Texas Trends

[greenforest32]

A long and interesting article on Texas' political future in the Texas Monthly called "The Life and Death (and Life?) of the Party": http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/life-and-death-and-life-party

Very interesting, especially the parts about voter registration and the electorate:

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Hard to see how Democrats win anytime soon with numbers like that considering Texas whites are about 71-74% Republican. Texas is 44.5% non-Hispanic white in 2012 yet the electorate is about 20 points above that mainly because of proportionally lower voter registration rates among minorities. Too bad that online voter registration bill in the state failed earlier this year. Or even further: imagine Texas with same-day registration or automatic voter registration...

The Senate immigration reform passing could have big changes too considering that could potentially expand the Texas electorate by another 1.5m+ voters in the 2020s when the citizenship provision becomes available: http://immigrationroad.com/resource/illegal-immigrants-by-state.php

[greenforest32]

A long and interesting article on Texas' political future in the Texas Monthly called "The Life and Death (and Life?) of the Party": http://www.texasmonthly.com/story/life-and-death-and-life-party

Very interesting, especially the parts about voter registration and the electorate:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Hard to see how Democrats win anytime soon with numbers like that considering Texas whites are about 71-74% Republican. Texas is 44.5% non-Hispanic white in 2012 yet the electorate is about 20 points above that mainly because of proportionally lower voter registration rates among minorities. Too bad that online voter registration bill in the state failed earlier this year. Or even further: imagine Texas with same-day registration or automatic voter registration...

But the expected 65% white electorate is for the midterm only, when the already very low Hispanic and youth votes drop even lower. In 2012, only 59% of the electorate was white. My prediction is that the 2016 electorate will be no more than 55% or 56% white, even lower than that if Hillary generates massive enthusiasm among latinos (as she's likely to do) and Battleground Texas succeeds with their massive voting registration (and voter education) efforts the next 4 years.

That's true, I was thinking of most of the statewide races that are up in mid-terms. Presidential numbers are different but even then that's a big gap to cover. I am betting on Texas swinging to Democrats in 2016 but I don't think it will be enough for a win in 2016. Say Hillary does well with Texas whites and gets 30% with them being 55% of the electorate, she'd have to win the remaining 45% non-white vote by about 75-25 to hit 50% total.

That's an optimistic scenario for Democrats too as we don't know how much things like Texas' upcoming voter ID requirement will affect the electorate.