Welcome back to our second article in the Political Geography series, which unpacks the trends, demographics, and geography of key 2020 swing states (both Presidential and Senate). Our first installment looked at Arizona, and if you missed it, you can read it here. Today we’re looking at a state that’s gotten a lot of attention in the news over the past year due to its alleged emerging swing state status: Texas. Is that an accurate characterization? Let’s dig in and take a look.
Demographics
Texas continues to see rapid and explosive growth, with a population now exceeding 28,700,000 according to census estimates. It is 42% non-hispanic white and 39.4% Hispanic/Latino, alongside 5% Asian, and 12.7% black, being one of the few majority-minority states in the USA. However, one key thing about Texas is that for one, its Hispanic population is a bit more conservative than that of say, California. Secondly, Texas is a state with chronically low voting patterns that means that the actual electorate doesn’t match the state’s total adults. 2016 exit polls showed 57% white, 11% black, 24% hispanic, and 5% asian. 2018 exit polls said either 56% or 59% white, 26% or 22% Latino, and 12% or 13% black, depending on whether you use the CNN exit polls or the Fox News Voter Analysis Survey.
It’s also a decently educated state, with about 42% of the 2018 electorate having a bachelor’s degree or more. Like most southern states, the white vote is strongly Republican, though in 2018 it was closer than 2016, with O’Rourke drawing between 31% and 34% of the white vote. But there are still strong divides in education, with O’Rourke closing the gap considerably with college educated whites. CNN had him losing that demographic 55-44, compared to 2016, when Clinton lost it 62-31. Texas is also a decently evangelical state, with around 25% of voters identifying as white evangelical, a majorly conservative group.
Geography
Texas is a very large state. Duh. Not just does it have a ton of land area, but it has a ton of people. However, since it has a lot of people, it is heavily urbanized and suburbanized, around several huge metro areas. Our first map shows the population distribution of Texas, with the faded yellow color meaning less people and darker green meaning more people. Basically you see one big cluster in the upper right part of the state. That’s Dallas/Fort Worth and its suburbs. Then there’s another dark green cluster in the bottom right part of the state. That’s Houston and suburbs. Lastly there’s a grouping of moderate to dark green in the middle, which is the Austin and San Antonio area. Those metropolitan statistical areas, along with El Paso in the west tip, account for over 70% of the state’s population, which makes it a heavily urban and suburban state.
Trends
The adjacent map from the superb cartographer J. Miles Coleman compares President Obama’s performance in 2012 to Beto O’Rourke in 2018 across the state of Texas. O’Rourke did 13.12% better than Obama statewide, but the trends are uneven. Democrats continued to bleed support in the rural panhandle and West Texas as well as rural East Texas, a region that is politically similar to Arkansas. He also did much worse than Obama in South Texas but that is more circumstantial, which I’ll come back to in a bit.
What stands out as dark blue on the map are the three major metros: Austin/San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas, as well as some other cities like El Paso, Odessa (Ector County), and College Station (Brazos County). In particular, it extends to some of the wealthy and formerly conservative suburbs of those big cities like Tarrant/Denton/Collin Counties outside of Dallas, Fort Bend County next to Houston, and Williamson and Hays Counties next to Austin. These are all hugely populous counties that rapidly got bluer. These trends happened in two stages as well: GOP losing huge support between 2012 and 2016, and then losing even more between 2016 and 2018. This next map (below) compares Hillary Clinton to O’Rourke in Texas between 2016 and 2018. Beto gained big time yet again in and around Austin, as well as in the Dallas suburbs.
In order to really analyze these trends, we need to dig deeper. Let’s start in the Dallas metro area with Tarrant County (Fort Worth). This is the third most populous county in Texas, with even more people than notable cities like Austin and San Antonio. In 2012, it was nearly identical to the state’s partisan lean, with Romney winning it by 16 points. In 2016, Clinton did a bit better than Obama in terms of vote share (43% vs 41%), but Trump saw his share nosedive to just 51.7% from 57%. Then in 2018, Cruz lost 2.5 points off Trump, down to just over 49%, while Beto improved 6 points over Clinton, flipping the county blue. That is the type of trend that should absolutely terrify the Texas GOP if it continues.
