For those of you who believe TX will stay a Republican state in the long term, why?

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is a sentiment I've often seen on this forum and online, and I haven't gotten a very satisfying answer.

The main argument I see is that the GOP will continue to gain in rural TX and with Hispanics. The issue with this argument is that this is literally what happened in 2020 but it didn't stop TX from shifting and trending left. And infact many of the massive R swings we saw with Hispanics in places like South Texas are going to be hard to replicate cycle after cycle because you'll very quickly reach a ceiling.

The reality is over 2/3rds of Texans live in one of the 4 main metro areas (Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio) all of which have had pretty clear and consistent leftwards shifts for the past 2 decades; even if the GOP gains more ground elsewhere these places will always win out. Any path to keeping the state GOP leaning in the long run has to run through the GOP holding their ground in these metro areas.

The GOP almost achieved this in Houston metro in 2020 thanks to massive gains with urban Hispanics and some other ethnic minorities in places like Alief, but even then Harris County and Houston metro as a whole still swung left.

Another problem for the GOP is just growth. The fastest growing area of the state is metro Austin which is also the most liberal, and only getting bluer by the cycle; heck Beto 2022 outran Biden 2020 in Travis and Hays Counties! In the other 3 major metros, there is a strong correlation between the fastest growing suburbs and strongest democratic shifts. On the flip side, most of the deepest red rural Texas Counties are stagnant or outright shrinking.

So why is the GOP suddenly going to be able to make the state stall out? Massive and consistent gains with non-white voters? Transplants becoming more R-favorable? They manage to stop the bleeding with suburbanites post Trump? Genuinely curious.

[Samof94]

This is a sentiment I've often seen on this forum and online, and I haven't gotten a very satisfying answer.

The main argument I see is that the GOP will continue to gain in rural TX and with Hispanics. The issue with this argument is that this is literally what happened in 2020 but it didn't stop TX from shifting and trending left. And infact many of the massive R swings we saw with Hispanics in places like South Texas are going to be hard to replicate cycle after cycle because you'll very quickly reach a ceiling.

The reality is over 2/3rds of Texans live in one of the 4 main metro areas (Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio) all of which have had pretty clear and consistent leftwards shifts for the past 2 decades; even if the GOP gains more ground elsewhere these places will always win out. Any path to keeping the state GOP leaning in the long run has to run through the GOP holding their ground in these metro areas.

The GOP almost achieved this in Houston metro in 2020 thanks to massive gains with urban Hispanics and some other ethnic minorities in places like Alief, but even then Harris County and Houston metro as a whole still swung left.

Another problem for the GOP is just growth. The fastest growing area of the state is metro Austin which is also the most liberal, and only getting bluer by the cycle; heck Beto 2022 outran Biden 2020 in Travis and Hays Counties! In the other 3 major metros, there is a strong correlation between the fastest growing suburbs and strongest democratic shifts. On the flip side, most of the deepest red rural Texas Counties are stagnant or outright shrinking.

So why is the GOP suddenly going to be able to make the state stall out? Massive and consistent gains with non-white voters? Transplants becoming more R-favorable? They manage to stop the bleeding with suburbanites post Trump? Genuinely curious.

What made Florida able to do this was a set of factors that differ from Texas. Florida appeals more to both the elderly and Northeastern conservatives.  Also, Florida marketed itself in a Covid context somewhat differently.

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is a sentiment I've often seen on this forum and online, and I haven't gotten a very satisfying answer.

The main argument I see is that the GOP will continue to gain in rural TX and with Hispanics. The issue with this argument is that this is literally what happened in 2020 but it didn't stop TX from shifting and trending left. And infact many of the massive R swings we saw with Hispanics in places like South Texas are going to be hard to replicate cycle after cycle because you'll very quickly reach a ceiling.

The reality is over 2/3rds of Texans live in one of the 4 main metro areas (Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio) all of which have had pretty clear and consistent leftwards shifts for the past 2 decades; even if the GOP gains more ground elsewhere these places will always win out. Any path to keeping the state GOP leaning in the long run has to run through the GOP holding their ground in these metro areas.

