Texas is one of the most demographically diverse states in the country, yet it hasn’t produced a national or state level race victory to a Democrat in decades. The Governor is Republican and both the State Lower Chamber and the Senate are controlled by the Republicans. Nine out of nine elected Supreme Court Justices are also Republicans. Things appeared to have taken a turn starting in 2018 when Beto O’Rourke came within 2 points of winning the Senate seat but was that temporary hype? Or will the trend continue, taking Democrats over the top in 2020?
Fig 1.0 and Fig 2.0 below show Texas voting trends in the last few statewide races. Fig 1.0 shows the pattern for the 17 most populous counties which account for about 68% of the total 16.95 million registered voters. These include counties that cover the urban areas such as Harris (Houston), Dallas, Tarrant (Ft. Worth), Bexar (San Antonio), Travis (Austin), and many of the suburbs.
As can be seen from Fig 1.0, in 2018 Democrats won the aggregate of these counties by about 13.6 points. Not all 17 counties went Democrat in 2018 but 12 out of 17 did. Two of the larger counties, Collin and Denton (northern suburbs of Dallas/Ft. Worth) that Republicans held are seeing higher turnouts in 2020. For example, Collin County went to Romney by R+32 in 2012 and Trump won by R+17 in 2016. In 2018, Cruz carried it by R+6. Williamson county, containing suburbs north of Austin, made the switch from red to blue in 2018. Depending on who is turning up the numbers, a few of the other suburban counties could also join the club, sooner and possibly in 2020 than later.
Even with the urban/suburban advantage, Democrats still came-up short when Ted Cruz held the Senate seat by about 2.6 points driven by heavy Republican advantage in rural counties. But as shown in Fig 2.0, Democrats have made up some grounds state-wide since 2008.
As of 10/22 total, about 6.4M voters in Texas had cast their ballots. That’s about 50% of the registered voters in the state. See below for some potential outcomes based on analysis of early votes/mail-in ballots data for Texas and some hypothetical yet “not so whacky” assumptions.
Hypothetical Scenario 1:
- Assumes county-level party-line voting will be similar 2018 senate race
- Cruz/O’Rourke candidate profiles are not exactly comparable to the 2020 presidential ticket and only used as a “hypothetical” reference in the absence of any scientific county-level polling data for 2020
- As can be seen in Fig 3.0 below even with larger turnouts in larger democrat leaning counties, Rep% is slightly ahead at 50.5% compared to Dem% of 48.9%.
- The reason is rural counties and some of the larger republican leaning counties (Collin, Denton, Montgomery) are also keeping pace with high turnouts compared to larger dem counties such as Harris, Dallas, and Travis
Hypothetical Scenario 2:
- The analysis shows that for democrats to flip Texas in 2020, Democrats need to improve their voter margin by about 1.5 point on average in 2020 compared to 2018.
- Fig 4.0 below shows the “hypothetical” shift with this assumption.
- Note that even the 2018 margins that Democrats gained are not guaranteed for 2020, given the stark differences in race and candidate profiles.
- Demographics have changed and Texas has added about 1.9M new voters statewide since 2016. An analysis by TargetSmart, a Democratic data firm, had reported that 60% of 1.9M new voters registered in Texas since 2016 are under the age of 25 or belong to a minority.
- Another wild card is the higher than normal voter turnouts in TX. This however is not limited to larger urban/suburban counties. Also, there is no indication that Hispanic voters or younger voters are lining up in unusually large numbers at Texas polling stations to date.
- The Texas electorate democrat shift from 2012 to 2016 was 2.1% (41.4% to 43.5%). In 2018, Beto O’Rourke was able to harness a 4.8% net gain from 2016 numbers obviously with a well focussed and targetted campaign. We certainly don’t see the same level of resources and vigor as we saw in 2018 from democrats in Texas. But a 1.5% point gain is not out of the realm of possibilities given some of the other favorable headwinds such as demographics, changing suburbia, and a polarizing incumbent.
Unlike ever before in recent history, Texas edges even closer to turning blue. But will it get there in time?
