TheEconomistOctober 5th 2019 211I
t is asweltering day in Austin, but that
has not deterred Emily Clark from spend-
ing hours registering students at the Uni-
versity of Texas to vote, dressed in a banana
costume. Ms Clark is a volunteer for move
Texas, a group that registers and cam-
paigns for young people and minorities in
state politics. Democrats have high hopes
that groups such as movecan help them
win statewide elections in what they see as
a battleground state. The Economist’s num-
ber-crunching suggests such thoughts are,
as Texans say, too big for their britches.
For years Democrats have predicted that
Texas was just a few election cycles away
from becoming a toss-up state. At an event
in Austin on September 28th Nancy Pelosi,
the Speaker of the House, said that Texas is
Democrats’ “hope for the future” of the
party. Texas is more racially diverse and
younger than the country at large. Non-
whites lean heavily Democratic and young
Americans are the most Democratic gener-
ation of all.Both groups are less likely to find their
way to the polls, though, which is why Tex-
as has so far been a lesson in why demogra-
phy is not necessarily destiny. Still, the
trend is promising for Democrats. In 2016
Hillary Clinton won nearly 600,000 more
votes than Barack Obama did in 2012. In
2018 Democratic congressional candidates
picked up two House seats, and Beto
O’Rourke lost in a closer-than-expected
Senate race to Ted Cruz. Since then six of
the state’s Republican representatives inthe House have decided to retire before the
next congressional elections. Will Demo-
crats catch their white whale in 2020?
Those who foresee a “blue Texas” point
to demography as the primary reason for
the state’s supposed competitiveness.
While increasing turnout among minority
and young voters has helped Democrats
rack up big margins in cities, moderates in
the suburbs—especially women—have
been moving leftwards too. These patterns
combined to make the state competitive in
last year’s mid-term elections. According
to our analysis of precinct-level election
results, voters in the state’s four largest
metropolitan areas, Houston, Dallas, Aus-
tin and San Antonio (also referred to as the
“Texas Triangle” because of their position
in the state), cast 96% as many votes in 2018
as they did in 2016. That is unusual, be-
cause the drop-off from presidential elec-
tions to mid-terms is normally much high-
er. The Texas Triangle has also become
more Democratic; Mr O’Rourke’s share of
the vote was six percentage points higher
within it than Mrs Clinton’s was in 2016.
Republicans draw much of their
strength from the state’s vast rural and ex-
urban areas, as well as from affluent sub-
urbs. Voters living outside the triangle are
predominantly loyal to conservative politi-
cians; Mr Cruz beat Mr O’Rourke by 24 per-
centage points in these areas last year. And
although these voters were less likely thanTexasThe magenta mammoth
AUSTIN
Democrats think they might win Texas in 2020. They are likely to be disappointedUnited States
22 Republicansandimpeachment
23 A unionretreat
24 Kennedy4.0
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