Texas' biggest metro areas may tip America's balance of power in the years ahead

[IronLionZion]

https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/13/politics/texas-democrats-districts-gains/index.html



(CNN)The fast-growing metropolitan areas of Texas are moving to the front line of the battle between the two major political parties for control of the nation's direction.

Texas has been a linchpin of the Republican Party's national strength for a generation. But in 2018, Democrats recorded their most significant gains in decades in the state's largest urban centers.

Now Texas Republicans face indications that the same recoil from President Donald Trump that has hurt the party in other diverse and well-educated metropolitan areas -- from suburban Philadelphia to Orange County, California -- could combine with growing racial diversity to move Texas from reliably red into a genuinely competitive state much more quickly than almost any analyst envisioned even a few years ago.

"Trump has sped everything up by four to six years," says Richard Murray, a University of Houston political scientist. For the Republicans, he said, "it's a deadly combination of rapid demographic change and the immediate political dynamics."
Texas remains a difficult, though not unreachable, target for Democrats in the 2020 presidential race -- in part because it's unclear whether any potential Democratic nominee other than Beto O'Rourke, who represented a House district in El Paso, would invest the massive sums required to truly compete in the state.

Make Texas Blue Again

[dalton99a]

1. It's inevitable, and Republicans know it.

Beto was their wake-up call

[IronLionZion]

2. What's it going to take to get turnout from our side?

Team GOP is in full voter suppression mode including trying to convince liberals there's no point voting and that they'll win regardless.

I would hope Latinos, women, young people, and others would make a big difference. The GOP certainly thinks liberal votes matter.

[NewJeffCT]

3. Put Castro or O'Rourke on the ticket as VP?

might help with voter turnout in Texas?

[evilhime]

14. ticket balance

that is how they used to do it in the old days... get the VP from a different part of the country than the Presidential nominee . . . JFK/LBJ for example . . . Might help.

[NewJeffCT]

4. The SALT tax limit is tough on a lot of those suburban Texas areas

I posted this several weeks ago on here, but I'll repeat what I said at the time.

Several years back, I was flown down to the Houston area several times over maybe 18 months to interview for jobs at a few different companies in there.

Each time, it got serious enough where the company had a local realtor drive me around to "good school" suburban areas around Houston - The Woodlands and Sugar Land to name a few. I don't think we got to Katy, however. Because Texas has no income tax and not a huge amount of state support financially for education, the suburbs that want good schools pay for them by raising property taxes.

So, my home at the time on the Connecticut shoreline was a little over $500,000 in value and we paid $10,000 in property taxes at the time per year. However, an equivalently valued home in The Woodlands would have property taxes of $15,000/year. And, this is according to The Woodlands sales center, and with sales, they might generously round the numbers to makes it more acceptable financially to buyers. (The Woodlands is a planned suburb with about 115,000 people)

But, property values in the suburbs of Houston have continued to rise, so that $500,000 new home may now be a $600,000 or even a $700,000 home with even higher property taxes. And, those suburbanites are getting killed by those tax deduction limit over $10,000. I would imagine it's similar in DFW and Austin as well.

[IronLionZion]

6. Homeowners with limited incomes would feel the pain of those property taxes

especially elderly retirees who may have seen their property values rise over the years but don't need the schools so won't see the benefits. It would be harder to blame socialists for raising taxes if it's Republicans doing it.

[Duppers]

5. This is why I'm supporting a Biden/Beto ticket.

Beto would carry all of Texas' 36 electoral votes!! And that'd be the presidency, folks.

Where else but California has that many electoral votes?

https://cdn.britannica.com/s:1500x700,q:85/32/192332-004-1BA9A93F.jpg

[IronLionZion]

7. It would be sweet if Dems could take Texas and Florida

since Trump stole Wisconsin and Michigan and PA.

[pstokely]

21. PA, WI, and MI will probably be easier than FL or TX

changing demographics won't win anything without large turnout anywhere

[Gregory Peccary]

8. Heve to admit I've lost faith in Beto a bit

I still like the guy of course, but he lost to vampire Cruz straight up at the height of his rise in the Dem party. Why should we be confident he would sway the presidential vote as a VP in 2020?

