Is Texas really turning blue?

[lfromnj]

Whether Texas goes blue at a statewide level doesn't really matter, a long as the Republicans control the state legislature. You could theoretically have a Democratic Governor and Lieutenant Governor elected, only for their powers to be stripped in a lame duck session, as you saw in other states. Or you could have Texas lean blue in the Electoral College, only for the state legislature to decide that Texas' EVs will be apportioned by congressional district, and then gerrymander those congressional districts. You could have 55% of Texas going for the Democrat for president, but the Republican win the EC because most EVs went to the Republican.

The only area where the statewide vote matters, thanks to the 17th Amendment, is the Senate, but there, Texas is no more significant than any other state.

The real question in Texas, like in so many other states, is whether the state legislature will go blue.

The Texas state house flips before statewide imo in 2020. Republicans  are self packed in rural areas more than dems are in cities.

[Dr. MB]

No sh**t it's turning blue. It'll take a Virginia-like path, being a swing state for a decade and a half or so, and then become solidly Democratic. Also, it's pretty likely the state house flips next year.

[ajc0918]

Do texas dems have a path to winning the state house? I haven't read that

[lfromnj]

Do texas dems have a path to winning the state house? I haven't read that

yeah the dems should invest heavily into it for fair maps in the 20's

Its easier than statewide due to the gerrymanders becoming dummymanders
Dallas went from 8R-6D to 12D-2R.  Get houston and San Antonio and the dems have a majority.

[The Mikado]

Whether Texas goes blue at a statewide level doesn't really matter, a long as the Republicans control the state legislature. You could theoretically have a Democratic Governor and Lieutenant Governor elected, only for their powers to be stripped in a lame duck session, as you saw in other states. Or you could have Texas lean blue in the Electoral College, only for the state legislature to decide that Texas' EVs will be apportioned by congressional district, and then gerrymander those congressional districts. You could have 55% of Texas going for the Democrat for president, but the Republican win the EC because most EVs went to the Republican.

The only area where the statewide vote matters, thanks to the 17th Amendment, is the Senate, but there, Texas is no more significant than any other state.

The real question in Texas, like in so many other states, is whether the state legislature will go blue.

If Dems win the Lt. Governor seat, it'd require a state constitutional amendment (and referendum) to get rid of the Lt. Governor's most important role: being de facto State Senate Majority Leader. Alternately, if the GOP still holds the State Senate, Lt. Gov is kind of irrelevant.

The TX Governor's only real power is the veto and calling special legislative sessions, outside of that there's no real authority in the governor's hands because almost all of the statewide officials are elected rather than appointed.

[Republican Left]

Does this mean "game over" for the GOP if Texas is lost?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Does this mean "game over" for the GOP if Texas is lost?

For a couple of cycles, yes.

[Tintrlvr]

Do texas dems have a path to winning the state house? I haven't read that

yeah the dems should invest heavily into it for fair maps in the 20's

Its easier than statewide due to the gerrymanders becoming dummymanders
Dallas went from 8R-6D to 12D-2R.  Get houston and San Antonio and the dems have a majority.

I think Beto won an easy majority of state legislative districts. The gerrymander really backfired on the Republicans. That said, unless the Dems can break through in 2020, the Republicans probably just re-gerrymander in 2022 and it's all moot - though a 2022 gerrymander may not survive all the way until 2030 (and would by necessity be less aggressive than the 2012 gerrymander in any case).

[The Mikado]

Do texas dems have a path to winning the state house? I haven't read that

yeah the dems should invest heavily into it for fair maps in the 20's

Its easier than statewide due to the gerrymanders becoming dummymanders
Dallas went from 8R-6D to 12D-2R.  Get houston and San Antonio and the dems have a majority.

I think Beto won an easy majority of state legislative districts. The gerrymander really backfired on the Republicans. That said, unless the Dems can break through in 2020, the Republicans probably just re-gerrymander in 2022 and it's all moot - though a 2022 gerrymander may not survive all the way until 2030 (and would by necessity be less aggressive than the 2012 gerrymander in any case).

I think people are really overestimating how easy TX will be to redraw for the GOP, even on the House end. A new TX GOP-drawn map is going to have to be very, very conservative with a focus on creating Dem sink districts. It's not just the state's changing partisan lean as it is where the obscenely quick population growth is happening: the same suburban counties that are trending Dem, along with the already Dem urban counties, are going to have a massive increase in number of seats allocated.

