What happened to Biden in Texas?

[EJ24]

Polls going to into election day showed an extremely tight race, some even had Biden up by about a point, but it ended up being a fairly comfortable 6-point win for Trump.

Were the polls simply wrong? Did Trump's improvement with Latino voters in South Texas put him over the top? Were Democrats overconfident?

[TML]

Polls overestimated Biden nationwide - he won the NPV by about 4 points less than polls had predicted. The result in TX was probably one of the symptoms of this underperformance.

[ProgressiveModerate]

To add onto the previous post, polls tend to underestimate wild swings caused by significant changes in turnout, such as what happened in RGV. Polling was generally ok on the Presidnstial level in Dallas and Austin, but outside that it went down down down

[Roll Roons]

Polls overestimated Biden nationwide - he won the NPV by about 4 points less than polls had predicted. The result in TX was probably one of the symptoms of this underperformance.

If anything, it was the district level polls in Texas that really sucked:
https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1320748939751026690

And people on here (and Twitter) fell for this crap so easily.

[South Dakota Democrat]

Polls overestimated Biden nationwide - he won the NPV by about 4 points less than polls had predicted. The result in TX was probably one of the symptoms of this underperformance.

If anything, it was the district level polls in Texas that really sucked:
https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1320748939751026690

And people on here (and Twitter) fell for this crap so easily.

To be fair, it was difficult to know it was crap until after the fact, especially since district polls have historically been pretty accurate.

[Roll Roons]

Polls overestimated Biden nationwide - he won the NPV by about 4 points less than polls had predicted. The result in TX was probably one of the symptoms of this underperformance.

If anything, it was the district level polls in Texas that really sucked:
https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1320748939751026690

And people on here (and Twitter) fell for this crap so easily.

To be fair, it was difficult to know it was crap until after the fact, especially since district polls have historically been pretty accurate.

The fact that it came from DCCC should have been enough to disregard it.

[KaiserDave]

The polls were wrong.

But as for why Biden didn't win Texas, just look at Houston. Trump did horribly in the Dallas-Forth Worth area but he held his ground in Houston.

[It's Time.]

Hispanics are hard to poll. TX is nearly 40% Hispanic.

Polls underestimated Trump support among Hispanics.

[It's Time.]

Polls were wrong across the boards. Polls said we were heading for a 1984 Reagan landslide win. Instead, we got a tight election, where less than 100k votes determined the winner (in AZ, GA, and WI).

No one said it would be a 1984 Reagan landslide, the best mainstream poll had Biden up 15, 3 less than Reagan+18 1984.

Biden was up 7-8 in polling averages, less than 18.

[Calthrina950]

Polls were wrong across the boards. Polls said we were heading for a 1984 Reagan landslide win. Instead, we got a tight election, where less than 100k votes determined the winner (in AZ, GA, and WI).

No one said it would be a 1984 Reagan landslide, the best mainstream poll had Biden up 15, 3 less than Reagan+18 1984.

Biden was up 7-8 in polling averages, less than 18.

Many people (including myself) thought Biden would win by about the same margin that Obama did in 2008, which is the margin you provide here, and some thought he could win by as much as Ronald Reagan did in 1980. Obviously, neither scenario came to pass, and it's clear that it will be very difficult for any candidate to win by more than mid-single digits in today's polarized environment.

[Chips]

Polls overestimated Biden nationwide - he won the NPV by about 4 points less than polls had predicted. The result in TX was probably one of the symptoms of this underperformance.

[AGA]

His poor performance in the RGV isn't very relevant since it's such a small portion of the state's population. The Democratic swings in the metro areas simply weren't as strong as expected.

[It's Time.]

His poor performance in the RGV isn't very relevant since it's such a small portion of the state's population. The Democratic swings in the metro areas simply weren't as strong as expected.

Particularly Houston.

[Calthrina950]

His poor performance in the RGV isn't very relevant since it's such a small portion of the state's population. The Democratic swings in the metro areas simply weren't as strong as expected.

Particularly Houston.

Didn't Trump win a million more votes in Texas than what he received in 2016? It seems like he was able to tap into a deep reservoir of hidden Republican votes in the state.

[ProgressiveModerate]

His poor performance in the RGV isn't very relevant since it's such a small portion of the state's population. The Democratic swings in the metro areas simply weren't as strong as expected.

Particularly Houston.

Didn't Trump win a million more votes in Texas than what he received in 2016? It seems like he was able to tap into a deep reservoir of hidden Republican votes in the state.