The GOP almost achieved this in Houston metro in 2020 thanks to massive gains with urban Hispanics and some other ethnic minorities in places like Alief, but even then Harris County and Houston metro as a whole still swung left.

Another problem for the GOP is just growth. The fastest growing area of the state is metro Austin which is also the most liberal, and only getting bluer by the cycle; heck Beto 2022 outran Biden 2020 in Travis and Hays Counties! In the other 3 major metros, there is a strong correlation between the fastest growing suburbs and strongest democratic shifts. On the flip side, most of the deepest red rural Texas Counties are stagnant or outright shrinking.

So why is the GOP suddenly going to be able to make the state stall out? Massive and consistent gains with non-white voters? Transplants becoming more R-favorable? They manage to stop the bleeding with suburbanites post Trump? Genuinely curious.

What made Florida able to do this was a set of factors that differ from Texas. Florida appeals more to both the elderly and Northeastern conservatives.  Also, Florida marketed itself in a Covid context somewhat differently.

Yes, Florida is sort of an interesting equivalent. A little over a decade ago, the consensus among a certain subset of the pundit class was "demographics is destiny" and that would ultimately push Florida to being a truly D-leaning state. The acceleration of Conservative retirees combined with non-whites swinging right has prevented that from becoming reality.

I suppose there is an argument that TX's recent stuff abortion may have affected the lean of the transplants, but that hasn't really manifested in election results yet if true.

[oldtimer]

We have been through this before.

1.Texas is massive and flat, so can assimilate more.
2.Texas Cities are built differenty, a Texas suburb isn't similar to an Atlanta one.
3.Texas rural population has mostly kept up with population growth.
4.Texas is cheaper, so it has more poor and middle class people.
5.Texas has a large mining sector.
6.Texas climate is mostly sub-tropical.

Put them all together and you see why Texas has shown little cultural shift over many decades.

Compare it with California:

1. California is sandwiched between mountains and the sea.
2. California's Urban planning is hellish.
3. California's rural population has declined.
4. California is very expensive, so it has few middle class people.
5. California relies on Tech companies.
6. California's climate is unstable mediterrenian.

Texas is more like a typical Southern American State, while California is like a typical Southern European State.

[RI]

Hispanics are Republicans; they just don't know it yet.

[Indy Texas]

I think a warning sign for the RPT that they don't seem to have paid much attention to or tried to address is how poorly they did in Harris County in 2022.

They underperformed polling and expectations of what a Democratic midterm is supposed to be, despite having plenty of money. They made no gains in the State House delegation, and their representation in county government is at the lowest it's been since the 1960s.

[Dan the Roman]

This may sound very 1990s-ish but I think it is underestimated how poor a fit the current Democratic coalition is for any states that have no income taxes.

The type of government blue states increasingly rely on requires a zoning/tax structure which would provoke a full scale revolt among many of the "swing constituencies" powering their growth. There have been a few cases where specific governors have been able to thread the needle, but even in Virginia/New Hampshire Democrats ran into pushback at the state level as they began to be perceived as the yuppie party.

Democrats could potentially build a majority around white, affluent, educated migrants to the greater Austin area but not without directly attacking the interests of Dallas/urban Houston and the border. 


But right now Texas has no income tax and the state does not allow cities to levy local ones. That is not an existential issue yet, but if Democrats ever get close to statewide control it will blow up into one which will stall their growth and they don't have the sheer federal momentum they have in Virginia to just barely overcome it.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Eventually, suburban shifts start slowing down and plateauing. It's a lot easier to take Harris from a Bush +10 to a tie to Clinton +12, then it is to take it from that point to Biden +20. Eventually there will be a cap off coming and is unclear if TX Dems will be able to get a good lead before that happens. For example, a lot of the panhandle counties have maxed out for Rs now.

[ProgressiveModerate]

We have been through this before.

1.Texas is massive and flat, so can assimilate more.
2.Texas Cities are built differenty, a Texas suburb isn't similar to an Atlanta one.
3.Texas rural population has mostly kept up with population growth.
4.Texas is cheaper, so it has more poor and middle class people.
5.Texas has a large mining sector.
6.Texas climate is mostly sub-tropical.