[Tintrlvr]

Do texas dems have a path to winning the state house? I haven't read that

yeah the dems should invest heavily into it for fair maps in the 20's

Its easier than statewide due to the gerrymanders becoming dummymanders
Dallas went from 8R-6D to 12D-2R.  Get houston and San Antonio and the dems have a majority.

I think Beto won an easy majority of state legislative districts. The gerrymander really backfired on the Republicans. That said, unless the Dems can break through in 2020, the Republicans probably just re-gerrymander in 2022 and it's all moot - though a 2022 gerrymander may not survive all the way until 2030 (and would by necessity be less aggressive than the 2012 gerrymander in any case).

I think people are really overestimating how easy TX will be to redraw for the GOP, even on the House end. A new TX GOP-drawn map is going to have to be very, very conservative with a focus on creating Dem sink districts. It's not just the state's changing partisan lean as it is where the obscenely quick population growth is happening: the same suburban counties that are trending Dem, along with the already Dem urban counties, are going to have a massive increase in number of seats allocated.

You have less faith in gerrymandering abilities. The Republicans managed to gerrymander themselves into control of the *New York* state Senate for most of the past decade (and before then), after all. On a state legislative level they can also rely on malapportionment (which I don't think they do now). The Supreme Court has allowed fairly significant variances in state legislative districts, even on a systematic level (again, witness the New York state Senate).

[Republican Left]

Does this mean "game over" for the GOP if Texas is lost?

For a couple of cycles, yes.

You mean for like a couple of decades or 12 to 16 years at most? Is conservatism lost then?

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Does this mean "game over" for the GOP if Texas is lost?

For a couple of cycles, yes.

You mean for like a couple of decades or 12 to 16 years at most? Is conservatism lost then?

I would say two to four elections.

Depends on what you mean by "Conservatism". Conservatism always has a way of coming back within the confines of new political context. If by Conservatism you mean the movement which has for the past 30 years dominated Republican politics and takes to using that term to describe itself, then to an extent yes but that has a lot more working against it than just Texas turning purple/blue.

[The Mikado]

Do texas dems have a path to winning the state house? I haven't read that

yeah the dems should invest heavily into it for fair maps in the 20's

Its easier than statewide due to the gerrymanders becoming dummymanders
Dallas went from 8R-6D to 12D-2R.  Get houston and San Antonio and the dems have a majority.

I think Beto won an easy majority of state legislative districts. The gerrymander really backfired on the Republicans. That said, unless the Dems can break through in 2020, the Republicans probably just re-gerrymander in 2022 and it's all moot - though a 2022 gerrymander may not survive all the way until 2030 (and would by necessity be less aggressive than the 2012 gerrymander in any case).

I think people are really overestimating how easy TX will be to redraw for the GOP, even on the House end. A new TX GOP-drawn map is going to have to be very, very conservative with a focus on creating Dem sink districts. It's not just the state's changing partisan lean as it is where the obscenely quick population growth is happening: the same suburban counties that are trending Dem, along with the already Dem urban counties, are going to have a massive increase in number of seats allocated.

You have less faith in gerrymandering abilities. The Republicans managed to gerrymander themselves into control of the *New York* state Senate for most of the past decade (and before then), after all. On a state legislative level they can also rely on malapportionment (which I don't think they do now). The Supreme Court has allowed fairly significant variances in state legislative districts, even on a systematic level (again, witness the New York state Senate).

I'll just point out some stuff from my area:

DFW currently has two seats designed to be Dem sink seats (TX-30 and TX-33).





TX-30 is centered on heavily black and Hispanic South Dallas, as well as the heavily black suburbs south of Dallas, while TX-33 is centered on heavily Hispanic West Dallas and western suburbs as well as big chunks of Fort Worth.

All of these areas are growing and growing faster than the state average, even if not growing faster than the suburban boom areas. TX-30 and TX-33 will both have to be significantly physically smaller in their next iterations (TX-33 might well be kicked mostly out of Dallas to just be a Fort Worth and Mid Cities district due to Ft Worth's growth). This is a huge problem to the GOP because these seats are as Dem packed as can be. TX-30 can either take itself further south, giving the northern parts of it to TX-32 and TX-05, or pull itself north and give all of the suburbs south of Dallas to TX-06, dragging TX-06 into Dallas County. TX-33 shrinking in west Dallas and the west Dallas suburbs risks dragging TX-06 again or TX-24 into those areas.

