The Future of Democrats in Texas

I have been involved in national politics in one way or another for about 25 years now, and have been part of literally thousands of national discussions on political targeting. For most of that time, the state of Texas sticks out as the great oddity, the exception to all other demographic trends that seem to hold true around the rest of the country. At the beginning, people in targeting meetings are always saying things like "If you look at the demographics in Texas, it ought to be winnable." By the end of every cycle, none of us at the national level is targeting the state and the state-wide Democratic candidate loses by 10-12 points.

It wasn't always this way. In the 1960s, a president from Texas led the way in getting civil rights legislation, Medicare and Medicaid, and many of the other progressive reforms of that decade. Even as the rest of the south was turning to the right and the Republican Party in those years, Texas elected crusading liberal Ralph Yarborough in 1964. A couple of decades later, Democrats - including legendary populist progressive Jim Hightower - swept to power in the 1980s, culminating with Ann Richards historic victory in the 1990 Governor's race.

But that was a while ago now. The Rove-DeLay machine has been remarkably effective over the last couple of decades. Democrats have not won a gubernatorial race since Richards' victory (and they haven't won a Presidential race since Carter in 1976). Republicans have controlled both Senate seats since Lloyd Bentsen stepped down in 1993. They have had the majority in both legislative chambers since 2003. And this has all happened as the number of Hispanics in Texas has steadily, inexorably risen year after year.

In the other big state where Hispanics have grown so dramatically and consistently as a percentage of the population, California, the state has become overwhelmingly blue in Presidential, Senate, congressional, and state legislative elections, even though it had consistently supported Republican Presidential candidates in prior decades. Only the most moderate Republican governor in the country has kept the gubernatorial chair in GOP hands. All the smaller states in the southwest with steadily growing Hispanic populations - Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada - have gone from being Republican strongholds to being purple - and all of them went for Obama last year.

Look at these Texas statistics (according to data from the Forward Texas Foundation):

• Anglos will be down to 52% of the adult population by 2010, and 49.99% - less than half - by 2012.

• 85% of the new adult citizens eligible to vote since 2002 are minorities, most of them Hispanics.

• Barack Obama, who didn't spend a dime targeting Texas in the 2008 general election, lost Texas by about 950,000 votes. Between 2008 and 2012, there are projected to be 1.2 million additional eligible minority voters added to the population of the state.
  

With statistics like these, and the trends in other formerly Republican southwestern states, you would think Democrats would be confidently developing a Texas strategy for 2010 and 2012. With George Bush gone and discredited, the DeLay machine out of commission, and a really nasty 2010 gubernatorial primary in the works between Kay Bailey Hutchison and goofy incumbent Rick Perry, you would think Texas would be at or towards the top of Democratic target lists. But in two recent trips to Texas, one to Austin and one to Houston, my talks with Texas Democrats did not reveal anything close to that kind of optimism. Sentiments ranged from being very pessimistic about the gubernatorial race to some folks who thought it was "possible if everything went our way." And very few people I know either in Texas or in the Obama political operation are taking Texas seriously as a potential swing state in the 2012 election.

So what is going on in Texas? It's not that there aren't some smart Democratic political operatives doing good work there. For example, Matt Angle, Martin Frost's former head of the DCCC, has led an effort to revitalize the state Democratic Party, and has made significant progress in picking up competitive state legislative seats, rebuilding the party's voter file, increasing candidate fundraising, and creating a strong opposition research and rapid response capability. Another example is the great work of Burnt Orange Report in becoming the Texas blogosphere's online hub for progressive political activism.

But the fundamental problem for Texas Democrats will not be solved until the political class there and nationally finally does something about the elephant in the room: the abysmal turnout of minority voters, especially Hispanics. In 2008, Hispanics made up 32% of eligible voters in Texas, a number which will likely be about 35% by 2012, but they were only 20% of the electorate. In the 2006 off-year elections, while 45% of eligible Anglos voted, only 37% of African-Americans, 24% of Asian-Americans, and 25% of Hispanics voted.

These voter turnout problems are not inevitable. Texas is 47th in the country in turnout of eligible voters. And other states, with investment of resources to make it happen, have shown dramatic increases in Hispanic voter turnout that Texas has not seen: Colorado increased Hispanic turnout by 86% in 2008 over 2004, while New Mexico had 50% Hispanic turnout in the 2006 off-year elections compared to 25% in Texas.

