Rate Starr County, TX

[ProgressiveModerate]

This heavily Hispanic South TX County is absolutely wild. It went from over a century of supporting Dems presidentially by massive 50%+ margins to swinging 55%(!) right in 2020 and only voting for Biden by 5%, with Trump over quadrupling his vote share. On that same ballot, Cueller got 74% of the vote, winning by 50%. And it's not like this is some unpopulated county with 2 people; the county has over 65k Residents.

In 2022, the County saw a small to moderate reversions left in most races, but nowhere back to pre-2020 levels of D support. It definitely seems like the Dem having a Hispanic surname helped a lot in certain races like AG and Land Commissioner

In the recent 2024 primary, Trump did well getting 90% of the to Biden only getting 45% in the D primary. However, Biden still got over double the raw vote total in his primary compared to Trump. Also worth noting that turnout in both primaries was absurdly low, even in the context to seemingly similar other RGV counties. Historically, Starr has had some insanely high and low turnout elections for seemingly no reason

One final weird quirk Starr County never reported it's votes for Texas's 2019 propositions so to this day, there are still polling stations outstanding.

Overall Starr County is a really quirky County. I think it comes from the fact local politics matter a lot there, turnout is so low, and there is truly no county demographically quite like Starr.

How would you rate it for 2024?

[seskoog]

Lean Trump for now.

[TheReckoning]

Latinos have strong pro-incumbent bias. Safe D.

[heatcharger]

Obvious flip.

[Devils30]

This one is flipping, just curious if it swings 6 points right or has a significant 20+ swing again.

[Bernie Derangement Syndrome Haver]

It could range from Biden +50 to Trump +30 tbh. But given trends I voted Tilt Trump. Totally unpredictable.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

Likely Biden

[Alben Barkley]

Safe Trump.

Perhaps not by margin, but I am absolutely certain Trump wins it.

We will literally see the whole or almost the whole RGV flip red.

It will be perhaps the most significant and thorough political realignment since Appalachia went full R in 2000.

And just like that one, it will not be reversed any time soon. In fact things will just get more and more grim for Ds as Hispanics continue to assimilate more and more into "white America." Turns out maybe "demographics are destiny" was right, it just failed to account for the M. Night Shyamalan style twist that Hispanics would turn to the Republican side in the end. Although honestly, considering the exact same thing happened to Irish/Italians/etc. in the past, it really shouldn't have been surprising in the slightest. We were naive fools to ever dream otherwise. Texas and Florida are completely off the table for Democrats for the foreseeable future, Nevada will likely become a titanium lean R state, New Mexico a pure toss-up, and Arizona's fate will depend on whether the shift in the white suburbanite vote can keep up with the opposing shift in the Hispanic working class vote.

The war to decide the next political realignment and, consequently, the next political era of the United States, was always going to be decided by Hispanic voters at the end of the day. And it seems clear now that they are going to give the edge to the GOP. Democrats are going to be flailing in the political wilderness for a while like we did in the 1980s (except for the ironic fact that our core base will be what was then the GOP's core base -- white educated voters), until the next Clinton/Obama comes along who can get people to cross over to vote D again.

Turns out we won the battle but lost the war in 2020. Turns out, by god, maybe BRTD was right all along about idpol bulls--t like "Latinx" being absolutely toxic cancer. Turns out maybe people care more about how much their groceries cost than gender affirming care or whatever the f--k nonsense  "progressives" are endlessly rambling about on Twitter.

We did this to ourselves. We have no one to blame but ourselves. There will need to be a serious soul-searching and reckoning after the worst human being on the face of the Earth manages to win the biggest Republican landslide in November since 1988.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Safe Trump.

Perhaps not by margin, but I am absolutely certain Trump wins it.

We will literally see the whole or almost the whole RGV flip red.

It will be perhaps the most significant and thorough political realignment since Appalachia went full R in 2000.

And just like that one, it will not be reversed any time soon. In fact things will just get more and more grim for Ds as Hispanics continue to assimilate more and more into "white America." Turns out maybe "demographics are destiny" was right, it just failed to account for the M. Night Shyamalan style twist that Hispanics would turn to the Republican side in the end. Although honestly, considering the exact same thing happened to Irish/Italians/etc. in the past, it really shouldn't have been surprising in the slightest. We were naive fools to ever dream otherwise. Texas and Florida are completely off the table for Democrats for the foreseeable future, Nevada will likely become a titanium lean R state, New Mexico a pure toss-up, and Arizona's fate will depend on whether the shift in the white suburbanite vote can keep up with the opposing shift in the Hispanic working class vote.