When districts that are already as packed as can be have to shrink physically, it drags Republican seats into heavily Democratic turf. The GOP can get around this by moving TX-32 south and west and making it another Dem sink seat at the cost of giving up winning it again (shoring up TX-24 in the process), but even that has its own negative costs.



TX-05 is a safe GOP seat under its current configuration as a pairing of heavily Dem east Dallas, still heavily R but shifting suburban Kaufman County, and a bunch of blood red rural areas, but east Dallas and Kaufman are growing and the rurals aren't. The next iteration of this district will have to have way less rural land if it intends to keep East Dallas and Kaufman, and while Kaufman is safe R today, who the hell knows by 2030? If present suburban trends continue, it'll likely be a swing county by the end of the next map.

These are just examples. This new map is going to be tough to draw in part just because the Dem sink seats are going to be geographically smaller and a lot of those precincts are going to have to spill into neighboring districts.



If TX-06 is forced to crawl into southern Dallas County, it's immediately a ticking time bomb. Maybe it wouldn't be a swing state in 2022, but it certainly would be by the end of the decade.

[lfromnj]

Do texas dems have a path to winning the state house? I haven't read that

yeah the dems should invest heavily into it for fair maps in the 20's

Its easier than statewide due to the gerrymanders becoming dummymanders
Dallas went from 8R-6D to 12D-2R.  Get houston and San Antonio and the dems have a majority.

I think Beto won an easy majority of state legislative districts. The gerrymander really backfired on the Republicans. That said, unless the Dems can break through in 2020, the Republicans probably just re-gerrymander in 2022 and it's all moot - though a 2022 gerrymander may not survive all the way until 2030 (and would by necessity be less aggressive than the 2012 gerrymander in any case).

I think people are really overestimating how easy TX will be to redraw for the GOP, even on the House end. A new TX GOP-drawn map is going to have to be very, very conservative with a focus on creating Dem sink districts. It's not just the state's changing partisan lean as it is where the obscenely quick population growth is happening: the same suburban counties that are trending Dem, along with the already Dem urban counties, are going to have a massive increase in number of seats allocated.

You have less faith in gerrymandering abilities. The Republicans managed to gerrymander themselves into control of the *New York* state Senate for most of the past decade (and before then), after all. On a state legislative level they can also rely on malapportionment (which I don't think they do now). The Supreme Court has allowed fairly significant variances in state legislative districts, even on a systematic level (again, witness the New York state Senate).

the NY state senate depended a lot on retail politics. Obama won like 50/60 senate seats and Clinton won like 40. It was very retail based.

[Boobs]

[...]

Excellent analysis. Additionally, a lot of the northern metroplex seats are severely overpopulated and shifting quickly;




TX-03 (my district) has more than 850,000 people.



TX-24 (Marchant) has more than 800,000.




TX-26 (Burgess) has more than 850,000.


These districts are now overpopulated compared to others, and the fact that Texas is poised to gain 3 seats means that even if Republicans try to draw 3 sinks in DFW (Johnson, Veasey, and Allred) they’d still remain very vulnerable in the other DFW districts - it’ll mean to be safe they’ll have to sacrifice at least one more semi-sink district and that’ll likely not even be enough for the decade.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

TX-30 is centered on heavily black and Hispanic South Dallas, as well as the heavily black suburbs south of Dallas, while TX-33 is centered on heavily Hispanic West Dallas and western suburbs as well as big chunks of Fort Worth.

All of these areas are growing and growing faster than the state average, even if not growing faster than the suburban boom areas. TX-30 and TX-33 will both have to be significantly physically smaller in their next iterations (TX-33 might well be kicked mostly out of Dallas to just be a Fort Worth and Mid Cities district due to Ft Worth's growth). This is a huge problem to the GOP because these seats are as Dem packed as can be. TX-30 can either take itself further south, giving the northern parts of it to TX-32 and TX-05, or pull itself north and give all of the suburbs south of Dallas to TX-06, dragging TX-06 into Dallas County. TX-33 shrinking in west Dallas and the west Dallas suburbs risks dragging TX-06 again or TX-24 into those areas.