[Duppers]

10. Simply because Texans would love to see

Another native Texan being vice president. And, as the OP states, Metro areas in Texas are going blue. And Beto almost beat, Cruz.

Call me optimistic.

[sacto95834]

12. We tried this with Benson remember??

Didn't work then.

[Duppers]

13. 1988. Things haven't changed?

Did ya see this?
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1287237997

Houston Chronicle Editorial Board says O'Rourke should drop out and run for Senate.

Wow.

[sacto95834]

17. Unfortunately...

I think things have changed for the worse. Politics are much more polarized. At least when Bensen was chosen back in 1988, the Senate Minority Leader, Robert Dole, praised the choice by Dukakis. Do you think that would ever happen today?

[Duppers]

19. You're probably right.

Sigh.

[sacto95834]

11. It may be me...

but I fail to see how Beto would suddenly carry Texas when he lost to evil, hated Ted Cruz.

Has Texas changed that much in two years? I can see Beto or another Dem win state-wide in Texas in a few more years. I still think it's a little too early.

It may be a terrible thing to say, but a lot of the older Baby boomer conservatives need to pass on and switch the electorate to a majority of Gen X and the millennials. Also the demographics of Texas are not working in the Republicans favor. The state party really needs to do some work to register all these potential Democrats. Take the California model and duplicate. When the Republicans finally loose Texas it will become almost impossible for them to win at the presidential level.

[Duppers]

15. Would love to see the day! 😊

But I'm a boomer and will be gone too. Maybe? But I have a lot of longevity in my family and I may stick around quite a while.

Btw, WTF happen to all the liberal boomers I used to know? Damn. Don't they even remember *their music*?!

It's weird, the older I get, the more wise and more liberal I get. I refuse to go to any of those silly High School reunions and associate with all those dumbass Republicans.

[sacto95834]

16. Good Question about the "Liberal" Boomers...

I was told during my salad days that I would turn conservative as I aged and life showed me the "real" world.

I am the last of the Boomers but I don't identify with that Generation; nor do I consider myself GenX. I'm in what is known as the Lost Generation - I grew up with the Brady Bunch and the Partridge Family and most telling, I remember the short lived teevee show "The Courtship of Eddie's Father" - most don't know where the phrase "Mr. Eddie's father" comes from.

I think the "liberal" boomers were born about a decade before me - they remember the Kennedy assassination and the Moon Landing; I really don't. I came of age beginning with Nixon and Watergate and a lot of my college friends were "Young Republicans" - I personally hated Ray-gun. Will never forgive him for allowing so many of my friends and colleagues suffer the Age of AIDS and not lifting a finger.

Anyway, back to my original point, I don't think I've turned to the dark side as I aged. If anything I've gotten more progressive and leftist. I believe government is an instrument of good and should provide healthcare as a human right to all Americans and assist those who cannot make it on their own. A lot of my college friends couldn't believe I was a Democrat; but I am the child of a family of laborers who got ahead with union and had a chance to live the American dream.

[Duppers]

18. I came from generations

Of dumbassed, racist rethugians! But like my hubby, I broke the mold. "Gotten more progressive and leftist" - that's me as I've aged.

[pstokely]

23. were those once liberal boomers radicalized by faux fake news and 30 years of RW hate radio?

or were they always racists?

[Duppers]

24. Always racists, I think.

Last edited Fri Aug 16, 2019, 04:10 PM - Edit history (1)

Small-ish city, 60,000-ish people. Southern. I moved 500miles n.e. of my hometown after my hubby finished grad school. But we both were very liberal before we moved.

But those were only in my small hometown. Those at my university nearby were true liberals.

[pstokely]

22. Beto might put TX in play, forcing them to shift resources down there

less for them to spend in MI, WI, or PA when they have to defend TX

[Duppers]

25. Good point. 👍

[B Stieg]

9. And now, the GOP is trying to figure out how it can disenfranchise entire cities

It's been successful with gerrymandering the heck out of rural and suburban districts...

[pstokely]

20. are "native" Texans any more or less progressive than the transplants?

also, aren't a lot of those transplants conservative whites who might moved from the midwest or Orange County and other once reliably red areas in CA in the 90s seeking lower taxes?