Put them all together and you see why Texas has shown little cultural shift over many decades.

Compare it with California:

1. California is sandwiched between mountains and the sea.
2. California's Urban planning is hellish.
3. California's rural population has declined.
4. California is very expensive, so it has few middle class people.
5. California relies on Tech companies.
6. California's climate is unstable mediterrenian.

Texas is more like a typical Southern American State, while California is like a typical Southern European State.

Some responses:

1. Don't really see why this would make TX stay more R; there are plenty of places where there are extreme political divides despite little or no geographic barriers.

2. Don't really get what it means by "they're built differently" and why this would affect partisanship. If anything, TX suburbs tend to be built denser than Atlanta suburbs which one assumes might help Dems.

3. This is literally false by any metric of analyzing "rural" counties.

4. The point is TX is becoming more expensive and increasingly has more of the college educated types favorable to Dems. This might be true now, but the point is it's changing.

5. Sure, but again, that mining sector is shrinking as a share of the state's economy.

6. Climate doesn't inherently affect partisanship

[ProgressiveModerate]

Eventually, suburban shifts start slowing down and plateauing. It's a lot easier to take Harris from a Bush +10 to a tie to Clinton +12, then it is to take it from that point to Biden +20. Eventually there will be a cap off coming and is unclear if TX Dems will be able to get a good lead before that happens. For example, a lot of the panhandle counties have maxed out for Rs now.

I don't understand why this would necessarily be true - we've seen many examples of Suburban Counties continue to zoom left even after they reach D+20; NoVa, Metro Atlanta, Travis, and Dallas counties are good examples. I don't see why D+20 would be some arbitrary cap that would be hard for Dems to break in Harris; yeah today that margin would be difficult to achieve but long term growth and those deep red exurbs becoming a smaller share of the county's electorate should make it realistic by the end of the decade.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I think a warning sign for the RPT that they don't seem to have paid much attention to or tried to address is how poorly they did in Harris County in 2022.

They underperformed polling and expectations of what a Democratic midterm is supposed to be, despite having plenty of money. They made no gains in the State House delegation, and their representation in county government is at the lowest it's been since the 1960s.

Yep, in the context of 2022 and 2022 spending, Dems held up pretty well.

I think many folks are overreacting to Harris County's underwhelming 2020 swing and extrapolating it to mean the county will suddenly start swinging back right.

The reality is that even in places that have been trending one direction, there are cycles where you see underwhelming swings or even slight reversions - and I'd argue that in both 2012 and 2016, Houston metro was the metro that appeared to have the best shifts for Dems going forwards. On the flip side, in 2012, Austin was quite underwhelming for Dems, but since then has continued to have very good shifts.

[ottermax]

I think TX will remain Republican because it is still a core state for Republican politics similar to how New York, California, and the DMV are core states for the Democratic party.

TX suburbanites remain very Republican for their demographics, and benefit symbiotically from their support for the party because it is the party of power.

For decades TX Republicans have worked to be more diverse and build Latino support (look at Arizona for a state that has failed to do this and has struggled to convert Latinos to the GOP even when the national trends are pushing that).

Additionally, Austin is a very effective foil. It is very different from the rest of Texas as it is very liberal, rich, and white, which is not representative of the state at all. We already saw how Houston has stagnated in its trends, and Democrats can't do much more to gain in South Texas or El Paso. DFW is one area of opportunity, but I think it also has a pretty stubbornly polarized Republican suburbanite community.

Ultimately in our two-party system Texas will remain Republican as long as Republicans need Texas...

I only see this switching if one of the core Democratic states switches to the GOP (NY seems the most likely given currently trends and coalitions, but also seems very far off, just like Texas).

One force that may accelerate the blue-ing of Texas is the ascendancy of Florida and Tennessee as Republican centers... There is a cultural difference, especially with the Florida style of GOP that might continue to push Texans away... but who knows.