That is actually not quite true. From 2017 population estimates by CD, the TX statewide growth rate from 2010 to 2017 was 12.6%. The national growth rate was 5.5%. TX-30 (10.9% growth rate) and TX-33 (7.9% growth rate) are both slower growing than the state average, although they are a bit faster growing than the national average. Since they are still faster growing than the national average, it is nonetheless probably (depending on rounding error in reapportionment) true that they will indeed have to give up a bit of territory in redistricting, but not all that much.

The Houston area is a bigger problem for the GOP in this respect than the Metroplex. In Houston, TX-18 (14.6% growth) and TX-09 (13.0% growth) are both growing faster than the statewide average, although TX-29 is a bit slower though still faster than the national average (9.1% growth).


More broadly, the real problem for the GOP is that out of the 3.2 million people TX gained since 2000, only 458K (14.5%) of them were white. Just the black population growth of 443K (14.0% of the total growth) is enough to offset the political effect of the white growth, even if you assume that Republicans are overwhelmingly winning the new White growth by 80%-20% or so - which is not a sensible assumption.

What white population growth there is tends to be a bit more concentrated in the most white-liberal of the big TX metro areas - Austin, with white population loss across the rural districts (and rural parts of non-rural districts) and also some white gains in the fastest growing and most Dem-trending suburban districts (where the white share of the population is nonetheless quickly decreasing because the non-white growth is much higher - like TX-03, for example, which although it gained 56k whites, it also gained 116k non-whites, and has been one of the most strongly Dem trending areas of TX in 2016 and 2018).

It is interesting to make a list of all the Congressional districts where the White share of the district's population growth is higher than the statewide average:

TX-25 (56% of the population growth there is White) --- White liberal Austin population growth.
TX-26 (46% of the population growth there is White) --- Denton/DFW suburbs that have trended strongly Dem
TX-08 (41% of the population growth there is White) --- This is basically the only real counterexample where the GOP is okayish in terms of the population growth and people voting R.
TX-31 (37% of the population growth there is White) --- North Austin Williamson County suburbs, where Beto shockingly won Williamson County...
TX-04 (35%) --- This is the 2nd best counterexample other than TX-08, but all the white population growth is basically in Rockwall County in the Dallas suburbs, ie the only part of TX-04 that has trended D.
TX-21 (33%) --- More Austin white liberals.
TX-03 (33%) --- Collin County.
TX-35 (32%) --- Dem Austin Hispanic VRA vote sink getting more white liberals.
TX-12 (29%) --- Fort Worth/suburbs.
TX-10 (26%) --- Austin white liberals and some NW Houston.
TX-22 (23%) --- Fort Bend.
TX-17 (20%) --- All the white population growth in this district is in the North Austin part of the district and in College Station, both of which trended strongly Dem in 2016 and 2018.

That is it. The complete list of all Congressional Districts where White growth is a greater share of the growth than the statewide TX average. Other than TX-08 and TX-04, every last one of them is trouble for the GOP, and about half of those districts are districts where the White growth is in the Austin area.

Every other district has either a lower White share of the growth, or has outright White population loss (Fully 17 Congressional districts in TX have outright White population loss, despite having overall population gain thanks to non-white growth).

TX-24 is probably the best example of this GOP problem with white population growth either not existing, consisting of Austin white liberals, or just getting swamped. Although TX-24 gained 102k people since 2000, it actually had outright white population loss of -8k. And 30k of the 120k non-whites it gained were black. That is obviously not a winning long term formula for a whites-only Republican party.

So I would say that the major part of the problem is simply that these suburban areas like TX-24 are just shifting under the feet of their R incumbents, less so than whether they have to take more territory from districts like TX-30/TX-33. The problem is not new territory, it is the territory that they already have, and that used to be much safer R than it now is. The problem for the GOP is places like Sugar Land are now starting to vote Dem, and you are starting to see Dem-voting precincts spring up in places like... Frisco !?!?!

[lfromnj]

wait does anyone have the highland park numbers in Dallas for
2012 pres, 2016 pres and 2018 senate.  I want to see these lifelong republicans voting for Beto because Drumpf.

