When will Texas become a swing state?

[Dgov]

Not for a LONG time.  The State is big enough and Republican enough to where the Democrats need to roughly triple the Hispanic population to have Obama win it with 2008 Percentages.

Hispanics made up about 25% of Texas' electorate, and voted for Obama 63-37.  Which means out of the roughly 8 Million Texas Voters in 2008, 2 Million were Hispanic, 1.26 Million voted for Obama, and .74 Million voted for McCain, giving Obama roughly 520,000 Vote edge from them.  McCain won the state by 940,000 Votes.

Which means, in keeping with the above numbers, the state would need to get about 15 Million more Hispanics in order for the state to flip on their votes alone.

Now assuming that the Democrats could get them to vote roughly equal to their actual percentage, the number drops to about 9 Million, which still amounts to roughly Doubling the Size of Texas' Hispanic population.

And this is all assuming they continue to vote Democrat by the amount they did in 2008, which is highly unlikely given that 2008 seems to have been a Democratic high point among them, and that they've been trending Republican in the state for the past 30 years.  Back in the 80s, they used to go 75-25 or even 80-20 Democrats.  Bill Clinton won more of the vote in the Overwhelmingly Hispanic Rio Grande Valley than Obama did, despite Perot winning about 5% of the vote there as well.

[Dgov]

Way to ignore my point entirely. The GOP is going to have to do better with Hispanics to keep Texas in the safe category. Their anti-immigrant hysteria is not helping them long term.

You seem to be forgetting a key point here--Hispanics are ceasing to be an immigrant community in the United States.  There are more Hispanics in Texas than there are in Mexico who want to move to the United States (according to Gallup), and the "Hispanic Baby Boom" is starting to take hold.  They are gradually moving into suburban communities and up the income ladder.

So basically the second and third generations are starting to dominate the Hispanic society, and those voters tend to be Socially and Fiscally more in line with Republicans than with Democrats.  Take a look at the voting patterns of the immigrants from the late 1800s--they started out overwhelmingly Democrat when they were immigrant and poor, and now Lean Republican once they've moved up the income ladder and out to the suburbs.  Remember when the Democrats used to get ~80% of the Catholic vote?

[Dgov]

If the suburbs stop being so damn Republican. Also, I believe McCain got over 30% in Houston and San Antonio, so it's not like those cities provide a ridiculous margin of votes for the Democrat. And Hispanics in Texas are slightly more Republican than in most other states.

He actually got about 38% in Houston, and 42% in San Antonio.  The biggest reason the Democrats do so poorly is because they are held to such low margins in the big cities that they usually dominate in.

[Dgov]

Something one should note is that Texas cities aren't quite like those in the Northeast- they sprawl out in a ridiculously huge way. I'm way out in the Houston suburbs, but I travel less than one mile away and I'm technically in Houston, even though the whole area is comprised of wealthy white conservatives. I bet if the suburbs that comprise a surprisingly large portion of Houston and San Antonio were removed the margins would be similar to other big cities.

Speaking as a Californian whose knowledge of Texas Demographics is limited to what i can find on the Internet, I think it's more that Houston just doesn't have many Liberal Whites.  There are only a handful of White-majority districts that went for Obama in 2008, and they are almost all in Neartown and central Houston, basically.  There's no Chicago's North Side, no Manhattan Island, no West LA, etc which is why a city that is only about 30% White votes 38% Republican.  Though having heavily Republican Suburbs (North Houston is like 80% Republican from what I can tell) does certainly help.

San Antonio on the other hand, only leans Democratic because there's really not many black voters there.  When Republicans win the White vote by only a little less than they lose the Hispanic vote in a city that's about 60-40 Hispanic, elections tend to be very close.  And just by removing about 500,000 people's worth of the blackest parts of Houston (best estimates here, basically South, NW and parts of the NE), leaves the City 50-50.

[Dgov]

I would say it won't become a swing state because the GOP will come to its senses and start trying to attract Latino voters again.

Am I being hopelessly optimistic?

If the Republican party would start taking them seriously and campagin for their votes, they will.  Texas Hispanics supported Bush 50-49 after he committed the ultimate GOP taboo and actually tried to win their votes the old fashioned way.

[Dgov]

Well, given that he has a 65% Disapproval rating in the state, i don't think Texas is going to be competitive for the Democrats anytime soon.  After all, Bill White is down 9 points to Rick Perry.  Those aren't numbers that build confidence in Obama's chances in 2012

[Dgov]

"When will Texas become a swing state?"

