As you may be aware, there is a major demographic change taking place in America that will soon make it impossible for the Republican Party to win a single presidential election. This is not sensationalism; it is based on the simple fact that, in the last twenty years, no Republican candidate who won a presidential election did so - or could have done so - without carrying Texas (see: 1, 2, 3).
The plot thickens when you discover that, due to recent population growth, electoral success in Texas is now rewarded with more electoral votes than ever before - more than any other U.S. state aside from California, because Texas now has the largest population in the U.S. next to California. What is more, pre-census estimates suggest that Texas' population, now predominantly Hispanic, is still growing, so the state could gain even more electoral votes after the 2020 U.S. Census. Accordingly, for as critical as it once was for the Republicans to carry Texas, the importance of taking the state has multiplied.
To give you an idea of what we are looking at, assume that Donald Trump, the triumphant 2016 Republican candidate, had lost in Texas:
To make up for it, Trump would have had to carry all of the following states which were a toss-up until the very end: Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But wait: two other toss-up states, Colorado and Minnesota, ended up going to the Democrats and, for the Republicans to have triumphed without taking Texas, one of those two states had to go Republican. In other words, based on what did happen, Trump would not have won without carrying Texas.
Reading into the situation, Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly writes:
The number of lies we are seeing about the overall situation in Texas, however, is simply staggering. For example, in a piece in the Houston Chronicle un-ironically titled "The Latino vote: A Texas tale of growth and misconceptions", Olivia P. Tallet discusses the supposed catalyst behind Texas "turning blue", i.e. showing up to vote Democrat:
In other words, DeVore has the facts all wrong; he confuses the figure for those who lived in the country "less than 10 years" with those who lived in the country "10+ years, not native". Oops. How about a golfer's clap for mainstream media being terrible (and a donation to me instead of being forced to pay to see their content through their paywalls)?
Beyond DeVore's mistake, there are a number of other things that catch the eye. For example, while it is true that the number of those who moved to Texas voted 57% percent in favor of the Republican candidate, note that 42% of those surveyed said they had "moved to Texas". Is Texas really 42% non-native? Probably not. First of all, only half of the state's population showed up to vote - to be precise, 53% of the overall population. Second, a 2018 survey found that 59.7% of Texas' residents were born in-state, which would mean around 40.3% were not born in the state. While this is close enough to the exit poll's 42% "moved to Texas" figure, note that the 42% "moved to Texas" figure does not include the 10% of Texas' population that were actually not even citizens of the United States. What that means is, unless non-citizens are suddenly voting, the exit poll DeVore cites, which only gathered 2,431 responses, is probably not a complete picture. We see further evidence of that when, according to the poll, 58% of those surveyed came from Georgia. Unless it is true that 58% of Texas' population bounced over from Georgia, which is three states away, we have every reason to be suspicious of these exit polls.
Even if we look past that and take the poll at its word, we see that these transplants from Georgia did in fact vote for the Democratic Party candidate, and would have given the Democrats the victory if true of the state as a whole. In other words, those who left a traditionally conservative state like Georgia ended up in Texas and are indeed part of what is turning the state blue.
From the graphs, we also see that those who have relocated to Texas and been in the state for 10+ years mirror the traditional conservative-voting core that Texas has been known for for nearly forever, voting 63 to 36% in favor of the Republican candidate. But note the difference when we look at the figure for those "born in Texas" at any point in time: 51% for the Democrat and only 48% for the Republican, which is the same difference by the Republican candidate barely won - around 2%. The House of Representatives election in Texas in 2018 ended with a similar, 3% spread. DeVore spends zero time addressing this or the elephant in the room that caused it, and instead jumps to his conclusion:
In other words, instead of examining why there is a huge disparity between the voting tendencies of long-term residents of 10+ years and those simply born in Texas at any time, DeVore turns the page and writes off the "Texas flips blue" thing as paranoia disproved by his one-eyed investigation and verbose generalizations. Perhaps the article is damage control, because there is a funny thing about the object he writes off as not worth investigating, and a "gradual long-term tug" of "demographics"; it bears repeating that Texas is now predominantly Hispanic, and, as shown, the Latino vote is and has been majority Democrat at least since the Democrats themselves turned blue. One reason is that the Democrats attract votes from low-income earners at an astounding rate, and illegal and legal immigration has flooded Texas with such, which explains why 22% of the Hispanic population is living in poverty in Texas, and the average Texas income is a paltry $38,600. The thing about that is, if only those earning less than $40,000 were voting, the Democrats would be winning every election. Meanwhile, as cities continue to grow, urban sprawl is bringing the demographic changes into nearby suburbs and transforming them.
