TX - Texas Tribune; Trump +3

[DINGO Joe]

Clinton won huge swathes of rural Texas in 1996, when he lost Texas by around 5 points. He won those East Texas rural deep south counties that border LA. Now those rural counties that Clinton won or was competitive in are deeply Republican. Hillary's county map will look a lot like Obama's map. She will just increase the margins in the big cities and suburbs and the Rio Grande valley.

Beyond that, she'd need some really big swings in the more educated suburban counties, like Williamson, Galveston, Denton and Collin.  

[DINGO Joe]

Clinton won huge swathes of rural Texas in 1996, when he lost Texas by around 5 points. He won those East Texas rural deep south counties that border LA. Now those rural counties that Clinton won or was competitive in are deeply Republican. Hillary's county map will look a lot like Obama's map. She will just increase the margins in the big cities and suburbs and the Rio Grande valley.

Beyond that, she'd need some really big swings in the more educated suburban counties, like Williamson, Galveston, Denton and Collin.  

I agree with you on the concept, but not sure I would include Galveston on the list of heavily college educated suburban counties ( I would actually replace Galveston County with Montgomery County)...

Yes on the one hand you have the Clear Lake area, most famous for NASA, and some nice bayfront homes, but on the other hand you have Texas City which is more blue-collar oil refinery roughneck, League City that is a bit more Middle Class, Galveston itself, which has been a Democratic stronghold since the New Deal, and then a bunch of 2nd homes and some retirees in South Galveston Island.

So yes, it would definitely help Clinton to flip Galveston, to add to her likely significant margins in Metro-Houston....

It used to be a heavily Democratic county that went for Clinton in '92/'96, Dukakis in '88 (!!!), that trended Republican when Bush Jr. ran in 2000/2004, and basically mirrored statewide averages in 2008 and 2012.

This will definitely be an interesting Texas county to watch on election night, as a potential barometer of Texas with about average African-American voters (15%), lower than average, but lower turnout Latinos (18%) and a mixture of Anglo non-college workers in the oil industry, Port of Houston/Galveston, and then throw in a chunk of college educated Anglos once you get up towards Clear Lake area.

If Clinton appears to be winning Galveston County it will likely indicate that she will win Texas, since overall demographics here are actually a bit more favorable to Trump than his Texas average.

You probably have a better grasp than I do on current demos.  My targeting of Galveston was based on more science and medical white collars types vs oil white collar in Montgomery and oil white collar being the least likely to swing towards Hillary.  That more a hunch that anything.  And as you note, Galveston does have a much larger blue collar component that Montgomery.

[DINGO Joe]

Yet again... while seeing the suburban swings is great, watch the raw numbers coming out of the Rio Grande Valley.

Well it's a three legged stool.  Cities, suburbs, Rio Grande--with big turnouts in cities and Rio.