The war to decide the next political realignment and, consequently, the next political era of the United States, was always going to be decided by Hispanic voters at the end of the day. And it seems clear now that they are going to give the edge to the GOP. Democrats are going to be flailing in the political wilderness for a while like we did in the 1980s (except for the ironic fact that our core base will be what was then the GOP's core base -- white educated voters), until the next Clinton/Obama comes along who can get people to cross over to vote D again.

Turns out we won the battle but lost the war in 2020. Turns out, by god, maybe BRTD was right all along about idpol bulls--t like "Latinx" being absolutely toxic cancer. Turns out maybe people care more about how much their groceries cost than gender affirming care or whatever the f--k nonsense  "progressives" are endlessly rambling about on Twitter.

We did this to ourselves. We have no one to blame but ourselves. There will need to be a serious soul-searching and reckoning after the worst human being on the face of the Earth manages to win the biggest Republican landslide in November since 1988.

Agree on your point Trump is favored in Starr County and that Hispanics are likely to shift right or "converge" more with white voting habits in the long term, but still disagree with your larger implications.

The first thing is that Hispanics is already a very low turnout voting group; in many states the % of the electorate that is Hispanic in a normal election is only around half of their share of the state population, this is largely why in 2020 large rightwards shifts of Hispanics in many states including TX was pretty easy to overcome. In Starr County, only 17k votes were cast total in a County of almost 70k people; and that was considered record high turnout for the County.

It's much easier to achieve these massive swings when baseline turnout is so low; I think if the GOP actually wants their gains with Hispanics to be meaningful in the larger picture, they have to get turnout up in these communities, but that actually takes more proper investment than they have shown so far outside places like Miami. A lot of these low turnout communities also probably have a lot of voters who would be Dem favorable - Dems still have more votes to juice out of many of these places too especially in more urban Hispanic communities.

Finally, I think the rightwards shift we're seeing with Hispanics was inevitable and not some screw avoidable up on the Democrats part - the reality is that many of these Hispanic voters have always held more conservative/right-wing beliefs but voted Dem because it's what everyone else in their community did and "muh Republicans are racist". As social networks become more socially integrated and they were actually exposed to more right-wing people and communities, it was inevitable they would shift right. I mean, basically all evidence suggests massive racial depolarization amongst the youngest age cohort at least when it comes to topline D v R numbers, but that depolarization doesn't inherently favor one side because it also involves large swaths of whites shifting left.

[cg41386]

Safe Trump.

Perhaps not by margin, but I am absolutely certain Trump wins it.

We will literally see the whole or almost the whole RGV flip red.

It will be perhaps the most significant and thorough political realignment since Appalachia went full R in 2000.

And just like that one, it will not be reversed any time soon. In fact things will just get more and more grim for Ds as Hispanics continue to assimilate more and more into "white America." Turns out maybe "demographics are destiny" was right, it just failed to account for the M. Night Shyamalan style twist that Hispanics would turn to the Republican side in the end. Although honestly, considering the exact same thing happened to Irish/Italians/etc. in the past, it really shouldn't have been surprising in the slightest. We were naive fools to ever dream otherwise. Texas and Florida are completely off the table for Democrats for the foreseeable future, Nevada will likely become a titanium lean R state, New Mexico a pure toss-up, and Arizona's fate will depend on whether the shift in the white suburbanite vote can keep up with the opposing shift in the Hispanic working class vote.

The war to decide the next political realignment and, consequently, the next political era of the United States, was always going to be decided by Hispanic voters at the end of the day. And it seems clear now that they are going to give the edge to the GOP. Democrats are going to be flailing in the political wilderness for a while like we did in the 1980s (except for the ironic fact that our core base will be what was then the GOP's core base -- white educated voters), until the next Clinton/Obama comes along who can get people to cross over to vote D again.

Turns out we won the battle but lost the war in 2020. Turns out, by god, maybe BRTD was right all along about idpol bulls--t like "Latinx" being absolutely toxic cancer. Turns out maybe people care more about how much their groceries cost than gender affirming care or whatever the f--k nonsense  "progressives" are endlessly rambling about on Twitter.

We did this to ourselves. We have no one to blame but ourselves. There will need to be a serious soul-searching and reckoning after the worst human being on the face of the Earth manages to win the biggest Republican landslide in November since 1988.

Yikes.

[Devils30]

Safe Trump.

Perhaps not by margin, but I am absolutely certain Trump wins it.

We will literally see the whole or almost the whole RGV flip red.

It will be perhaps the most significant and thorough political realignment since Appalachia went full R in 2000.