[kwabbit]

Texas only trended a point left in 2020 and has average education attainment. I don't think Texas will continue be 10 points to the right of the nation, but I doubt it will soon become the tipping point state.

The hope for the GOP is that gains among urban non-White voters match the losses with educated White suburbanites in Dallas, Tarrant, Harris, and Bexar. The Austin metro and Collin/Denton will definitely trend left but they aren't that much of the state. The TX GOP will also hope that the RGV flips, El Paso gets close, etc.

Many of the gains the Dems have gotten aren't because of nationwide political trends exactly. The GOP was performing unsustainably well among TX educated suburbanites prior to 2016, so any investment in TX from Dems would yield huge swings. The same is the case in metro Atlanta. More broadly, one big factor in any 2012-2020 swing was the evaporation of most local advantages. Now that TX has been in play for a few cycles those gains might become limited.

[Dan the Roman]

Texas only trended a point left in 2020 and has average education attainment. I don't think Texas will continue be 10 points to the right of the nation, but I doubt it will soon become the tipping point state.

The hope for the GOP is that gains among urban non-White voters match the losses with educated White suburbanites in Dallas, Tarrant, Harris, and Bexar. The Austin metro and Collin/Denton will definitely trend left but they aren't that much of the state. The TX GOP will also hope that the RGV flips, El Paso gets close, etc.

Many of the gains the Dems have gotten aren't because of nationwide political trends exactly. The GOP was performing unsustainably well among TX educated suburbanites prior to 2016, so any investment in TX from Dems would yield huge swings. The same is the case in metro Atlanta. More broadly, one big factor in any 2012-2020 swing was the evaporation of most local advantages. Now that TX has been in play for a few cycles those gains might become limited.

This^

A lot of the "Blue Texas" spreadsheet math on ET assumes that the 2016-2018 shifts were actual trends in those years, and extrapolated from them, rather than a reversion to how Texas should have been demographically voting  since 1996.

Based on educational attainment, racial and economic demographics, Democrats should have been performing substantially better than they did 2000-2014, and it is less that Texas was more Democratic in 2022, than that Obama/Sadler/Noriega should have done much better in 2008/2012 and 2006 was nothing short of an embarrassment.

If Texas was a 53-46 state voting 58-41, then getting to 53-46 is less a result of Democratic growth per se, and more the Texas GOP losing its unique brand versus the national party. Which makes sense because George W Bush/Rick Perry/David Dewhurst have been replaced until John Cornyn and to a lesser extend Abbott himself are "moderates".

Exit polls don't really support the idea that an influx of out of state migrants is what is turning the suburbs and exurbs bluer. Unlike in Georgia, they show in-state migration is if anything Republican.

A wider issue in Texas is the "brand" of the two parties. The GOP had a uniquely strong brand which has been tarnished over the last decade but the Texas Democrats have not really made much progress in producing a Texas brand. Their leading figures do not represent the places they have made gains in for the most part, with the result that , like liberal Afrikaners under Apartheid in South Africa, the few they have are pushed to run statewide too early(Wendy Davis, Beto, now Allred) and burned up.

Associating the Democratic party with the ascendancy of the Atlanta suburbs worked in Georgia. The fragmented nature of Texas means the party has to chose between Houston and Austin, Dallas and the border. Heck, they even have to chose whether they are the party of Dallas or Fort Worth, much less Collin.

What aids them is that Republicans have a similar problem. But it's nowhere near as bad.

But for those who expect a Blue Texas, what does that even look like? Who would be the type of people who would be elected?

That's what I struggle to visualize. Not extending lines exponentially. That part is easy

[Skill and Chance]

Because I suspect in the long run that R's will win Texas Hispanics by close to the same margin they win religious white people in Texas.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Texas only trended a point left in 2020 and has average education attainment. I don't think Texas will continue be 10 points to the right of the nation, but I doubt it will soon become the tipping point state.

The hope for the GOP is that gains among urban non-White voters match the losses with educated White suburbanites in Dallas, Tarrant, Harris, and Bexar. The Austin metro and Collin/Denton will definitely trend left but they aren't that much of the state. The TX GOP will also hope that the RGV flips, El Paso gets close, etc.