Texas flip n' move: blue edition is not a joke; rightfully, it will crash the Republican Party. I say "rightfully", because the Republicans never wanted to listen, and it was the ultra-rich, open-border plantation-minded Republicans who pushed their model to fill their factories and drive down wages. It is the ultra-rich, plantation-minded Republicans who wanted Mexican immigrants to clean their pools, do their yardwork and pick their fruit instead of paying others a decent salary to do the same - or youth for that matter. And it is the ultra-rich plantation-minded Republicans who could not even be satisfied with that, and outsourced everything to Mexico or worse, China, leaving us with a rusty-walled dump. Ironically, to get us to accept these changes, open-border, plantation-minded Republicans gave the blessing for our leaders to fight the nativist mindset, and created a taboo around nativists by saying they were "on the wrong side of World War II" and "why we fought World War II". And it is this mindset that the children of these Republicans have brought into major, solidly-poor and Democrat-supporting cities in the West and South, where even if they voted Republican it would not matter. The last bastion for the Republicans is the largest and most well-to-do generation in the suburbs, the boomers, which continues to pass away, and, since 2019, is no longer the largest demographic by age (1, 2). By 2028, approximately 10 million less boomers are predicted to be alive. Their children and grandchildren get sucked into social-justice-warrior dogma or - most importantly - fail to raise families, there is basically no chance for a zero sum game. These developments came to a head more than a decade ago in California, the microcosm of what we are experiencing now.
The jig is up. Maybe the Republicans eke out a narrow victory in Texas in 2020. But if that is not the tipping point, the 2020 Senate election in Texas could be. Depending on what happens in Virginia, and whether the northern constituencies move to take up West Virginia's offer to incorporate into West Virginia, we can expect a similar phenomenon to perhaps play out in northern Texas. Perhaps this part of the state considers alignment with Oklahoma, or secession to preserve conservative policy, including tax, gun ownership and other issues.
Any movement towards secession would be the political map version of white flight, and it would set the ball in motion for further realignments and fracturing - all of which does little to change where America is headed, but definitely draws definite battle lines. It is time to face reality about what we are on course for, and where this could take us.
The plot thickens when you discover that, due to recent population growth, electoral success in Texas is now rewarded with more electoral votes than ever before - more than any other U.S. state aside from California, because Texas now has the largest population in the U.S. next to California. What is more, pre-census estimates suggest that Texas' population, now predominantly Hispanic, is still growing, so the state could gain even more electoral votes after the 2020 U.S. Census. Accordingly, for as critical as it once was for the Republicans to carry Texas, the importance of taking the state has multiplied.
To give you an idea of what we are looking at, assume that Donald Trump, the triumphant 2016 Republican candidate, had lost in Texas:
2016 U.S. Presidential Election results, with Texas flipping blue To make up for it, Trump would have had to carry all of the following states which were a toss-up until the very end: Arizona, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania. But wait: two other toss-up states, Colorado and Minnesota, ended up going to the Democrats and, for the Republicans to have triumphed without taking Texas, one of those two states had to go Republican. In other words, based on what did happen, Trump would not have won without carrying Texas.
Reading into the situation, Martin Longman of the Washington Monthly writes:
"The Republicans cannot afford to lose [Texas] and they’ll never be able to afford losing it. Once it goes blue, that is the end of the Republican Party in its current conservative movement iteration. If you don’t believe me, I encourage you to play around with the Electoral College calculator and try to cobble together a plausible majority for the GOP without Texas." (more)Should the Democrats succeed in taking Texas, it would be the first time that has happened in nearly fifty years (going back to the 1976 election). But the growth and sprawl of young transplants of the "Keep Austin Weird" variety, and the growth and sprawl of low-earning Latino migrants (who crossed into the state legally or illegally), are making a Democrat victory in Texas increasingly more likely. Considering how closely these developments mirror the same trend that began in California several decades ago and now has the state voting nearly 70% Democrat instead of 40-50% Democrat, the writing is on the wall.