And just like that one, it will not be reversed any time soon. In fact things will just get more and more grim for Ds as Hispanics continue to assimilate more and more into "white America." Turns out maybe "demographics are destiny" was right, it just failed to account for the M. Night Shyamalan style twist that Hispanics would turn to the Republican side in the end. Although honestly, considering the exact same thing happened to Irish/Italians/etc. in the past, it really shouldn't have been surprising in the slightest. We were naive fools to ever dream otherwise. Texas and Florida are completely off the table for Democrats for the foreseeable future, Nevada will likely become a titanium lean R state, New Mexico a pure toss-up, and Arizona's fate will depend on whether the shift in the white suburbanite vote can keep up with the opposing shift in the Hispanic working class vote.

The war to decide the next political realignment and, consequently, the next political era of the United States, was always going to be decided by Hispanic voters at the end of the day. And it seems clear now that they are going to give the edge to the GOP. Democrats are going to be flailing in the political wilderness for a while like we did in the 1980s (except for the ironic fact that our core base will be what was then the GOP's core base -- white educated voters), until the next Clinton/Obama comes along who can get people to cross over to vote D again.

Turns out we won the battle but lost the war in 2020. Turns out, by god, maybe BRTD was right all along about idpol bulls--t like "Latinx" being absolutely toxic cancer. Turns out maybe people care more about how much their groceries cost than gender affirming care or whatever the f--k nonsense  "progressives" are endlessly rambling about on Twitter.

We did this to ourselves. We have no one to blame but ourselves. There will need to be a serious soul-searching and reckoning after the worst human being on the face of the Earth manages to win the biggest Republican landslide in November since 1988.

Agree on your point Trump is favored in Starr County and that Hispanics are likely to shift right or "converge" more with white voting habits in the long term, but still disagree with your larger implications.

The first thing is that Hispanics is already a very low turnout voting group; in many states the % of the electorate that is Hispanic in a normal election is only around half of their share of the state population, this is largely why in 2020 large rightwards shifts of Hispanics in many states including TX was pretty easy to overcome. In Starr County, only 17k votes were cast total in a County of almost 70k people; and that was considered record high turnout for the County.

It's much easier to achieve these massive swings when baseline turnout is so low; I think if the GOP actually wants their gains with Hispanics to be meaningful in the larger picture, they have to get turnout up in these communities, but that actually takes more proper investment than they have shown so far outside places like Miami. A lot of these low turnout communities also probably have a lot of voters who would be Dem favorable - Dems still have more votes to juice out of many of these places too especially in more urban Hispanic communities.

Finally, I think the rightwards shift we're seeing with Hispanics was inevitable and not some screw avoidable up on the Democrats part - the reality is that many of these Hispanic voters have always held more conservative/right-wing beliefs but voted Dem because it's what everyone else in their community did and "muh Republicans are racist". As social networks become more socially integrated and they were actually exposed to more right-wing people and communities, it was inevitable they would shift right. I mean, basically all evidence suggests massive racial depolarization amongst the youngest age cohort at least when it comes to topline D v R numbers, but that depolarization doesn't inherently favor one side because it also involves large swaths of whites shifting left.

Rural Hispanics are starting to vote considerably more GOP than urban Hispanics. Even Biden struggled much more in primary in the RGV than Houston.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Safe Trump.

Perhaps not by margin, but I am absolutely certain Trump wins it.

We will literally see the whole or almost the whole RGV flip red.

It will be perhaps the most significant and thorough political realignment since Appalachia went full R in 2000.

And just like that one, it will not be reversed any time soon. In fact things will just get more and more grim for Ds as Hispanics continue to assimilate more and more into "white America." Turns out maybe "demographics are destiny" was right, it just failed to account for the M. Night Shyamalan style twist that Hispanics would turn to the Republican side in the end. Although honestly, considering the exact same thing happened to Irish/Italians/etc. in the past, it really shouldn't have been surprising in the slightest. We were naive fools to ever dream otherwise. Texas and Florida are completely off the table for Democrats for the foreseeable future, Nevada will likely become a titanium lean R state, New Mexico a pure toss-up, and Arizona's fate will depend on whether the shift in the white suburbanite vote can keep up with the opposing shift in the Hispanic working class vote.

The war to decide the next political realignment and, consequently, the next political era of the United States, was always going to be decided by Hispanic voters at the end of the day. And it seems clear now that they are going to give the edge to the GOP. Democrats are going to be flailing in the political wilderness for a while like we did in the 1980s (except for the ironic fact that our core base will be what was then the GOP's core base -- white educated voters), until the next Clinton/Obama comes along who can get people to cross over to vote D again.

