Partisan Change in Texas

 In Red State: An Insider's Story of How the GOP Came to Dominate Texas Politics, Wayne Thorburn describes the transition in Texas from a one-party Democratic state to a two-party state and ending as a one-party Republican state. The transition took decades, from the 1970s to the early 2000s. Over a thirty year span, Republicans came to control all of the statewide offices in Texas, a majority of the Texas congressional delegation, and both chambers of the Texas legislature. Thorburn identifies several factors in the 1970s and 1980s that assisted Republicans in dominating Texas politics and government: (1) John Tower’s senatorial victory in 1961 had consequences for Texas Republicans throughout the 1970s; (2) Liberal Democrats were effective in taking control of the Democratic Party during the 1980s and purging the party of conservative Democrats; (3)  the victory of Bill Clements in the 1978 gubernatorial election over John Hill, the liberal Democrat; and (4) the election of Ronald Reagan as the 40^th president of the United States.

To demonstrate the transition, Thorburn uses vote results from the following grouping of counties: Big Six, Suburban Counties, Metro Counties, and small city counties. The map depicts their location:

For some time, pundits have been predicting that the Democratic Party will regain its position as the dominant political party in Texas. Much of the prediction has been lodged in the increase of Hispanics in Texas. In 2022, according to the US Census Bureau, Hispanics became the largest ethnic group in Texas, surpassing non-Hispanic whites. Though Hispanics do not make up the majority of Texas’ population, they are a plurality of Texans.

To see how far (or not far) Democrats have progressed toward regaining the majority in Texas, let’s compare the votes of Texans in the gubernatorial election of 2022 with gubernatorial elections in the counties selected by Wayne Thorburn to measure the Republican rise to majority status.

The table depicts the 2022 gubernatorial election in the counties used by Thorburn.

Overall, in the 56 counties, Abbott garnered 837,583 votes to O’Rourke’s 603,502 votes, a difference of 234,081 votes. O’Rourke won the Big Six Counties by 601,124 votes. The only other grouping that O’Rourke won was the Travis County (Austin) and surrounding Suburban Counties. Abbott won the Dallas/Tarrant Counties Suburban Counties by 242,565 votes, the Harris County Suburban Counties by 181,356 votes, and the Bexar County Suburban Counties by 96,495 votes. Abbott won the Other Metro Counties by 317,167 votes.

The creation of the so-called “Red State” occurred largely during the 1986 to 1998 elections. We’ll look at the gubernatorial elections during that period through Thorburn’s data. We’ll also look at party identification (PID) during the period as another indicator of partisan change.

First, in 1978, Republican Bill Clements won his first term as governor, claiming the governorship of Texas for the first time in 105 years According to Thorburn, Clements’ victory was the result of winning the following groups of counties:

Year	Category						Statewide
	Big Six		Suburban		Other Metro
	Percent Republican	Vote Margin	Percent Republican	Vote Margin	Percent Republican	Vote Margin
1978	52.4	50,523	50.9	4,511	51.2	10,622	50.4
1994	51.3	52,089	59.9	146,114	58.4	51,959	53.8
2002	53.9	154,751	69.8	349,073	57.6	106,096	59.1
2006	49.4	-17,174	63.6	10,070	61.7	112,867	56.7
2010	47.7	-96,297	64.7	337,720	59.5	141,172	56.5
2014	48.8	-47,885	73.0	495,506	64.6	201,296	59.3
2018	44.3	-424,475	62.5	495,332	61.76	285,042	55.8
2022	41.3	-601,124	61.3	518,038	64.1	317,167	54.8

 Source: Thorburn, Red State, for Years 1978, 1994, 2002, 2006, and 2010. The author used data from the Texas Secretary of State’s election results for 2014-2022.

Obviously, the Republican percentage of the vote in the Big Six counties has declined since 2002, When Rick Perry won nearly 54 percent of the votes cast in the Big Six counties. Since the, the percentage of the vote for the Republican candidate for governor has declined each election, and the Democratic candidate’s margin has increased, reaching more than 600,000 votes in 2022. These counties are the primary target for further Democratic Party gains.

In the Suburban counties, Republicans hold a significant advantage over Democrats. After peaking at 73 percent of the gubernatorial vote in those counties, the percentage has declined, but the winning margin in votes has increased, reaching more than 518,000 votes in 2022. There are some counties where Democratic gubernatorial candidates can increase their share of the vote and reduce the Republican percentage of the vote as well as the margin of the vote.

In the Other Metro counties, Democrats lost support from these counties through several election cycles between 1986 and 1998, when Republicans won majorities in all of the selected counties. Since 1998, Republicans have won majorities in all six counties.

Here are the vote results for selected Other Metro counties:

There is not much hope for Democrats in these six counties.

In terms of party identification, we have polls since the 1960s that show how the once-dominant Democratic Party lost support to Republicans. In 2005, the Republicans held a commanding lead in party identification. Since 2005, however, party identification has settled to what is essentially a tie among party identifiers.

There are two distinct periods in which party identification shows the growth of Republican Party attachments and decline of Democratic Party affiliation. First, party identification from 1982 to 1990.

During the second period, 1991-2007 Republican Party identification increased, especially after 2000, and Democratic Party affiliation decreased. By 2005, 42 percent of Texas Registered voters identified with the Republican Party in Texas. Independents, people who profess no party affiliation, also grew during the period to become the largest segment of registered voters in 2007.

 

Since 2010, parity among Republican, Democratic, and independent identifiers has been the rule. In the June 2023, Texas Poll reported the following partisan attachments:

The second table shows that 34 percent of registered voters were either strong or weak Democratic Party identifiers, 37 percent were either strong or weak Republicans, and 29 percent were pure independents or independents who leaned toward the Republican Party or Democratic Party.[1]

Although there is no doubt that Republican candidates for partisan office hold a definite edge over Democratic candidates in statewide elections and a majority of US congressional districts, Texas House and Senate elections, partisan affiliations among registered voters only slightly favors the Republican Party. Among young voters—voters under 30 years of age, there is a distinct preference for claiming no partisan affiliation and voting for candidates on the basis of factors other than party identification.

 

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[1] I consider independents who lean toward one of the two parties to be independents. The Texas Poll consider leaners to be partisans and add them to the two parties’ identifiers. See PID 3 in the table.