Many of the gains the Dems have gotten aren't because of nationwide political trends exactly. The GOP was performing unsustainably well among TX educated suburbanites prior to 2016, so any investment in TX from Dems would yield huge swings. The same is the case in metro Atlanta. More broadly, one big factor in any 2012-2020 swing was the evaporation of most local advantages. Now that TX has been in play for a few cycles those gains might become limited.

This^

A lot of the "Blue Texas" spreadsheet math on ET assumes that the 2016-2018 shifts were actual trends in those years, and extrapolated from them, rather than a reversion to how Texas should have been demographically voting  since 1996.

Based on educational attainment, racial and economic demographics, Democrats should have been performing substantially better than they did 2000-2014, and it is less that Texas was more Democratic in 2022, than that Obama/Sadler/Noriega should have done much better in 2008/2012 and 2006 was nothing short of an embarrassment.

If Texas was a 53-46 state voting 58-41, then getting to 53-46 is less a result of Democratic growth per se, and more the Texas GOP losing its unique brand versus the national party. Which makes sense because George W Bush/Rick Perry/David Dewhurst have been replaced until John Cornyn and to a lesser extend Abbott himself are "moderates".

Exit polls don't really support the idea that an influx of out of state migrants is what is turning the suburbs and exurbs bluer. Unlike in Georgia, they show in-state migration is if anything Republican.

A wider issue in Texas is the "brand" of the two parties. The GOP had a uniquely strong brand which has been tarnished over the last decade but the Texas Democrats have not really made much progress in producing a Texas brand. Their leading figures do not represent the places they have made gains in for the most part, with the result that , like liberal Afrikaners under Apartheid in South Africa, the few they have are pushed to run statewide too early(Wendy Davis, Beto, now Allred) and burned up.

Associating the Democratic party with the ascendancy of the Atlanta suburbs worked in Georgia. The fragmented nature of Texas means the party has to chose between Houston and Austin, Dallas and the border. Heck, they even have to chose whether they are the party of Dallas or Fort Worth, much less Collin.

What aids them is that Republicans have a similar problem. But it's nowhere near as bad.

But for those who expect a Blue Texas, what does that even look like? Who would be the type of people who would be elected?

That's what I struggle to visualize. Not extending lines exponentially. That part is easy

Some disagreements:

Firstly, the argument that these shifts are just some reversion to the mean and they're now just going to stop doesn't make sense, especially when in many cases, these shifts have accelerated in recent years, not slowed down. Furthermore, a huge part of these shifts are powered by growth and not vote-flippers; take Williamson County for instance where Trump got over double the votes of Bush and Biden over 5 times the votes of Gore. That isn't "reversion to the mean", that's just new voters.

-The "Exit polls show Texas transplants lean R" is misleading. This is because someone who moved to Texas 40 years ago still counts as a transplant, and this skews the total. It is clearly true that transplant 40, 30 or even just 20 years ago were very favorable to Rs, but today, that is not the case. Today there is a very strong correlation between growth and areas shifting Dem in Texas. An example is Kaufman County TX; according to ACS estimates this is by far the fastest growing County in the state and in the nation, and it also happens to be the only County outside RGV, Travis, and a few very low population rurals that swung left from 2020 Pres --> 2022 Gov. Another exercise is looking at all the precincts that cast more votes for 2022 Gov than 2020 Pres; these precincts collectively swung towards Beto from Biden.

As for the party branding thing, I agree that Texas is a more complex state because of the many unqiue regions and metro areas, however, you'd be kidding yourself to say the GOP isn't currently suffering the consequences of this; there's currently a pretty big intra-party GOP war in Texas because of issues like school vouchers, where essentially rural TX and suburban/exurban TX have very different positions. Abbott, Paxton, and Patrick are well known for not being on good terms right now, and Rs primary challenge against the current House speaker has pushed that race to a runoff; they also recently primaried some key incumbents in marginal seats.