Turns out we won the battle but lost the war in 2020. Turns out, by god, maybe BRTD was right all along about idpol bulls--t like "Latinx" being absolutely toxic cancer. Turns out maybe people care more about how much their groceries cost than gender affirming care or whatever the f--k nonsense  "progressives" are endlessly rambling about on Twitter.

We did this to ourselves. We have no one to blame but ourselves. There will need to be a serious soul-searching and reckoning after the worst human being on the face of the Earth manages to win the biggest Republican landslide in November since 1988.

Agree on your point Trump is favored in Starr County and that Hispanics are likely to shift right or "converge" more with white voting habits in the long term, but still disagree with your larger implications.

The first thing is that Hispanics is already a very low turnout voting group; in many states the % of the electorate that is Hispanic in a normal election is only around half of their share of the state population, this is largely why in 2020 large rightwards shifts of Hispanics in many states including TX was pretty easy to overcome. In Starr County, only 17k votes were cast total in a County of almost 70k people; and that was considered record high turnout for the County.

It's much easier to achieve these massive swings when baseline turnout is so low; I think if the GOP actually wants their gains with Hispanics to be meaningful in the larger picture, they have to get turnout up in these communities, but that actually takes more proper investment than they have shown so far outside places like Miami. A lot of these low turnout communities also probably have a lot of voters who would be Dem favorable - Dems still have more votes to juice out of many of these places too especially in more urban Hispanic communities.

Finally, I think the rightwards shift we're seeing with Hispanics was inevitable and not some screw avoidable up on the Democrats part - the reality is that many of these Hispanic voters have always held more conservative/right-wing beliefs but voted Dem because it's what everyone else in their community did and "muh Republicans are racist". As social networks become more socially integrated and they were actually exposed to more right-wing people and communities, it was inevitable they would shift right. I mean, basically all evidence suggests massive racial depolarization amongst the youngest age cohort at least when it comes to topline D v R numbers, but that depolarization doesn't inherently favor one side because it also involves large swaths of whites shifting left.

Rural Hispanics are starting to vote considerably more GOP than urban Hispanics. Even Biden struggled much more in primary in the RGV than Houston.

Yes, this is very true, and part of the reason I'm hesitant that GOP is going to win Hispanics outright anytime soon; they are just too concentrated in urban areas.

However, the delta may not be quite as large as one assumes. For instance in 2020 Pres, it seems like Hispanics in many of these rural TX panhandle counties actually voted for Biden, it's just Hispanic turnout was so low and whites were so red it didn't make much a dent into the topline margins of those counties

[Schiff for Senate]

It could range from Biden +50 to Trump +30 tbh.

This but less extreme. Total wild card. It's no Elliott where the swing is very clearly and obviously pointed in one direction; as others have noted, it's reverted a little bit since 2020.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

It could range from Biden +50 to Trump +30 tbh.

This but less extreme. Total wild card. It's no Elliott where the swing is very clearly and obviously pointed in one direction; as others have noted, it's reverted a little bit since 2020.

Elliott seemed to be reverting somewhat for a bit. Dems won it in multiple state legislative special elections during the Trump Presidency, and also won it in every 2019 statewide race.

[Schiff for Senate]

It could range from Biden +50 to Trump +30 tbh.

This but less extreme. Total wild card. It's no Elliott where the swing is very clearly and obviously pointed in one direction; as others have noted, it's reverted a little bit since 2020.

Elliott seemed to be reverting somewhat for a bit. Dems won it in multiple state legislative special elections during the Trump Presidency, and also won it in every 2019 statewide race.

At a federal level, though, it was consistently trending rightward (for instance 2020 marked the first election McConnell managed to win Elliott).

[Roll Roons]

It could range from Biden +50 to Trump +30 tbh.

This but less extreme. Total wild card. It's no Elliott where the swing is very clearly and obviously pointed in one direction; as others have noted, it's reverted a little bit since 2020.

Elliott seemed to be reverting somewhat for a bit. Dems won it in multiple state legislative special elections during the Trump Presidency, and also won it in every 2019 statewide race.

At a federal level, though, it was consistently trending rightward (for instance 2020 marked the first election McConnell managed to win Elliott).

Right, but the previous poster was talking about during Trump's presidency. Hell, I thought McConnell would lose it precisely because all of the statewide Dems won it in 2019.

[Schiff for Senate]

It could range from Biden +50 to Trump +30 tbh.

This but less extreme. Total wild card. It's no Elliott where the swing is very clearly and obviously pointed in one direction; as others have noted, it's reverted a little bit since 2020.

