{"id":13113,"date":"2023-08-05T16:32:42","date_gmt":"2023-08-05T16:32:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13113"},"modified":"2023-08-05T16:32:42","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T16:32:42","slug":"why-republicans-may-lose-texas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13113","title":{"rendered":"Why Republicans may lose Texas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

by Kristin Tate <\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n

\n
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Texas is the archetypal conservative \nstate, especially since it claims the mantle as having the most \nelectoral votes for Republican candidates. Its fast growing economy and \npopulation are signs that its small government approach works. However, \nthere is compelling evidence that in addition to data showing Texas is \nbeing pushed to the left thanks to migration from blue states, internal \nstate migration is also changing the political map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\n are more than just interstate and international factors turning Texas \nblue. Like a variety of states with vibrant rural and urban areas within\n their borders, Texas itself is surprisingly divided. As a result, \ninternal migration within the state itself provides as much pressure \ntoward its future division as Californians and Mexican immigrants. On \nthe whole, rural areas across the country are losing density. The rural \npopulation of the United States is about 60 million, almost exactly the \nsame as it stood at the end of World War Two. The result is that this \nshare of the total population has dropped from nearly half of the \ncountry back then to just under a fifth today. The urban population of \nthe United States, meanwhile, has almost tripled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Young people generally leave these sparse regions for job opportunities and education. This resulting \u201cbrain drain<\/a>\u201d\n often leaves an imbalance in age groups, with a rapidly aging rural \npopulation and decreasing share of educated young people. Many of the \nhouses of formerly growing families in the state are inhabited by \nretirees rather than by members of the next generation. Despite Texas \nconsistently ranking as the number one state for domestic migration, it \nis also home to 90 counties losing population<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\n trend causes political shifts. Older rural voters tend to become more \nconservative, while younger voters tend to become increasingly liberal \nas they move to the cities for work and school. Millennials and \nGeneration Z often bear the markers of new members of the Democratic \nParty. They are unmarried, childless, saddled with student loan debt, \nand do not own any property. This happens both among young people moving\n from red states to blue ones, and also from red counties to blue \ncountries. In each case, the important factor is not the existing \npolitics of the state. It is that when someone moves to a big city, his \nor her politics sharply skews<\/a> to the left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n concentration of young people in Texas moving from smaller to larger \ncounties, sharply leaning to the left, and becoming more politically \nactive brings on increasing electoral importance to cities such as San \nAntonio, Houston, Dallas, and Austin. This growth by leaps and bounds \nmeans that the political weight of cities is increasing more rapidly \nthan that of rural areas. Whether it be a portion of the Texas \nelectorate or state and federal redistricting, the major cities could \nsoon have veto power over the wishes of the rural areas of the state, \nsimilar to that of Chicago or New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n coming blue wave in Texas has already started. Democrats won more than a\n dozen seats in the state legislature in the 2018 election and even \nthreatened the Senate seat held by Ted Cruz. The combination of sharply \nDemocratic cities and suburban areas shading blue is a long run \npolitical disaster in the making for Republicans. We are fortunate \nenough to view the demographic changes in Texas in detail as a warning \nand potential model for other states. Any state with stagnant or \ndeclining rural areas and dominant or growing urban regions could also \nsuffer a similar fate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The 2020 election is not likely to hand Texas away from Republicans, but as I have previously written<\/a>,\n it may be close enough to force Republicans to expend resources there. \nThe growth of urban and suburban locales will play a major role in \nredistricting after the census. On the one hand, Texas will gain two or \nthree seats in the House of Representatives. On the other hand, many \nchanges in the state house after the 2020 election will allow for more \ncompetitive seats leaning toward Democrats. Left wingers have already \nmade it a goal to flip the Texas state house blue, and are raking in \nmillions of dollars in campaign donations from liberals outside<\/a> the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the census rearranges the legislature toward a marginal advantage for cities, and the next several years experience migration figures similar to recent history, the results will be striking. Texas is setting itself up to be a victim of its own success. It has a growing economy and booming cities backed by technology, oil, and gas that are all magnets. The movement of young Texans to cities will be a significant factor in the potential obituary of the Republican Party in the state. Since it has not been written just yet, there is still a chance to keep Texas red, and the national economy alive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Kristin Tate is a libertarian writer and an analyst for Young Americans for Liberty. She is an author whose latest book is \u201cHow Do I Tax Thee? A Field Guide to the Great American Rip-Off.<\/a>\u201d Follow her on Twitter <\/em>@KristinBTate<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Kristin Tate Texas is the archetypal conservative state, especially since it claims the mantle as having the most electoral votes for Republican candidates. Its fast growing economy and population are signs that its small […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13114,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[85,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-13113","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-texas","8":"tag-politics","9":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13113","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=13113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13115,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13113\/revisions\/13115"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13114"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}