-When Hell freezes over?

Or When Texas Freezes over?

Seriously, Texas has been "About to go Democrat" since the 1980s.  Since then, Republicans have managed to hold on by significantly increasing their percentage of both the White vote and the Hispanic vote, mostly due to rapid suburbanization.  Rural East Texas has gone from a swing region (Clinton won or came close to winning it in 92) to about 70-30.  Orange county in particular has had a large shift, having Voted for Clinton by 17 points in '92 and voted for McCain by 47 points in '08.  Add on that Texas Hispanics have gone from about 80-20 Democrat to close to 60-40 Democratic over the last 30 years (Topped off by Bush winning them or almost winning them in 2004) and you have plenty of reasons to believe the Republican party can hold on to the state.

[Dgov]

"When will Texas become a swing state?"

-When Hell freezes over?

Or When Texas Freezes over?

Seriously, Texas has been "About to go Democrat" since the 1980s.  Since then, Republicans have managed to hold on by significantly increasing their percentage of both the White vote and the Hispanic vote, mostly due to rapid suburbanization.  Rural East Texas has gone from a swing region (Clinton won or came close to winning it in 92) to about 70-30.  Orange county in particular has had a large shift, having Voted for Clinton by 17 points in '92 and voted for McCain by 47 points in '08.  Add on that Texas Hispanics have gone from about 80-20 Democrat to close to 60-40 Democratic over the last 30 years (Topped off by Bush winning them or almost winning them in 2004) and you have plenty of reasons to believe the Republican party can hold on to the state.

This is... weird and wrong. Texas was Democratic in the 1980s. Undoubtedly it was moving towards the Republicans throughout the 80s and 90s, and maybe into the early 00s. But no one was talking about it being "about to go Democratic" in 1980 because it was Democratic, and the question then was when it would become more Republican.

Political winds have changed in Texas only in the past five or ten years or so. The Republicans are no longer gaining ground among white voters there because there is no longer any more ground to be gained, while the Democrats are gaining ground among urban whites and with an increasing Hispanic population. This is a slow process, though, and it will be at least a decade before Democrats are particularly viable statewide again.

Of course, I don't think 2010 is a great indicator of this Republican strength. 2006 would have been a better example, had the Democrats had a decent candidate and there not been weird Independents.

No, I was referring to the fact that people were largely predicting that any movement towards the Republicans would be immediately offset by an increasing Hispanic population, and that it would settle back into the Democratic column after only a few years.  The fact that the State is more Republican now than it was in 1980 despite the fact that the Hispanic percentage has almost doubled (and I assume voter participation rates increased by more than that) again suggests that the Democrats can't rely on Hispanics alone.

For example, in the 2010 governors race, Perry beat White by 630,000 votes.  Assuming that Hispanic voters voted the way the CNN exit polls showed (61-38 White) and any new ones would continue to vote at the same ratio, there would need to be approximately 2,744,252 more Hispanics to show up to the polls than actually did.  That would mean quadrupling of the Number of Hispanics who did actually vote (slightly under 1 Million).

But maybe using 2010 isn't a good reference point.  Using the 2008 Senate numbers (again CNN exit polls, mostly because they're all I've got), Cornyn won 55-43 against Noriega, winning by just under a million votes.  Assuming constant Hispanic voting rates (supporting the Democrat 61-36), that would require approximately 4 Million more Hispanic voters to show up than did in 2008.  Noreiga himself didn't get more than 3.4 Million votes.

Do you see why I think that the Democrat's electoral problems in Texas can't be solved by just waiting for more Hispanics to show up instate?   The Gap is just too big, and Hispanics are just not Democratic enough for that to be a viable election strategy.

[Dgov]

If people are moving by their own choice, then of course yes. IMO a lot of people are moving because they are losing their jobs here, and are finding new ones in Texas. People who move to Arizona from here are much more Republican.

Here's to hoping they realize there's a correlation between "Is a Small Government State" and "Has jobs".

[Dgov]

If people are moving by their own choice, then of course yes. IMO a lot of people are moving because they are losing their jobs here, and are finding new ones in Texas. People who move to Arizona from here are much more Republican.

Here's to hoping they realize there's a correlation between "Is a Small Government State" and "Has jobs".

Right...lower costs of living/pay don't have anything to do with it.

Of course, which is why states like Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Iowa (which all have roughly the same cost of living) are all experiencing large economic booms and population influxes comparable to Texas.