Elliott seemed to be reverting somewhat for a bit. Dems won it in multiple state legislative special elections during the Trump Presidency, and also won it in every 2019 statewide race.

At a federal level, though, it was consistently trending rightward (for instance 2020 marked the first election McConnell managed to win Elliott).

Right, but the previous poster was talking about during Trump's presidency. Hell, I thought McConnell would lose it precisely because all of the statewide Dems won it in 2019.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is 2019 is meaningless because it was state-level elections in an off-year. Had there been a 2018 senate election in KY, the results for Elliott there would have been far more illuminating. As things are, the only non-presidential federal races we have to go off are the 2016 and 2020 Senate elections; Elliott swung hard right from the previous cycle in both.

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

It could range from Biden +50 to Trump +30 tbh.

This but less extreme. Total wild card. It's no Elliott where the swing is very clearly and obviously pointed in one direction; as others have noted, it's reverted a little bit since 2020.

Elliott seemed to be reverting somewhat for a bit. Dems won it in multiple state legislative special elections during the Trump Presidency, and also won it in every 2019 statewide race.

At a federal level, though, it was consistently trending rightward (for instance 2020 marked the first election McConnell managed to win Elliott).

Right, but the previous poster was talking about during Trump's presidency. Hell, I thought McConnell would lose it precisely because all of the statewide Dems won it in 2019.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is 2019 is meaningless because it was state-level elections in an off-year. Had there been a 2018 senate election in KY, the results for Elliott there would have been far more illuminating. As things are, the only non-presidential federal races we have to go off are the 2016 and 2020 Senate elections; Elliott swung hard right from the previous cycle in both.

Jim Gray actually won Elliott County by a tad bit more than Alison Grimes in 2014.
Also if Kentucky had a US Senate race in 2018, I stand by a view that Elliott probably goes Dem.

[Tekken_Guy]

It could range from Biden +50 to Trump +30 tbh.

This but less extreme. Total wild card. It's no Elliott where the swing is very clearly and obviously pointed in one direction; as others have noted, it's reverted a little bit since 2020.

Elliott seemed to be reverting somewhat for a bit. Dems won it in multiple state legislative special elections during the Trump Presidency, and also won it in every 2019 statewide race.

At a federal level, though, it was consistently trending rightward (for instance 2020 marked the first election McConnell managed to win Elliott).

Right, but the previous poster was talking about during Trump's presidency. Hell, I thought McConnell would lose it precisely because all of the statewide Dems won it in 2019.

Yeah, but what I'm saying is 2019 is meaningless because it was state-level elections in an off-year. Had there been a 2018 senate election in KY, the results for Elliott there would have been far more illuminating. As things are, the only non-presidential federal races we have to go off are the 2016 and 2020 Senate elections; Elliott swung hard right from the previous cycle in both.

Jim Gray actually won Elliott County by a tad bit more than Alison Grimes in 2014.
Also if Kentucky had a US Senate race in 2018, I stand by a view that Elliott probably goes Dem.

Hal Rogers won Elliott for the first time in 2018.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Worth noting that in 2022, while Abbott did win places like Zapata the downballot Rs did not. Even the railroad commisioner who won Fort Bend and won the election by 15 points still lost Zapata by 8 points. It seems that for right now at least the RGV is still okay with downticket Democrats but they love Trump there. If Starr county flips it will likely be a Trump/Allred county, but I think Zapata will go for Cruz this year.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Worth noting that in 2022, while Abbott did win places like Zapata the downballot Rs did not. Even the railroad commisioner who won Fort Bend and won the election by 15 points still lost Zapata by 8 points. It seems that for right now at least the RGV is still okay with downticket Democrats but they love Trump there. If Starr county flips it will likely be a Trump/Allred county, but I think Zapata will go for Cruz this year.

This, plus in races like railroad commissioner Dem having a Hispanic surname likely helped.

[YE]

Lean R.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

There needs to be an FBI investigation of the counties election adminstration and county commissions; I genuinely suspect that their is significant fraud going on with their election administration

[Agafin]

This is a bit OT but are primary results correlated with the general election? Like, since Sanders was doing so much better than Biden with hispanics (at least, when the primary was still contested), I have to wonder if we would have still seen such an insane shift in the RGV with him as the nominee.

[ProgressiveModerate]

There needs to be an FBI investigation of the counties election adminstration and county commissions; I genuinely suspect that their is significant fraud going on with their election administration

The only thing you can objectively knock the county for is never reporting some 2019 election results. Sure, there have been a lot of crazy swings and wild results, but that’s just RGV for you.