Democrats Can Take Texas -John Judis

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

That article underestimates the reactionary backwardness and racism of Texas whites. Whites in Texas are going to get even more Republican in their voting as Democrats increasingly become the brown and black party. I don't think Dems have hit a floor with Texas whites.

Try 2040, not 2020 for Democrats to start winning statewide.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

I suppose anything can happen eventually. There was a very long time period when it looked like the GOP would be locked out the South forever. And that changed. I don't see much progress in Texas. The Whites there are so Republican and the Hispanics don't vote much and aren't all that Democratic either. Consider Harris County. It's barely> 30% white, contains the biggest city in the state, and, of course, excludes the enormously Republican suburbs of MontCo, but was still only a tie in the 2012 election. That's what's the Dems are up against in Texas.

Yea, Texas is a rare case where Whites are more partisan in their voting behavior than the main minority group. Texas whites vote around 75-80 % Republican and Hispanics in Texas are less Democratic then the national average. They only vote around 60-65% Democratic. Democrats are going to have to wait until whites are like 25 % of the population to win which will take a long time.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

That article underestimates the reactionary backwardness and racism of Texas whites. Whites in Texas are going to get even more Republican in their voting as Democrats increasingly become the brown and black party. I don't think Dems have hit a floor with Texas whites.

Try 2040, not 2020 for Democrats to start winning statewide.

Highlighted part is necessary because the racist whites in Texas are especially evident of the 65-and-older voting-age group. Though the state wasn't exit-polled for Election 2012, the difference between 65-and-older in Elections 2004 (a Republican hold of the presidency) and 2008 (a Democratic pickup of the presidency with a national margin shift of D+9.72) were as follows:

2004 TEXAS
65+ (11): Democratic [Kerry] 48%

2008 TEXAS
65+ (14): Democratic [Obama] 32%


In 2004, John Kerry's loss of the 65-and-older voting-age group was 4 percentage points (Bush carried them with 52%). In 2008, Barack Obama's loss of the 65-and-older voting-age group was 34 percentage points (McCain carried them with 66%).

The 65-and-older voting-age group in Texas allowed for John McCain, in 2008, to have his 11.76 percentage-points margin. And, compared to their 2004 vote, the 65-and-older Texas voters definitely did it because of racism.

Is there any excuse for a white southerner to vote for Kerry but not Obama other than race ?  I am old enough to vividly remember the 2004 election and how Kerry was mocked and pilloried by the Republicans.

He was seen as an out of touch french speaking, flip flopping Northeastern Liberal who didn't support the troops and was weak on the war on terror. Other than Obama being black, I can't see why he could be worse than Kerry to the typical elderly white Southerner.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

Most of  the over 65 group in Texas in 2008 was born between 1920 and 1943. So this group grew up in an era were it was still acceptable to lynch blacks, kill a black kid for whistling at a white woman, go to segregated schools , blacks not being able to vote  and dropping the N bomb casually. They were able to do all of this until their 30's and 40's. I doubt many of them have changed in terms of racial biases.