A recent op-ed piece by George Will focuses on Rep. Will Hurd, one of the Texas Republicans who is leaving Congress. The article concludes
So what say you? Will seems to at least sort of agree with Hurd, and points out that Texas’ 38 EC votes (might be 41 after the census) added to California’s 55 works out to be more than a third of those needed to take the White House.
Is Texas at least sort of purple?
By demographics, or by election results? Texas might be very purple indeed, but it’s also gerrymandered to hell and back.
I don’t think so. According to the Cook PVI, Texas is R+8, which means it lands alongside South Carolina (R+8) and near Alaska, Indiana, Mississippi, and Missouri (all R+9). On the other side, Illinois, New Jersey, and Washington are all D+7, and Rhode Island is D+10. None of those states are what we typically think of as “purple”.
Obama, I would remind you, took Indiana in 2008.
No. Maybe in a decade it will be, but even then it’ll be purple like North Carolina. Only turns blue in exceptional election cycles.
I know, and Illinois, New Jersey, and Rhode Island have all had Republican governors in the last 10 years. I still don’t think that makes them “purple”, but I recognize it’s a somewhat fuzzy label.
And Indiana voted for Trump by a 20 point margin in 2016.
I’m not meaning to sound glib, but it sound to me a lot like “the sky is falling!” A critical analysis might show a trend towards purple at some point in the future, but some politicians and commentators engage in hyperbole, y’know.
Beto O’Rourke made a name for himself nationally, raised three or four metric shit-tonnes of money, and still fell short of beating one of the least likable politicians in recent memory because the “D” beside his name was toxic. This state is still a good ways, maybe 15-20 years from seeing enough of a demographic change to be thought of as a swing state.
Just FYI, Cruz might be unpopular nationally, but he’s very popular here in Texas, far more so than his counterpart, Cornyn.
I honestly think that if Beto were running against Cornyn, the margin would have been much smaller. Cornyn still had a 98% shot of winning in my scenario, but that’s higher than Beto ever had against Cruz.
It’s not as purple as Ohio or Pennsylvania, but it’s also not as red as Wyoming or Utah. We humans like to slot things into nice neat discrete categories, but the real world is always on a spectrum.
It is getting purpler. In the last election, it was closer to going blue than my own purple state, Iowa.
The state that surprises me the most is Wisconsin. I have traveled around Wisconsin quite a bit, it does not feel like a purple state. Feels extremely red unless you are in Madison. But everyone just assumed it would go blue in 2016. In hindsight, seems very ignorant.
Certain parts.
If you blow in Texas’s ear first…
Milwaukee too.
Technically you can say the same thing about Illinois or Oregon. Its a seep sea of red with a few highly populated blue counties.
Really thats about how most states work. The rural areas are deep red, the urban areas are blue. Its just a question of which area has the most voters. In states where the urban voters are more numerous like CA or NY, its a blue state. In states where the rural voters are more numerous like SC or KY its a red state.
It’s not quite that simple. There are rural areas that don’t feel as much like Trump country as others. Eastern Iowa and much of Illinois feels pretty balanced. Rural Indiana and Wisconsin? Full of crazy rednecks with giant confederate flags on their trucks.
While Texas as a whole is still a few years away from being “purple”, there’s every reason to hope that Democrats will continue to make gains in state legislative races and U.S. House seats. The Republican Speaker of the Texas House has just completed one of the most dramatic implosions in the history of state politics. In short, he offered a conservative operator media credentials in the House if he would target ten Republican members for defeat in their primaries. Unfortunately for him, this operator recorded it and the fallout has been roiling state house Republicans. And Democrats only need to pick up nine seats for a majority in the state house – which would give them a voice in redistricting next session.
There are also several suburban Congressional seats that Democrats came close to picking up in 2018 that will be prime targets next year. The Republicans used to rule the suburbs in Texas, but if trends continue these seats may well flip.
THats interesting. I agree with you about Iowa (I’m not sure why Iowa culture is different from other midwestern states), but Illinois seems to be pretty deep red outside of the Chicago area.
As a Texan, here are some of my observations and opinions on this topic. Texas is becoming purple but not their yet. Some factors that people think will top Texas more purple will probably turn out to not be much of a factor. Some things will be significant, such as the population getting younger and people moving in from blue states like California. On the other hand, counting on an increase in the percentage of Latino voters may not help as much as some people assume. What happens is that third or fourth generation Latinos tend to end up identifying as white, especially in rural and suburban areas. The typical demographic people think of as a Trump voter is a non college educated white male. Here in Texas there are a lot of non college educated Latino males with jobs in fields like oil field and refinery work. They are demographically no different than the similar non college educated white males other than having last names like Lopez or Garcia rather than Jones or Smith. As time passes the kids of second generation immigrants who tend to vote Democratic will begin to skew Republican as they begin to identify as white. This will keep Texas leaning red longer than people think.