Rare News Desk
Ooops! It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Haven’t the media and liberal-pundits been assuring us that Texas was on an inevitable march to blue statedom? Now Texas voters go and make them out to be a bunch of liars.
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Democrats and liberal donors apparently believed the blue-Texas dream so strongly that they have been pumping millions of dollars into Battleground Texas, an organization founded by Obama campaign alumni that carpetbagged into the Lone Star State last year.
Surely, the media hyperventilated, this would be the end of red Texas.
Or not.
Texas voters have elected the state’s most conservative slate of candidates yet, even with a growing Hispanic population.
The liberal narrative went like this: the Hispanic population in Texas is growing. It currently represents about 38 percent of the Texas population and is predicted to reach 43 percent in a decade. Hispanics tend to vote more Democratic, which means that Texas will turn purple and then blue within the relatively near future.
Here’s the problem with that scenario: The Texas Hispanic population has been growing for decades. In 1990 it was about 26 percent of the population, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. And yet in 1990, Democrats controlled the Texas House and Senate and most major statewide elected offices. And Democrat Ann Richards won the governor’s election that year, taking office in 1991.
Today, Hispanics make up 38 percent of the state and a Democrat cannot get elected statewide for love or money (and there is a lot of the latter). You’d think that if Hispanics were turning the state blue—or would in the near future—we’d see some evidence of it now.
Democrats ran what they thought was their dream team: State Sen. Wendy Davis, an articulate female with statewide name recognition who became the face of pro-choice Democrats, ran for the governor’s mansion. And State Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, a well-respected Hispanic female, ran for the lieutenant governor’s position, which in Texas is considered the real power behind the (governor’s) throne.
Democrats went into those races arguing they had a good chance. Their story changed as the election got closer, saying that as long as their dream team lost by less than double digits, it would be a clear sign of Democratic ascendency. But the Dallas Morning News cited Democrats on election day saying that if they lost by double digits it would be a devastating blow to their hopes for takeover. Both candidates lost by 20 points.
And while both won the Hispanic vote, the Dallas Morning News says Davis fell short with both Hispanics and women. Abbott won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote.
As Texas political commentator Wayne Thorburn pointed out in Politico, Texas Hispanics assimilate, intermarry with whites—Abbott married a Hispanic—and move to the overwhelmingly red suburbs. Plus they get jobs and want to keep their taxes low, and they get older. All of those factors tend to change how people vote.
But what about the women’s vote? Didn’t they buy that GOP “war on women” screed? Cari L. Christman, writing for the Texas Insider, explains why Texas women are turning away from Democrats. She notes that, “Only 360,473 women voted in this year’s Democratic primary, a dramatic drop from the 1.5 million who voted in 2008.”
Of all the Democrats’ dashed dreams on election night, one of the biggest disappointments had to be Texas. They had boots on the ground, lots of money, a believable narrative, great candidates and big hopes for a blue future—and Texas got even redder.