The number of lies we are seeing about the overall situation in Texas, however, is simply staggering. For example, in a piece in the Houston Chronicle un-ironically titled "The Latino vote: A Texas tale of growth and misconceptions", Olivia P. Tallet discusses the supposed catalyst behind Texas "turning blue", i.e. showing up to vote Democrat:
A set of unique conditions have begun to crystallize into more Hispanic participation in Texas. Among them, the end of the “Latino friendly” Republican Party from the ex-Texas Governor and then-President George W. Bush era, a backlash from President Donald Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policies, motivation with Latina candidates in top state tickets, and unparalleled innovative mobilization efforts led by Latinos themselves, Cross and other experts say. (more)
Let us look past the vague reference to "other experts", which has a tendency to show up every time the media wants to proclaim its views with some sort of boost of stature; let us also look past the "I have, you have, he/she/it has" blunder that an amateur European ESL student would immediately recognize, which highlights the embarrassment that mainstream media has become (if you see such mistakes that I have made, I apologize for my hypocrisy, but remember that I am not mainstream media, but a volunteer, and I am not paid to write). Anyway, let us focus on the lie being propagated, that the rhetoric which got Trump elected is turning Texas blue rather than responding to Texas being turned blue; first of all, despite being "Latino friendly" with NAFTA and soft on the border, and despite Texas being his home state, Señor George W. Bush received just 32.5% of the Latino vote in Texas in 2000. 65.7% of the Texas Latino vote went to his Democratic Party rival. These trends coincide with what has happened since that time and on a larger scale with Latinos throughout the country, all before Trump entered the picture. For example, in 2008, Republican candidate John McCain offered much of the same program as Bush, and pandered even further by campaigning in Spanish and meeting with "La Raza". For his efforts, McCain watched 67% of the Hispanic vote end up with his Democratic Party rival. In 2012, over 70% of America's Latino vote went to the Democratic Party's presidential candidate:
So forget this idea that, because of what the Republican Party has supposedly become, Latinos are flocking to vote Democrat. They have overwhelmingly voted Democrat - even, as the graph shows, in the 9/11 "a war that united us" era.
For as obvious as Texas' transformation is, some continue to lie about it. For example, a 2019 article in Fortune by Chuck DeVore describes the Texas flipping blue scenario as a "false narrative". To defend his view, DeVore looks at whether liberal voters really are "expats" who are flipping Texas blue, a notion he attributes to a writer for The Atlantic named Derek Thompson. According to DeVore, the results in Texas' 2018 Senate election prove the theory false. DeVore writes:
CNN:
So forget this idea that, because of what the Republican Party has supposedly become, Latinos are flocking to vote Democrat. They have overwhelmingly voted Democrat - even, as the graph shows, in the 9/11 "a war that united us" era.
For as obvious as Texas' transformation is, some continue to lie about it. For example, a 2019 article in Fortune by Chuck DeVore describes the Texas flipping blue scenario as a "false narrative". To defend his view, DeVore looks at whether liberal voters really are "expats" who are flipping Texas blue, a notion he attributes to a writer for The Atlantic named Derek Thompson. According to DeVore, the results in Texas' 2018 Senate election prove the theory false. DeVore writes:
[...] read the CNN exit poll cited by Thompson. The fact is it comes to the exact opposite conclusion! Native born Texans narrowly supported [the Democratic Party candidate] by 3%, while people who moved to Texas supported [the Republican Party candidate] by 15%. In fact, “recent movers,” as Thompson writes, did not favor [the Republican] by “more than 60 percent” – they favored [the Democrat] by 63%. (more)DeVore continues by pointing out that Texas has become a refuge for people leaving liberal states like California, and thus includes people who are inclined to support conservatism. Having addressed this minor point, he wraps up article and calls it a day. But wait: what about that "by 63%" claim of his? Well, I did the research and found that this is actually what DeVore is referring to:
CNN:
 |
| Responses to CNN's exit poll for the 2018 Senate election in Texas, where blue represents those who voted for the Democrat candidate (O'Rourke) and red the Republican candidate (Cruz) |
In other words, DeVore has the facts all wrong; he confuses the figure for those who lived in the country "less than 10 years" with those who lived in the country "10+ years, not native". Oops. How about a golfer's clap for mainstream media being terrible (and a donation to me instead of being forced to pay to see their content through their paywalls)?
Beyond DeVore's mistake, there are a number of other things that catch the eye. For example, while it is true that the number of those who moved to Texas voted 57% percent in favor of the Republican candidate, note that 42% of those surveyed said they had "moved to Texas". Is Texas really 42% non-native? Probably not. First of all, only half of the state's population showed up to vote - to be precise, 53% of the overall population. Second, a 2018 survey found that 59.7% of Texas' residents were born in-state, which would mean around 40.3% were not born in the state. While this is close enough to the exit poll's 42% "moved to Texas" figure, note that the 42% "moved to Texas" figure does not include the 10% of Texas' population that were actually not even citizens of the United States. What that means is, unless non-citizens are suddenly voting, the exit poll DeVore cites, which only gathered 2,431 responses, is probably not a complete picture. We see further evidence of that when, according to the poll, 58% of those surveyed came from Georgia. Unless it is true that 58% of Texas' population bounced over from Georgia, which is three states away, we have every reason to be suspicious of these exit polls.