Texas was always a state with low turnout so in 2020 it could be expected that both sides would gain a ton of votes out of the state, and I think people just automatically assumed higher turnout would help Democrats. Biden actually won more votes than Trump did in Texas back in 2016 by quite a bit, heck, even Hegar did.

You can see the Trump 2020 vs Clinton 2016 map is quite dramatic:


So is the reverse of that map:


One thing that is notable though is that in some of these RGV counties, Biden got slightly fewer votes than Clinton which either means some people in the region were Clinton-Trump voters, or they just moved away or didn't vote in 2020.

[MRS. MEE SUM CHU]

His poor performance in the RGV isn't very relevant since it's such a small portion of the state's population. The Democratic swings in the metro areas simply weren't as strong as expected.

Particularly Houston.

Didn't Trump win a million more votes in Texas than what he received in 2016? It seems like he was able to tap into a deep reservoir of hidden Republican votes in the state.

For context- Texas's population grew by almost 1.5 million between 2016 and 2020, while the number of voters increased by ~2.5 million.

[Mr.Bakari-Sellers]

Latinos in TX and FL weren't crazy about PR Statehood and the D's thought that they would go for it and just because Covid spiked in TX and FL didn't mean they were automatically D

[Redban]

His poor performance in the RGV isn't very relevant since it's such a small portion of the state's population. The Democratic swings in the metro areas simply weren't as strong as expected.

Particularly Houston.

Didn't Trump win a million more votes in Texas than what he received in 2016? It seems like he was able to tap into a deep reservoir of hidden Republican votes in the state.

Yeah, Karl Rove basically said so too. His article is below:

https://www.rove.com/article/11-19-20-wsj

How Republicans Kept Texas Red

How did Republicans do it?

First, with no public fanfare, Republicans undertook two big voter-registration drives. One, which I helped run, used big data, technology and volunteers from the Texas Federation of Republican Women, College Republicans and county GOP organizations. ... an effort that added 212,972 new Republicans to the voter rolls.

The other effort, by the super PAC Engage Texas, used traditional methods, hiring nearly 200 workers to stand outside Department of Motor Vehicles offices and knock on doors. Before it was shut down by Covid-19, it registered another 105,697 Republicans at a cost of $70.10 each.

...

The Texas Victory Committee used microtargeting to identify low-propensity voters who needed extra encouragement to turn out, as well as swing suburban voters (especially women) and persuadable Hispanics. Mr. Davis’s staff of 40 worked with an army of volunteers to canvass 1.3 million doors, complete 3.1 million calls, and send 24.1 million text messages, supported by seven million pieces of mail, including slate mailers to encourage Republicans to vote for down-ballot offices, since Texas recently abolished straight-ticket voting. This totals 35.5 million voter contacts.

[Motorcity]

1. Hispanic voters voting slightly to the right than expected. Probably resulted in a full point for Trump


2. The suburban shift wasn't as intense as in other states


3. The increase republican turnout was more than expected, at least compared to expected democratic turnout


4. The math of the polls were slightly off because of the 2018 senate race, but a lot of people just didn't like Cruz


Mind you, the final 538 average had 52-48 and it ended up 53-46 so not that off the mark. The polling error in Texas 2020 was not as bad as the polling error of Texas 2016

[Starry Eyed Jagaloon]

His poor performance in the RGV isn't very relevant since it's such a small portion of the state's population. The Democratic swings in the metro areas simply weren't as strong as expected.

Particularly Houston.

Didn't Trump win a million more votes in Texas than what he received in 2016? It seems like he was able to tap into a deep reservoir of hidden Republican votes in the state.

Apparently so. Biden did the same though, and added slightly more new votes than Trump meaning the final raw vote margin was pretty close to 2016. I think most people, myself included, just assumed new voters would be going to Biden at least 75-25.

[YE]

Hispanics. That’s it. Texas is there otherwise.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Texas always seems to be fools gold for Dems like Minnesota is for the GOP.

At this specific moment sure, but I feel like the comparison isn’t really fair long term since TX has had a clear leftwards shift whereas MN had bounced around quite a bit

[Motorcity]

Texas always seems to be fools gold for Dems like Minnesota is for the GOP.

Even if Hispanics voted for Biden at Obama's percentage, he still falls short

Rural turnout was higher than expected and the suburban swing just wasn't as fast as in other states.

Could Biden have won? Yes, but it would have taken better hispanic messenging, more ads, door to door, and depressed republican turnout