Texas Turning Democratic?

Changing population demographics and an increasingly anti-immigrant political stance may soon cost Republicans the state of Texas in national elections. Such is the convincing analysis by Harold Meyerson in the Washington Post this week. Any Republican hope of winning a presidential election starts with Texas. As the biggest solid Republican state, its electoral votes (likely to rise by four to 38 after the 2010 census) are crucial to the GOP to offset the massive bloc of 55 electoral votes California customarily puts into the Democratic column every election night. This tectonic shift may not come in 2012, but it is coming a few years down the road unless major voting patterns drastically change.

Hispanics tend to vote Democratic. Nationally, in 2004 they supported Kerry over Bush by 20 points, 60 to 40. In 2008 they went even more lopsidedly for Obama over McCain, 67 to 31. Results in the state of Texas mirrored the national results, especially without former Texas Governor George W. Bush on the ballot in 2008. Kerry had just edged Bush 50-49 among Hispanics in 2004, but Obama walloped McCain with Hispanics in the Lone Star State in 2010, 63-35.

This is significant because census figures show the ethnic balance in Texas tilting away from a white majority. In fact, "during the past decade, Texas joined California as a majority-minority state: The percentage of whites in the Texas population declined from 53 percent in 2000 to 45 percent in 2010, while the percentage of Latinos rose from 32 percent to 38 percent." And of all Texans under age 18, 48 percent are now Latinos. Add in the 12 percent of Texans who are black, and these two strong Democratic-leaning groups now account for 50 percent of the Texas population between them. The only thing currently saving Republican prospects in Texas are turnout figures. In 2008 whites were less than 50 percent of the population but constituted 63 percent of the voters. Blacks came out at their percentage of the population (13), but Hispanics, 36 percent of the people, provided only 20 percent of the votes. Once the Democrats can register more of them and get them to the polls, the Republicans are sunk there.

Even more ominous for the GOP, Meyerson points out that nationally, "whites are now a minority-49.9%-of Americans 3 and under. Looking at all school enrollment, pre-K through graduate school, whites were 58.8% of all students in 2009, down from 64.6% in 2000." And yet, "As America becomes increasingly multiracial, the Republicans have chosen to become increasingly white." 90 percent of McCain's voters were white, compared to 61 percent of Obama's.

Rather than reaching out to Hispanics, Republicans have intensified a campaign against their concerns. By passing the Arizona identification law, opposing the Dream Act and introducing constitutional amendments to deny birthright citizenship to children of the undocumented, they have chosen a stance of hostility. Hispanics have responded in kind at the polls. As Meyerson points out, in Nevada, Colorado and California last year, "Republicans ran statewide candidates who embraced Arizona's draconian racial identification law. And massive turnout from Latinos, who overwhelmingly voted Democratic, defeated those candidates."

In view of the inexorable population trend and the Republican base's ever more rightist and anti-immigrant requirements, it is hard to see how the GOP can hold onto Texas from 2016 onward. And once it slips from their grasp they will face an existential electoral dilemma. For with California and Texas both firmly in the Democratic camp, those two states alone will provide them with more than one-third of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency. Together with the 16 other safely Blue states and the District of Columbia that have voted Democratic at least five elections in a row, Democratic presidential candidates would have 264 of the 270 electoral votes needed to win before a campaign even started. Republican hopefuls would have to sweep every swing state every time to barely squeak out a victory.