{"id":13119,"date":"2023-08-05T16:36:44","date_gmt":"2023-08-05T16:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13119"},"modified":"2023-08-05T16:36:44","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T16:36:44","slug":"why-texas-will-soon-be-the-most-politically-important-state","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13119","title":{"rendered":"Why Texas will soon be the most politically important state"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>by <strong>Chris Cillizza,<\/strong> CNN <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/latinosreadytovote.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/03\/920x920.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-32654\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>While the world was fixated on the coronavirus, the US Census Bureau <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/newsroom\/press-releases\/2020\/pop-estimates-county-metro.html\" target=\"_blank\">released<\/a> its latest county-by-county population estimates. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And their findings make one thing abundantly clear: Texas is going to  become the most important political state over the next decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here&#8217;s why: Growth in Texas is absolutely off the charts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the 10 counties with the largest population growth in the country between 2010 and 2019, six of them are in Texas.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Harris County (Houston) had the second largest population increase over  the first nine years of the decade, adding more than 620,000 people.  (Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix, took the top spot with more  than 668,000 new people.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other five Texas counties in the Top 10 in terms of population  increase are: Tarrant (Fort Worth), Bexar (San Antonio), Dallas  (Dallas), Collin (Plano, McKinney) and Travis (Austin). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But it&#8217;s not just that these big Texas counties are adding lots of  people. It&#8217;s that even smaller counties in Texas are growing faster &#8212;  as a percentage of their 2010 population &#8212; than many places in the  country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Of the 10 counties in terms of percentage population growth between 2010  and 2019, four are in Texas: Hays (southwest of Austin), Comal  (northeast of San Antonio), Kendall (west of Austin) and Williamson  (north of Austin). <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What all that bonkers growth means is that Texas&#8217; congressional  delegation &#8212; and, by extension, its number of electoral votes &#8212; are  going to soar after the 2020 Census and <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.fairdistrictspa.com\/faq\/what-is-reapportionment\" target=\"_blank\">reapportionment<\/a>.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Texas is <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2020\/01\/06\/politics\/2020-census-electoral-map-gop\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">projected to gain three seats in 2021<\/a>,  and could gain more depending on how its growth numbers match up with  the rest of the country. Three more congressional seats would bring  Texas&#8217; total to 39 House seats &#8212; and 41 total electoral votes, behind  only California&#8217;s 53 seats and 55 electoral votes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But &#8212; and this is <em>really<\/em> important &#8212; unlike solidly  Democratic California, Texas is emerging as a swing state thanks to huge  growth in the Hispanic community and their movement toward Democrats,  particularly in the Trump era. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Point:  Combine Texas&#8217; growth with its expected increase in swingy-ness as the  state and federal level and you see why it looks like the most important  political state of the next decade.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p> <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/profiles\/chris-cillizza\">Chris Cillizza<\/a> is the CNN Editor-at-large<\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>by Chris Cillizza, CNN While the world was fixated on the coronavirus, the US Census Bureau released its latest county-by-county population estimates. And their findings make one thing abundantly clear: Texas is going to become <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/?p=13119\" title=\"Why Texas will soon be the most politically important state\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13121,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76],"tags":[85,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-13119","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\/13119","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=13119"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13119\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13122,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13119\/revisions\/13122"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/13121"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/latinosreadytovote.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}