But Tarrant wasn’t the only Dallas suburb to see this phenomenon. Collin County and Denton County are twin suburbs north of town with nearly identical political DNA, voting for Romney over Obama by about 30 points, roughly 64-33. In 2016, Clinton gained 3-4 points over Obama while Trump declined 7-10 points off Romney’s numbers. In 2018, Beto gained 8-9 points over Clinton, while Cruz lost 3-4 more points off Trump’s numbers. This extended nosedive in the sixth and ninth most populous counties in the state should also be ringing the most severe alarm bells for the GOP. It’s worth noting that Dallas County itself saw a decline from 57-41 D to 66-33 D over the 2012-2018 span.
This was also observed in the Austin area and the Houston area, with formerly red or swing counties suddenly becoming swing or blue-leaning and the urban counties going from leaning blue to dark blue. Counter-balancing these trends are rural counties becoming more Republican, though that has occurred only in certain counties. The panhandle of Texas has largely seen little change because it was already essentially maxed out in Republican support in 2012. However, rural east Texas saw some vicious swings to the GOP, though that trend mostly happened between 2012-2016. As you can see in the Beto vs Clinton map above, there was only negligible movement in these areas, as opposed to rapidly evolving rural realignment seen in the Midwest for example.
What all this is trying to say is that while “trends” are still happening in white rural Texas (those areas getting redder), they haven’t been nearly as rapid and much of the realignment already happened over a decade ago during the 90s and 00s.
The one interesting trend to examine is South Texas, where most of the majority Hispanic counties are. The first thing to consider is that 2018 was a midterm year, precisely when Hispanic turnout is normally anemic. In many of these areas, voting patterns are fiercely polarized by race as well as having low population, and so a dip in Hispanic turnout can result in huge swings.
Where is Texas headed?
The big question when it comes to Texas is simply about how much bluer can these metro areas get? If the answer is quite a bit more, then Texas may well be on its way to true purple state status, if not slightly blue leaning. If the answer is not much more, then Texas Republicans may well keep their stranglehold on the state. Denton and Collin Counties are unique cases because at face value, they seem ripe for continuing to get bluer. In Collin, 50.2% of adults finished college and in Denton, 42.2% did, which are similar numbers to such blue-leaning suburban counties as Oakland County, Michigan (45%) and Chester County, Pennsylvania (50.2%). However, there are also educated suburban counties that are quite red with similar numbers too (albeit ones getting bluer as well), such as Forsyth County, GA (48.3%) and Waukesha County, WI (41.6%). The political DNA of each county matters a lot and Denton and Collin’s DNA as historically red counties are an obstacle for Democrats.
On the other hand, Denton and Collin are quickly changing. As this map shows, many parts of Texas are observing rapid population growth (dark green areas) in just the last 8 years, with Denton and Collin being two of the focal points of this growth:
As a result, there are a number of transplants in these areas that don’t share that same political DNA, which is a counterargument for those areas continuing to get bluer. That map is important for other reasons too, because if you compare it to the swing map between 2012 and 2018, the same areas that are dark blue on the swing map are the same places that are dark green on the population growth map. Essentially the areas in Texas seeing explosive population growth are the same areas that are rapidly getting bluer, which is important to note in discussions of the state.
For what it’s worth, examining the GOP share of the vote in 2018 and 2016 seems to suggest that these suburban areas aren’t anywhere close to being done. Across the country, Democrats did better in 2018 than in 2016 largely because they consolidated the vote of people who voted third party in 2016. Republican candidates in many jurisdictions got similar shares of the vote to Trump, while Democrats got much higher shares than Clinton. This was the case in Georgia, where Brian Kemp’s vote share largely mirrored Trump’s. But in Texas, Cruz lost 1.21% off Trump’s vote share and as the below map shows, he bled even more support in those suburban areas.
Given that Cruz lost significant support compared to Trump in those areas, it’s fair to say that the Republican bleeding is probably not done in the suburbs. And with population growth continuing to feed those same areas, Democrats have continued room to grow.
2020 Vision
A crucial question for 2020 is where will Texas go next. Will it continue to realign and get bluer? Or will it snap back to its older ways? I’ve seen some comparisons between Texas currently and Virginia between 2004 and 2008. In 2004, Virginia was one of a few states that didn't really change even as the nation as a whole was redder compared to 2000. In 2006, Democrats contested the Virginia Senate race vigorously and pulled off a narrow upset thanks to a controversial comment. Then in 2008, the state got even bluer and voted for Obama decisively. Texas of course was one of a few states to get bluer in 2016, even though the country as a whole was redder compared to 2012. Democrats also contested the Senate race in the Midterm vigorously and also over performed expectations, but didn’t quite win.