It is a simple, undeniable fact: if Texas got the number in Hispanic turnout that these other states got, they would become a purple or even blue state overnight.

This hasn't happened in part because Texas is a big state and it would cost a lot of money to run the kind of voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives that have happened in other states, and national Democrats have written off Texas year after year as unwinnable, so they haven't invested the resources. But money alone is not the reason: Texas Democrats have raised and spent tens of millions of dollars per election in statewide races over the last couple of decades, but they've spent the vast majority of their money on expensive TV advertising buys. The consultants who run Texas Democratic politics don't make money on voter registration or GOTV drives, they make money on TV ads, and they have never invested in the kind of project that would pick up far more voters for Democrats than most media campaigns. And while I don't believe you can win a statewide campaign without spending money on TV, I also don't believe you can win in Texas as a Democrat if you don't devote a whole lot more to the field.

It's time to change this dynamic once and for all. Democrats already are the dominant party in California, New York, and Illinois, while Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan are purple. In the next tier of states in the electoral college, Virginia, North Carolina, and Indiana became purple in 2008, joining long time blue (Massachusetts, New Jersey) and purple (Minnesota, Wisconsin, Missouri) double digit states. Imagine if the last of the big states became purple again, making Georgia the biggest solidly Republican state. It would be extremely tough for the Republicans to put together an electoral college majority if that were the case.

It's time for Texas and national Democrats to make this kind of investment in voter engagement work in Texas.

Comments

[jeffrey678]

Texas has one of the highest number of people without health insurance in the country(Census Report). This is a problem that can be solved, are the Democratic leaders listening? People will not bother coming out and voting for Democrats if they act like Republicans when they get into office.

[dubster]

This is a good article. However, I have a novel idea for the Texas Democratic operatives: If you want to increase Hispanic turnout on par of CA, NM, NV, CO then you need to recruit HISPANIC POLITICIANS!!! It's really that simple. Recruit liberal, progressive, Hispanic people that are educated, articulate, and have the gravitas, and political moxie to run for office. Thus, you'll see Hispanic turnout by more than just a few percentage points. I guarantee it. If you want to woo hispanics well how about turning out leaders that look like their constituents. It's that simple. Is this identity politics? It sure is. And it's necessary and it's effective. For those white conservatives and conservative democrats (and any white people that espouse conservative propaganda, including democrats) that don't think identity politics is good or what have you, then I can immediately surmise that they have a dearth of knowledge about sociology and psychology. People are tribal, it's human nature. There is no nimble way of refuting this. With all due respect it's realpolitik and we have to get progressive democrats in the upper-echelons of gov't and this includes Hispanic pols. It's works in CA - that's where I'm from and it actually serves as an impetus for assimilation.

Moreover, just a correction for Mike Lux, Obama didn't win Arizona as you suggested at the bottom of paragraph four.

[Tuckerndfw]

You mean someone like Rick Noriega, state representative from Houston?

He was John Cornyn's Democrat opponent in the 2006 US Senate race.

Mr. Noriega is a Harvard graduate and a US Army officer who served in Afghanistan.

You mean someone like that? Or, did you mean someone like Alberto Gonzales, George Bush's US Attorney General and former Texas Supreme Court justice, run ouf of office due to his incompetence & dishonesty?

I do not know where the idea comes from that "hispanics" are not represented in Texas, but that is a long way from the truth. "Hispanics" are well represented in all segments of Texas society and Texas society as a whole is based in large part on Spanish customs, not British.

I was taught basic Spanish as a required subject in elementary school over 50 years ago. Does that make me "hispanic"?

Maybe Texans, "hispanic" or otherwise, don't want to vote for the party that promotes "gay marriage" & abortion on demand as their signature issues.

Did you ever consider that?

[BobsNotWorking]

"Texas society as a whole is based in large part on Spanish customs, not British."

I'm a fourth generation Texan, sixty years old, having lived in almost every major city in Texas over my lifetime, and I find that comment positively laughable. Any "Spanish customs" that seem evident are purely superficial except in some areas that are right on the Mexican border. I recently lived in Brownsville for a couple of years and there is certainly a strong dose of "Spanish" mindset at play there, but that is in stark contrast to El Paso, for example, where the Spanish influence is more architectural than societal. In San Antonio it is evident only as a tourist attraction. It is next to non-existent in Dallas, Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, Amarillo, Temple, Waco, and etc.