[dpmapper]

Between 2016 and 2020, Kaufman shifted left in percentage terms because the new voters are to the left of the old voters.  But the GOP vote margin from 2016 to 2020 stayed basically the same (19300 vs. 19200), because the new voters are basically 50/50.  Not all Texas suburbanization is exactly like that but this is why it's not as much of a blue-ing trend as you might suppose just from looking at the percentages. 

[Annatar]

Between 2016 and 2020, Kaufman shifted left in percentage terms because the new voters are to the left of the old voters.  But the GOP vote margin from 2016 to 2020 stayed basically the same (19300 vs. 19200), because the new voters are basically 50/50.  Not all Texas suburbanization is exactly like that but this is why it's not as much of a blue-ing trend as you might suppose just from looking at the percentages. 

The AP exit poll fortunately did ask this question, in 2020 among those who had lived 6-20 years in TX, Biden won by 2%, among those who had lived 0-6 years, he won by 4%.

In 2022, Abbott lost the 0-6 year group by 2%, he won by the 6-20 year group by 1%.

[Annatar]

All of the shift against the GOP since 2012 has been due to college whites shifting heavily, its likely much of that shift is over, college whites voted something like 75-25 in 2012, R+50, that was not going to continue. In 2022, Abbott carried college whites by 25%, they were 28% of all voters in TX, if he had won them like Romney did, he would won statewide by 17.8%, exceeding Romney's margin because he did better with Hispanics than Romney did.

It was simply not sustainable that college whites in TX were going to keep voting R+50, their current margin is more in line with other southern states excluding the deep south, around R+25. Since 2018 they have not shifted any more democratic, Cruz won them by 23% in 2018, Trump by 22%, Abbott by 25% in the AP exit poll. After a big shift towards the democrats in 2016 and 2018, college whites have basically voted the same way 3 elections in a row now.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Between 2016 and 2020, Kaufman shifted left in percentage terms because the new voters are to the left of the old voters.  But the GOP vote margin from 2016 to 2020 stayed basically the same (19300 vs. 19200), because the new voters are basically 50/50.  Not all Texas suburbanization is exactly like that but this is why it's not as much of a blue-ing trend as you might suppose just from looking at the percentages. 

But you also have to consider turnout increased across the board from 2016-->2020; unless non-2016 Kaufman voters who lived in Kaufman pre-2017 broke for Biden (very unlikely), it means the transplants broke for Biden.

[Schiff for Senate]

This is a sentiment I've often seen on this forum and online, and I haven't gotten a very satisfying answer.

The main argument I see is that the GOP will continue to gain in rural TX and with Hispanics. The issue with this argument is that this is literally what happened in 2020 but it didn't stop TX from shifting and trending left. And infact many of the massive R swings we saw with Hispanics in places like South Texas are going to be hard to replicate cycle after cycle because you'll very quickly reach a ceiling.

The reality is over 2/3rds of Texans live in one of the 4 main metro areas (Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio) all of which have had pretty clear and consistent leftwards shifts for the past 2 decades; even if the GOP gains more ground elsewhere these places will always win out. Any path to keeping the state GOP leaning in the long run has to run through the GOP holding their ground in these metro areas.

The GOP almost achieved this in Houston metro in 2020 thanks to massive gains with urban Hispanics and some other ethnic minorities in places like Alief, but even then Harris County and Houston metro as a whole still swung left.

Another problem for the GOP is just growth. The fastest growing area of the state is metro Austin which is also the most liberal, and only getting bluer by the cycle; heck Beto 2022 outran Biden 2020 in Travis and Hays Counties! In the other 3 major metros, there is a strong correlation between the fastest growing suburbs and strongest democratic shifts. On the flip side, most of the deepest red rural Texas Counties are stagnant or outright shrinking.

So why is the GOP suddenly going to be able to make the state stall out? Massive and consistent gains with non-white voters? Transplants becoming more R-favorable? They manage to stop the bleeding with suburbanites post Trump? Genuinely curious.

While I'd point out swings in much of the Houston area were underwhelming in 2020, a bigger factor to point out is that rural TX, outside of maybe the RGV, is quite literally maxed out for the GOP. They've broken 80% in the clear majority, and 90% in quite a few - there's simply not much room left for them to expand their margin in the vast majority of rural TX.

