and McCain carried the county by 509 to 187.

[jimrtex]

Oooh, you guys finally noticed!

Ah, but technically, the way Jim defined it, most of that cluster is south of the line. A lot of what you're saying makes sense though. Still leaves me wondering why Clinton actually *won* so much of it (he didn't do too hot in ranching country further north), though... then again the ranchers there came originally from elsewhere, I suppose...

The areas west of Houston are predominately German (or Czech - I'm pretty sure that it is the most Czech county in the country, unless there is some county in Nebraska).  I've seen a census from the late 1800s where Germans were the dominant group in Harris County.  Brenham, Cat Spring, Weimar, Praha, and New Ulm.  Of course, there are sometimes larger towns that have Anglo names but that doesn't necessarily indicate later immigrants.

Texas is unique among southern states in having significant settlement by deliberate colonization from Europe in the 2nd half of the 19th century.

[jimrtex]

Oooh, you guys finally noticed!

Ah, but technically, the way jim defined it, most of that cluster is south of the line. A lot of what you're saying makes sense though. Still leaves me wondering why Clinton actually *won* so much of it (he didn't do too hot in ranching country further north), though... then again the ranchers there came originally from elsewhere, I suppose...

I'm recalling an interview with someone in King County, Texas, which was McCain's strongest county in the country, last November or December, who said something along the lines of, "Actually, everyone here is a Democrat." Shall we launch into a rendition of a certain song from Fiddler on the Roof?

(Although actually King didn't vote for Clinton in 1992, so whatever. The counties around it did.)

King County is different than the counties further east or even north or south in that it has virtually no agricultural areas.



[url=http://www.dot.state.tx.us/project_information/county_grid_search.htm]