[dubster]

Tucker thanks for being flippant when I was being dead serious. At the outset I"m from CA not Texas, thus, I'm not sure of demographic makeup and diversity in the Texas Statehouse. However, I know a lot about gerrymandering and I know how the Republican machine has I'm sure egregiously cut up districts so that they are not compact or germane in lieu, they're shaped so that Hispanics are I'm sure disenfranchised by cutting up there major districts and putting just a small fraction into larger areas with predominately white people. Democratic operatives should delve into this to see if the gerrymandered districts concocted by the GOP have affected minorities in an adverse way.

[dubster]

After doing a cursory review of Noriega it seems that he indeed seemed like an exceptional candidate. He won the democratic primary there, and he was defeated by the Republican because he was severely underfunded!!! That's the problem, he was outraised. Money buys tv ads and other campaign necessities to win elections. if you don't have a lot of it you lose, no matter how good of a candidate you are! Did you consider that? In addition, why in the world would you bring up Gonzalez? Did you not understand the crux of my argument? Which was to recruit Progressive Hispanic Democrats! Do you think all Hispanics are a monolithic voting bloc? They can think for themselves. But apparently you think they are incapable of thinking independently. Do you realize how diverse the Hispanic population is? Not all are poor, uneducated etc, as the Media to frequently portrays them. You know there are different generations of Hispanics as well. It's incredibly convoluted, hence no simple conclusions as you think. There's a reason why Bush got 40% and 44% in his two elections because politics is about language ultimately. And the pol/party that uses it the best wins. Thus, Obama used it better and hence he was able to secure the Latino vote at convincingly high margin. Frankly, Hispanics are the major reason he won. White's only voted for him at a 2% higher rate than they voted for Kerry which was somewhere at the mid-40% range.

[dubster]

FYI - I'M Hispanic and I'm a proponent of gay marriage. Thus, refuting your last arguments. I know a multitude of Hispanics that support gay marriage and some that don't - JUST LIKE WHITE PEOPLE ARE SPLIT! Did you ever consider that?

[RobinSeattle]

You've also had a lot of Californians move to Texas the last five years. It would be interesting to know if that will make Texas more liberal leaning or if we are just seeing conservatives get fed up with the Golden State and setting out for a place more congruent with their views.

One thing for sure: a big get out the vote drive by the Democrats will result in the GOP ratcheting up their anti-immigration and anti-hispanic rhetoric, which will only be good for Democrats. It will also bring out more of the extreme wingers and put them in front of tv cameras, doing even more p.r. damage to the yellow elephants.

So I say let's go for it. Let's make Texas an electoral battleground.

[jukesgrrl]

C'mon Blue Texas!!!!!!!! Let's see the Voter Registration Drive to end all drives in history.

[nana4g]

There is a great Texas State Senator, Democrat, from District 29 in El Paso, Texas. His name is Eliot Shapleigh. He has been in Texas Legislature for 29 years, very active on immigration, border issues, education, energy, environment. He is an attorney, a native El Pasoan, fluent in Spanish, having lived some time in Mexico and he was a Peace Corp volunteer in Sierra Leone. He is Jewish, well respected in El Paso and in the Texas Senate. He was one of the 11 who fled the state to parts unknown to avoid the vote when Republicans were gerrymandering for redistricting and he had to be dragged back by the Feds. I have sent him an email, begging him to run for Governor. No response. I have begged Democrat Governor Asso, no response. He has wide appeal to many, many demographics. He is not the typical braggadocio Texan. Married, two grown children. Perry will be nominating for our Secy of Education a right wing conservative who has home schooled her own children because she believes public schools "pervert" our children..­....HELP!!

[Acleacius]

What the ****, some dems actually give a damn about Texas? This is a shock.

[LeftRight]

Why not? It's not as if the Republicans care about Texas.

[mcmchugh99]

It always seemed tome that the best Democratic strategy was to use "Texas" as a symbol of everything that was wrong with America and run against it. I never thought we could win anything there, and the type od Democrats who might come out of the place would just be more Dixiecrats who would vote against everything we wanted at least half of the time. That whole tier of states running all the way up to North Dakota just seems very hard to win for some reason, probably because of the culture and mentality of the people.

[diak0n0s]

Thank goodness for illegal immigrants.

Immigration "reform:) " will give the state over a million new Democrats

I doubt if Texas goes GOP again ever.

[underthegun1]

Why does everyone want to vote Democratic?