So if Texas follows the Virginia path, than we would expect it to get even bluer in 2020. It is true that states in the middle of realignments continue to realign regardless of national environment (take a look at Louisiana and Arkansas in 2008 vs. 2004). As in, it would not shock me if Texas was even closer in 2020 than it was in 2018, despite a potentially worse national environment. After all, Trump’s approval rating in the state at the Midterms was just 49% approve and 48% disapprove via the CNN exit poll. If 2020 is a referendum on Trump, which it is likely to be, then it would not surprise me if Texas is very, very tight. To that point, early polls of the Presidential election show a close race in Texas regardless of Democratic nominee, but especially with Joe Biden, who has actually led Trump in the last three public nonpartisan polls of Texas, including one from Quinnipiac in June by 4 points (QPac was the most accurate pollster of Texas in 2018 by my estimation; final 2018 Senate poll had Cruz +5).
Texas is a state that is tough to game out in general. Because the idea of “Texas turning blue” has been bantered about and cliched so much over the years, we have grown desensitized to the reality that the state is now competitive. Not just was Beto O’Rourke within three points in 2018, but the Lt. Gov., Attorney General, and Agriculture Commissioner races were all within five points. Prior to the Midterm elections, many people, especially GOP operatives, laughed off the prospect of Texas being close in the Senate race, let alone the others. I myself was skeptical that Democrats could do much better in the suburbs in 2018 than they did in 2016. We were all wrong. So underestimate continuing Dem growth in the suburbs in 2020 at your own risk, especially when Donald Trump, aka suburban poison, is at the top of the ticket.
One thing we can be sure of is that there is a ton at stake in Texas in 2020. If the Democratic nominee for President decides to heavily contest Texas (which they should), that is a state with 38 electoral votes. Then there’s the Senate race, where GOP Senator John Cornyn should be thoroughly challenged by the Democrats. Cornyn’s electoral history suggests a replacement-level Senator who has never really been challenged and who doesn’t have nearly the name recognition of Ted Cruz. If Democrats can get a challenger who develops a strong name ID and invest resources in the race, there’s no reason that a favorable Dem year could produce a very interesting race. After all, polls of a well-known Democrat (O’Rourke) against Cornyn have been very competitive, with one from Quinnipiac in February a tied race.
But even beyond the statewide races, Texas’s state house map is becoming a borderline dummymander, with Democrats needing just 9 seats to take a majority. There were 5 seats that Republicans won in 2018 that were within 2 points and an additional three that were within 4 points, and Beto actually carried a majority of State House districts despite losing statewide. Another strong Dem year could absolutely result in control of the chamber flipping. Lastly, the same thing is true with the US House map, where there were 6 GOP-held seats within 4 points in 2018 and many of them didn’t have seriously funded Dem candidates running. While Texas is an expensive state to compete in, it should receive full resources from Democrats because so much is at stake. And one more cycle of pouring funds and energy into the Lone Star State could well cement it as a purple state.
Conclusion
All that had to happen was one close election cycle and suddenly the eyes of the political world are on Texas. While it will not be the state that makes or breaks either the Presidency (my money would be on Wisconsin) or the Senate (my money would be on North Carolina), it could play a major role in boosting Democratic victory margins in both. Additionally, it is the center of where House Democrats are trying to expand their majority, especially in the wake of several retirements from Reps. in key seats (Kenny Marchant, TX-24; Will Hurd, TX-23; Pete Olson, TX-22). What I’m trying to say is, if you live in Texas, get ready for a fascinating cycle, and a whole bunch of ads. Finally, Texas a lot of long term upside for Democrats, not just alleviating Senate woes, but especially in the Electoral College. With 38 votes currently (and likely to surpass 40 after 2021), it has enough power that a shift from a reliable GOP state to a swing state could suddenly dramatically change the national electoral map. Even more so, if Texas were to become a light blue state, it’s not inconceivable to imagine a scenario where the Electoral College even favors Democrats over Republicans. Thus, while it’s a dang expensive state, it’s not a bad investment long term.