[lfromnj]

I also read a medium post about a person who canvassed for Beto in the end.
The Texas dems had so little infrastructure and Texas was growing so fast the Minivan app had very inaccurate data. The GOTV operation Beto did should refresh the dems on that and they now have a much better list on who to target. In 2020 setting a GOTV operation is much easier. If Beto decides against running for president or senate he should pull a mark warner and run for leader of the TX dems.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I also read a medium post about a person who canvassed for Beto in the end.
The Texas dems had so little infrastructure and Texas was growing so fast the Minivan app had very inaccurate data. The GOTV operation Beto did should refresh the dems on that and they now have a much better list on who to target. In 2020 setting a GOTV operation is much easier. If Beto decides against running for president or senate he should pull a mark warner and run for leader of the TX dems.

Moreover, there is still a lot of improvement that can be made to Dem voter file data simply by running a proper campaign there in 2020. Even though Beto's campaign was huge in comparison to previous TX campaigns, TX is a huge state and they nonetheless missed a lot of people. With another year or so of additional voter contact on top of what Beto already did, the Dem data can actually be substantively improved by the time of election day 2020, whereas in states like Ohio and Florida that have had large scale properly run campaigns for many cycles, Dems are already at or close to their "data ceiling."

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

wait does anyone have the highland park numbers in Dallas for
2012 pres, 2016 pres and 2018 senate.  I want to see these lifelong republicans voting for Beto because Drumpf.

Highland Park is 4 precincts.

2012:

Romney 4248 (79.4%)
Obama 1041 (19.5%)
Total 5350

Romney margin of 3207 votes (59.9%)


2018:

Cruz 3075 (64.6%)
Beto 1641 (34.5%)
Total 4757

Cruz margin of 1434 votes (30.1%).


So as compared to 2012, although Highland Park still voted 2 to 1 Republican, Beto cut the Republican margin in half, and got a 30% swing. So 2 to 1 Republican is quite a bit better than 4 to 1 Republican.

[lfromnj]

wait does anyone have the highland park numbers in Dallas for
2012 pres, 2016 pres and 2018 senate.  I want to see these lifelong republicans voting for Beto because Drumpf.

Highland Park is 4 precincts.

2012:

Romney 4248 (79.4%)
Obama 1041 (19.5%)
Total 5350

Romney margin of 3207 votes (59.9%)


2018:

Cruz 3075 (64.6%)
Beto 1641 (34.5%)
Total 4757

Cruz margin of 1434 votes (30.1%).


So as compared to 2012, although Highland Park still voted 2 to 1 Republican, Beto cut the Republican margin in half, and got a 30% swing. So 2 to 1 Republican is quite a bit better than 4 to 1 Republican.

and afaik these people aren't really moving out in vast numbers and there isn't a large amount of growth in the area. It is also very white so that suggests hundreds of rich republicans switching to the dem party because of Trump. The turnout here is very high due to the wealth and affluence of the area so there isn't an incredible turnout difference(although it seems like some rich RINO's want tax cuts but hate Trump so they didn't vote at all or it could be the normal midterm loss..Losing these donors are devastating for the DFW GOP. Without a large gap in Highland Park Marchant can't fundraise for 2020.

[Lognog]

The senate margins mirror the presidential margins very closely, like under 1 percent in 08 and 12, and with increased polarization, Cornyn has the same incumbent advantage as trump

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It's not a blue state at the presidential level, and Dems would be better served to spending time in PA, than TX.  It's foolsgold, taking resources out of the tipping point states.

[lfromnj]

Do texas dems have a path to winning the state house? I haven't read that

yeah the dems should invest heavily into it for fair maps in the 20's

Its easier than statewide due to the gerrymanders becoming dummymanders
Dallas went from 8R-6D to 12D-2R.  Get houston and San Antonio and the dems have a majority.

Has anyone figured out if O’Rourke won a majority of state House seats? It looks like he did, but it’s a close call just from eye-balling it

Im gonna assume every currrent district held by D's is a Beto district. Not a bold assumption
THats 67 seats

Lets look at the remaining where the GOP won by 5 or less.

The 26th  was a 5 point win for the GOP incumbent
66 and 67th was a bare win
92 and 96
108
112
134 was a 6 point win but it 100% voted for Beto as its a clinton +15 district
138

Anyway those 9 all probably voted for Beto so yeah RIP Texas GOP gerrymander. There might be more.

[Sbane]

The rules for drawing house districts really hampers the Texas GOP. You can't just connect Dallas, Harris and Travis counties with exurban/rural areas and create GOP districts that way. They have to stay within the county, which was fine when there were plenty of Republican leaning suburbs within those counties. Not the case anymore.