Independent is the only way for true change to happen in this country.

[LeftRight]

That could be true, except for the minor fact that the system is gamed towards Democrats and Republicans. That's why there's only TWO independent Senators out of 100. And one of THOSE is only an independent because he lost the Democratic nomination in his state!

[underthegun1]

Dems aren't going to win anything if they keep moving in the same direction as Repubs did for the past 8 years. From a foreign policy standpoint, all I've been seeing lately is the same Republican strategy. From a domestic security standpoint, now Obama is saying that we will hold people indefinitely, even if they are acquitted.

If this continues, myself and a lot of other people will be voting independent next time around.

[MSunshine]

I'm from Dallas area ...

I think the article is very convincing and most likely true, but I do see a difference in the last presidential election. About nine years ago, my lonely John Kerry sign was joined only by my sister's (who lives in the same neighborhood). This election cycle, some of my very Republican neighbors had Obama signs front and center. And while I would never disagree that, for some unknown reason, Texas is very "red-state", I think the tide may be turning. It's just going to be a slow change.

For those who maintain that a Texas Democrat is a conservative in other states, you might want to visit before you spout off. My sister is one of the most liberal people I know. And most Democrats I know are very liberal in most of their beliefs.

[prdamericanmom]

I'm in the Dallas area, too. I had the only Obama sign in my neighborhood until late in the election season. While I don't know how it's been in past elections (being a Cali transplant and all), it was nice to see the little wave of signs cropping up as time went by. It was almost as if some were afraid of putting them in their yards until they saw others doing it.

I think that the biggest obstacle we have with a lot of people here is they are traditionally tied to the Republican party. I can't tell you how many people didn't like Mc Cain but they chose to vote for him anyway because they've always voted Republican. Even my Dad, a Texan transplanted in California, voted for Mc Cain even though he didn't like the guy. He said that he just couldn't leave the spot blank. All I could think was, "Really?" Geez Louise!

[Tuckerndfw]

Hi, y'all.

I'm a fifth generation Texan and I'm the one who said Texas Democrats would be hard right wing Repubs in most other states.

Maybe you should spend a few years as a political activist in Austin before you decide that Texas is going to be the next Massachusetts.

There are several "hispanics" and lots of Democrats in the Texas State legislature and they are a LONG way from being "liberal."

Once you get away from Dallas or Austin, you aren't going to find many "liberals" in either party.

Y'all.

[LeftRight]

I don't know what's happening, but since my VERY rightwing brother-in-law moved to the Fort Worth area from rural Illinois, he's shifted towards the center. Now I don't have to argue with him about the need to have single payer health insurance!

[BobsNotWorking]

My seventy year old, solid red, 'never voted for a democrat in my life' brother-in-law who lives in Houston, and is also a fifth generation Texan - voted for Obama!

Yea!

[didntvote4thedude]

The true cost of anchor babies.

[LeftRight]

Yeah, because all those illegals who aren't allowed to register to vote are voting!!!

[unstuffedshirt]

Texas will be blue. The demographics -- age and race chief among them -- make it inevitable. That is going to be an absolutely beautiful day.

[Pigeon2]

Depends if they have to show a Drivers License, Voter Card, or some picture form of ID....Illegals can`t vote.....

[LeftRight]

Course, once they account for that the numbers match those in the post.... They don't count illegals, because they CAN'T count illegals!

[sweetwhine]

Texas WILL be blue. It's just a matter of time.

[RobinSeattle]

However, the GOP had 12 years to pass border and immigration enforcement with some real teeth in it and failed to get anything past the talking stage because the party's big business arm loves cheap immigrant labor. So your friends in the business community, your fellow Republicans, helped create those anchor babies. Yes, it proved your were pro life, just not the "right lives" for your taste.

So how about you start organizing boycotts of companies that use a lot of immigrant labor? Oh wait, that would hurt your stock portfolio. Never mind.

[TrueBlueMajority]

Texas was blue in my lifetime and it will be again.

[TovSquirrel]

The Democratic majorities and sweeps of the "Solid South" in the past were a different shade of blue, they were Bonnie Blue.

[unstuffedshirt]

Texas is a different beast than Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and South Carolina -- much more diverse culturally. Louisiana is Louisiana. It's not unrealistic to think that Texas is within reach if the state party changes and the national party puts more attention there.

[TrueBlueMajority]

this isn't exactly news.