And all the mid-sized towns in TX (like Waco and Lubbock) already vote quite a bit to the right of where they "should."

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is a sentiment I've often seen on this forum and online, and I haven't gotten a very satisfying answer.

The main argument I see is that the GOP will continue to gain in rural TX and with Hispanics. The issue with this argument is that this is literally what happened in 2020 but it didn't stop TX from shifting and trending left. And infact many of the massive R swings we saw with Hispanics in places like South Texas are going to be hard to replicate cycle after cycle because you'll very quickly reach a ceiling.

The reality is over 2/3rds of Texans live in one of the 4 main metro areas (Dallas, Houston, Austin, and San Antonio) all of which have had pretty clear and consistent leftwards shifts for the past 2 decades; even if the GOP gains more ground elsewhere these places will always win out. Any path to keeping the state GOP leaning in the long run has to run through the GOP holding their ground in these metro areas.

The GOP almost achieved this in Houston metro in 2020 thanks to massive gains with urban Hispanics and some other ethnic minorities in places like Alief, but even then Harris County and Houston metro as a whole still swung left.

Another problem for the GOP is just growth. The fastest growing area of the state is metro Austin which is also the most liberal, and only getting bluer by the cycle; heck Beto 2022 outran Biden 2020 in Travis and Hays Counties! In the other 3 major metros, there is a strong correlation between the fastest growing suburbs and strongest democratic shifts. On the flip side, most of the deepest red rural Texas Counties are stagnant or outright shrinking.

So why is the GOP suddenly going to be able to make the state stall out? Massive and consistent gains with non-white voters? Transplants becoming more R-favorable? They manage to stop the bleeding with suburbanites post Trump? Genuinely curious.

While I'd point out swings in much of the Houston area were underwhelming in 2020, a bigger factor to point out is that rural TX, outside of maybe the RGV, is quite literally maxed out for the GOP. They've broken 80% in the clear majority, and 90% in quite a few - there's simply not much room left for them to expand their margin in the vast majority of rural TX.

And all the mid-sized towns in TX (like Waco and Lubbock) already vote quite a bit to the right of where they "should."

Yep, this is a true as well, but you also have to account for increased raw vote margins; there are quite a few TX panhandle counties where the GOP can't realistically gain much in % margin but could close to double their raw vote margin in theory because of the low turnout currently. One thing that isn't great for the GOP is most of these truly rural counties are very low population and are easily outvoted by a single precinct in Travis County; the counties that actually net the GOP a substantial number of votes tend to be exurban or micropolitan containing some smaller city like Midland, Lubbock, ect.

I think for a lot of these smaller TX cities that vote to the right of where they "should", low non-white turnout plays a big factor - if you go at the precicnt level some pretty crazy differences in votes cast.

[Del Tachi]

I could see Houston being a city that trends significantly GOP in future cycles.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I could see Houston being a city that trends significantly GOP in future cycles.

Maybe Houston proper, but unlikely the Houston metro.

If you look at the major metro areas like Miami, Los Vegas, and Los Angeles that shifted right in 2020, they all have thing in common; geographic barriers that prevent the existence of certain suburbs and growth that would likely otherwise be favored to Dems and have shifted left.

Outside Miami, Houston had some of the most aggressive rightwards Hispanic swings in 2020, but Harris County and the Houston metro still swung left because of the expansive suburbs which have more favorable demgoraphics for Dem gains in the long term. Until GOP can figure out how to reverse (or at least stall) shifts in places like Katy and Spring, don't think the GOP will make meaningful gains in the Houston metro on net.

[patzer]

My answer to OP's question is quite simple. If suburban shifts were to continue to the point of TX becoming Dem-leaning, that would also mean Arizona and Georgia being more solidly Dem-leaning, which would mean the GOP having no possible coalition to coming even close to victory presidentially. Which would mean some sort of shift in voter coalitions would have to occur- and it is very difficult to envisage any such coalition which would involve Texas being to the left of the US as a whole.