Analyzing the 2020 Texas Election (Part Deux)
In the presidential contest in 2020, Texas was considered a
swing state. According to 270 to win (https://www.270towin.com/2020-polls-biden-trump/), the
average of six polls conducted through November 2, 2020 showed Trump with a
slim 1.3 percent advantage:
Many analyses placed blame on poor polling, Trump
supporters misleading pollsters, and other reasons that deemed Texas’ division
between Democrats and Republicans closer than it actually was. The final
results show Trump winning Texas with 52.2 percent of the vote to Biden’s 46.4
percent. The 5.8 percent difference showed that Texas was indeed competitive. What
differences in the campaign would have resulted in a Biden win in Texas?
The most common analysis maintains that Texas nothing would
have helped because Texas remains a “Red State” with a majority of voters preferring
the policies and programs supported by the Republican Party of Texas and its
candidates. Others have noted that Texas is divided among the Democratic urban
core of Texas, the rural Republican strongholds, and the battleground area of
suburban Texas. This is the argument of Blue Metros, Red States, which
was recently published by Brookings Institution.
In Texas, the division among the three components of Texas
was close enough that an expansion of votes could have resulted in a Democratic
win of Texas’ 38 Electoral College votes. In the previous post, I noted that 30
percent of registered voters in Texas did not vote. That constitutes 5.7
million voters. If more of these nonvoters had been mobilized in certain counties,
the results could have been different.
In the ten largest counties in number of registered voters,
3.2 million registered voters did not vote. That constitutions 56 percent of
the registered voters who did not vote. In some of those counties, voter turnout
was more than 70 percent of registered voters (Travis, Fort Bend, Collin, and Denton).
However, Harris, Dallas, Bexar, and Hidalgo Counties were below the average
turnout of 66.5 percent turnout. If those counties had achieved the average
turnout and those nonvoters had been identified as potential Biden voters,
Biden would have added 175,000 votes. Of course, Biden still would have been
more than 400,000 votes short of the number necessary to defeat Trump. Gaining
those additional votes in the urban core, but additional votes in the suburbs could
also have been garnered.
|
Trump/Pence |
Biden/Harris |
|
|
|
||
County |
Early Votes |
Total Votes |
Early Votes |
Total Votes |
Total Votes |
Total Voters |
Turnout |
HARRIS |
607,040 |
699,771 |
810,106 |
911,913 |
1,633,557 |
2,480,522 |
65.86% |
DALLAS |
262,198 |
306,572 |
527,822 |
597,407 |
917,245 |
1,398,469 |
65.59% |
TARRANT |
351,885 |
403,271 |
357,565 |
403,698 |
820,157 |
1,212,524 |
67.64% |
BEXAR |
266,145 |
303,871 |
397,338 |
440,823 |
756,039 |
1,189,373 |
63.57% |
TRAVIS |
140,321 |
159,907 |
403,939 |
432,062 |
602,889 |
854,577 |
70.55% |
COLLIN |
229,730 |
250,194 |
213,187 |
227,868 |
485,323 |
648,670 |
74.82% |
DENTON |
202,732 |
221,829 |
174,573 |
188,023 |
416,610 |
565,089 |
73.72% |
EL PASO |
64,886 |
81,235 |
143,224 |
168,801 |
254,029 |
488,470 |
52.01% |
FORT BEND |
143,623 |
157,595 |
180,197 |
195,191 |
356,908 |
482,368 |
73.99% |
HIDALGO |
75,077 |
89,925 |
110,840 |
127,391 |
219,433 |
391,309 |
56.08% |
|
2,343,637 |
2,674,170 |
3,318,791 |
3,693,177 |
6,462,190 |
9,711,371 |
66.54% |
EV % TV |
87.64% |
|
89.86% |
|
|
|
|
In the 11th through 20th largest
counties, Trump won 56.5 percent of the vote. Among these ten counties are
several suburban counties in which Democrats could have won a larger share of
the vote and reduced Trump’s margin of victory. There are 770,000 registered
voters in these counties that did not vote. As an example, Hays and Williamson
Counties, suburbs that are southwest and north of Austin, could have provided
additional voters, although the number is less than 150,000 votes.
|
Trump/Pence |
Biden/Harris |
|
|
|
||
County |
Early Votes |
Total Votes |
Early Votes |
Total Votes |
Total Votes |
Total Voters |
Turnout |
WILLIAMSON |
123,803 |
138,649 |
132,612 |
142,457 |
287,092 |
376,672 |
76.22% |
MONTGOMERY |
167,808 |
193,224 |
65,877 |
74,255 |
271,175 |
370,060 |
73.28% |
GALVESTON |
84,668 |
93,306 |
53,326 |
58,247 |
153,843 |
228,482 |
67.33% |
BRAZORIA |
80,822 |
89,939 |
56,749 |
61,780 |
154,037 |
224,256 |
68.69% |
CAMERON |
40,303 |
48,834 |
54,592 |
63,732 |
113,635 |
218,910 |
51.91% |
BELL |
53,404 |
67,113 |
47,880 |
56,032 |
125,559 |
215,974 |
58.14% |
NUECES |
55,697 |
64,467 |
53,921 |
60,749 |
126,984 |
211,652 |
60.00% |
LUBBOCK |
69,740 |
78,560 |
35,103 |
39,757 |
120,204 |
183,320 |
65.57% |
HAYS |
42,289 |
47,427 |
54,200 |
59,213 |
108,822 |
152,840 |
71.20% |
MCLENNAN |
47,719 |
59,432 |
31,185 |
36,550 |
97,617 |
149,461 |
65.31% |
|
766,253 |
880,951 |
585,445 |
652,772 |
1,558,968 |
2,331,627 |
66.86% |
EV % TV |
86.98% |
|
89.69% |
|
|
|
|
Another source of additional votes would have been voters
in heavily Hispanic counties in South Texas. Twenty counties in Texas have a
population that is more than 75 percent Hispanic. Two of those counties, Bexar
and Hidalgo are among the ten largest counties; therefore, I exclude them from
consideration. Among the remaining eighteen counties, the average percentage of
the vote for Biden was 56 percent of the vote to Trump’s 40 percent of the
vote. Four years earlier, in 2016, Hillary Clinton received 69.4 percent of the
vote to Trump’s 30.6 percent. Thus, Biden’s advantage was 13 percent lower than
Clinton’s advantage. The appeal to Hispanic voters by Democrats was
ineffective, and Texas Republicans emphasized issues that appeal to Hispanics
as well as depicting Democrats as too liberal for Texas.
If Texas is to turn Blue in some future election, Democrats will need to expand their appeal to Hispanics, foster neighborhood organizations of activists that are active throughout the election year, and expand their reach into he suburbs that surround their urban cores. Is a Democratic incursion into statewide offices in 2022 possible, or is Texas destined to remain a red state in which rural voters continue to provide Republican candidates with the votes necessary to overcome the Democrats’ stronghold on the urban core and expansion into the suburbs?
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