Even if we look past that and take the poll at its word, we see that these transplants from Georgia did in fact vote for the Democratic Party candidate, and would have given the Democrats the victory if true of the state as a whole. In other words, those who left a traditionally conservative state like Georgia ended up in Texas and are indeed part of what is turning the state blue.
From the graphs, we also see that those who have relocated to Texas and been in the state for 10+ years mirror the traditional conservative-voting core that Texas has been known for for nearly forever, voting 63 to 36% in favor of the Republican candidate. But note the difference when we look at the figure for those "born in Texas" at any point in time: 51% for the Democrat and only 48% for the Republican, which is the same difference by the Republican candidate barely won - around 2%. The House of Representatives election in Texas in 2018 ended with a similar, 3% spread. DeVore spends zero time addressing this or the elephant in the room that caused it, and instead jumps to his conclusion:
"Election results are formed by specific circumstances—candidates, economic conditions, overseas troubles, and the gradual long-term tug of demographics. It’s far too early to tell where Texas will end up in future elections, but it is clear that misciting polls and bending past results to fit a preordained thesis won’t presage a correct prediction, but instead will lead to an embarrassing 2020 election forecast." (more)
In other words, instead of examining why there is a huge disparity between the voting tendencies of long-term residents of 10+ years and those simply born in Texas at any time, DeVore turns the page and writes off the "Texas flips blue" thing as paranoia disproved by his one-eyed investigation and verbose generalizations. Perhaps the article is damage control, because there is a funny thing about the object he writes off as not worth investigating, and a "gradual long-term tug" of "demographics"; it bears repeating that Texas is now predominantly Hispanic, and, as shown, the Latino vote is and has been majority Democrat at least since the Democrats themselves turned blue. One reason is that the Democrats attract votes from low-income earners at an astounding rate, and illegal and legal immigration has flooded Texas with such, which explains why 22% of the Hispanic population is living in poverty in Texas, and the average Texas income is a paltry $38,600. The thing about that is, if only those earning less than $40,000 were voting, the Democrats would be winning every election. Meanwhile, as cities continue to grow, urban sprawl is bringing the demographic changes into nearby suburbs and transforming them.
Texas flip n' move: blue edition is not a joke; rightfully, it will crash the Republican Party. I say "rightfully", because the Republicans never wanted to listen, and it was the ultra-rich, open-border plantation-minded Republicans who pushed their model to fill their factories and drive down wages. It is the ultra-rich, plantation-minded Republicans who wanted Mexican immigrants to clean their pools, do their yardwork and pick their fruit instead of paying others a decent salary to do the same - or youth for that matter. And it is the ultra-rich plantation-minded Republicans who could not even be satisfied with that, and outsourced everything to Mexico or worse, China, leaving us with a rusty-walled dump. Ironically, to get us to accept these changes, open-border, plantation-minded Republicans gave the blessing for our leaders to fight the nativist mindset, and created a taboo around nativists by saying they were "on the wrong side of World War II" and "why we fought World War II". And it is this mindset that the children of these Republicans have brought into major, solidly-poor and Democrat-supporting cities in the West and South, where even if they voted Republican it would not matter. The last bastion for the Republicans is the largest and most well-to-do generation in the suburbs, the boomers, which continues to pass away, and, since 2019, is no longer the largest demographic by age (1, 2). By 2028, approximately 10 million less boomers are predicted to be alive. Their children and grandchildren get sucked into social-justice-warrior dogma or - most importantly - fail to raise families, there is basically no chance for a zero sum game. These developments came to a head more than a decade ago in California, the microcosm of what we are experiencing now.
The jig is up. Maybe the Republicans eke out a narrow victory in Texas in 2020. But if that is not the tipping point, the 2020 Senate election in Texas could be. Depending on what happens in Virginia, and whether the northern constituencies move to take up West Virginia's offer to incorporate into West Virginia, we can expect a similar phenomenon to perhaps play out in northern Texas. Perhaps this part of the state considers alignment with Oklahoma, or secession to preserve conservative policy, including tax, gun ownership and other issues.
  |
| Results of the 2018 Congressional races for Senate (above) and House (below). Note how a deep-red north Texas could secede or be integrated into Republican Oklahoma to avoid becoming part of a high-tax Dem state. |
Any movement towards secession would be the political map version of white flight, and it would set the ball in motion for further realignments and fracturing - all of which does little to change where America is headed, but definitely draws definite battle lines. It is time to face reality about what we are on course for, and where this could take us.
