Retired to Texas
Posted on 02/22/2013 2:10:04 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Look on the bright side: She might not run. In which case we won’t have to worry about Texas imposing a Democratic stranglehold on the White House for the foreseeable future until, oh, 2024 or so.
Or maybe 2020? Much depends on the time frame for that path to citizenship that Schumer, McCain, Rubio, et al. are cooking up.
While the knee-jerk reaction among many Republicans would be to dismiss the idea that the state could be competitive in 2016 — just four years after Mitt Romney carried it by 16 points over President Obama — Texas GOP Chairman Steve Munisteri is in no mood to sneer.
In an interview with RCP, Munisteri said that he has long taken seriously the possibility that Texas could become a battleground as early as 2016, particularly if Clinton becomes the Democratic standard-bearer.
“If she’s the nominee, I would say that this is a ‘lean Republican’ state but not a ‘solid Republican’ state,” he said. “I don’t know anyone nationally who’s scoffing at this. The national party leadership is aware and tells me they’re taking it seriously.”
Munisteri said that he has had recent discussions with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus about the need to prepare for a significant change in the political dynamic here, noting that the need will likely become even more pressing in the next decade. That’s when Texas is expected to see its minority population rise more sharply — as it adds as many as four additional electoral votes to make it an even shinier target for Democrats than it already is.
Texas had 38 electoral votes last year, second only to California and equal to the EVs of Ohio and Pennsylvania combined. If RCP is right about there being four more EVs on tap by the end of the decade, Texas’s 42 would match the sum of Florida and Virginia. Assuming California and New York hold steady at their current totals, winning those two plus Texas with 42 would start Democrats off with 126 electoral votes, just shy of halfway to the 270 needed to win the White House with plenty of reliably blue northeastern states still to be counted. If that doesn’t put in perspective for you how important it is for the GOP to hold the Lone Star, chew on this: After Texas, the state that delivered the most electoral votes to Romney last year was Georgia with … 16. Obama won seven states with 16 or more EVs. Iceberg, right ahead.
More from the Times:
Democrats are hopeful that the immovable object — the overwhelmingly male, conservative Republican power structure — is about to meet the unstoppable force: demography. Texas is home to 9.5 million Hispanics, about 38 percent of the population, just seven points behind the non-Hispanic white population. In 2020, Hispanics will begin to surpass the white population and will outright dwarf it in 2030…
But the biggest problem is voter participation. Only about half of eligible Hispanic voters show up nationwide; this edged up slightly in 2012 to 53 percent. In Texas, just 4.1 million Hispanics are registered to vote, and only about half of them make it to the voting booth…
[Improving Latino turnout] requires ground troops, voter education and turnout efforts over a multicycle campaign. It also requires that Democrats stop assuming they’re going to lose. “If we start treating this as a purple state,” said Matt Glazer of the activist group Progress Texas, “we would be one that much sooner.”
Yeah, what’s most alarming about all this isn’t Hillary’s star power or demographic nuances, it’s that Democrats haven’t really even been trying in Texas recently. There was no reason to; defeat was a fait accompli, so money and manpower were best applied in other states. That won’t be true for much longer. In fact, one of the more amazing details in the RCP and NYT pieces is that Rick Perry only pulled 39 percent of the Latino vote in 2010. That’s exceptionally good by Republican standards, but Perry’s not a standard Republican. He was a two-term incumbent at the time; he presided over jobs growth even as the rest of the country was staggering from the aftereffects of the recession; and he was, as many prominent Republicans in Texas are, more moderate on immigration policy than the GOP nationally. (Which hurt him in the presidential primary debates, natch.) He ended up winning the election with nearly 55 percent of the vote. And yet he still couldn’t crack 40 percent among Latinos. Imagine what Republican numbers will look like once OFA or whatever its successor is gets serious about organizing and turning out Latino voters.
As for Hillary, here’s the PPP poll from last month that has 2016 strategists wringing their hands. Rubio fares best against her but even he’s trailing by a point at the moment (that’ll change, needless to say, as his name recognition rises to rival hers). A Hillary run is bad news for every Republican, I think, except for Rubio, for whom it’s mixed news: She’s the most formidable potential candidate on the Democratic side by light years, but precisely because she performs so well with Latino voters, there’ll be added pressure on the Republican side to try to counter that by nominating Rubio. Will it work? Well, per the NYT piece, Ted Cruz apparently got fewer Latino votes last year than John Cornyn did in 2008. The author theorizes that that’s because he’s of Cuban ancestry whereas most of Texas’s Latino population is Mexican; Rubio’s of Cuban ancestry too, so if it’s a barrier for Cruz it might be a barrier for him. Then again, it could be that the reason Cruz fared more poorly with Latinos is because he ran further to the right than Cornyn did and Latinos are, after all, mostly Democrats. Rubio would run a bit further to the center as a presidential nominee so maybe that would close the gap.
Exit question: Second look at the National Popular Vote movement? (Exit answer: No.)
Amnesty or no Amnesty, when Hispanics turn out to vote at the same rate Whites vote, Texas will become a 50-50 toss up state.
When Amnesty does come, Democrats will take permanent control of the White House and the Senate.
Republicans might be able to control the House of Representatives until 2020.
That’s because the current construction of Congressional Districts concentrates minorities in specific districts.
After the 2020 Census, Democrat governors will correct this mistake and will allocate minorities to neighboring Republican suburban districts.
First time I've thought about that.
That is one scary political insight.
THIS was funny yet true
“they can NEVER EVER EVER EVER nominate white people again.”
nicely pointed out
THIS was funny yet true
“they can NEVER EVER EVER EVER nominate white people again.”
nicely pointed out
“I have always been a DALLAS COWBOYS FAN........
I don’t think the Senate has passed a budget since April 09.
If we're talking legit votes, I would be fairly confident that HRC wouldn't stand a chance. Otherwise, and with the additional wild-card of blanket amnesty (incl voting rights), anything is possible.
Judging by some of the election results in certain precincts across the country in '12 (actually, as far back as I can remember), Democrats have a way of being "creative" when it comes to counting votes.
We have a pretty organized and active True the Vote organization in the major cities in Texas.
The border might need some beefing up of volunteers but there won’t be that many people double and triple voting .
Yep, native born So Cal here who been in Vegas for the last 13 years now. Left Cali after 40 years.
Nevada has the same problem as Cali, our nemesis is Clark and Washoe counties. (SEIU and Culinary unions)
I have never seen such a thing, but I certainly encourage Hillary to hold her breath for as long as it takes until she turns this particular shade known as “Texas Blue”.
The last gasp of the original conservative majority there happened in just 1994 (seems like just yesterday to me) with the passage of prop 187.
[prop 187 was a 1994 ballot initiative to establish a state-run citizenship screening system and prohibit illegal aliens from using health care, public education, and other social services in the U.S. State of California. Voters passed the proposed law as a referendum in November 1994; it was the first time that a state had passed legislation related to immigration, customarily an issue for federal policies and programs.[1] The law was challenged in a legal suit and found unconstitutional by a federal court. In 1999, Governor Gray Davis halted state appeals against the ruling.]
After that battle... the hispanic vote awakened in California and the state has been Democratic ever since. The same thing is poised to happen in Texas. As the article points out hispanics here are not voting in very large numbers. But soon something will happen like prop 187 to awaken the sleeping hispanic giant, and Texas will flip Democratic almost overnight.
The only thing that could stop this is MASS deportations. And the chance of that happening in my opinion? 0%.
In other words... we are screwed.
I have already been talking to my wife about fleeing Texas to Australia before the end.
Retired to Texas
That and the complete takeover of CA by the public employee unions
That’s always a problem when you invite leftward people into your state. They love the freedom of the enterprise system but hate the guns, the religion and the chicken-fried steak. An unending problem.
Trigger is better looking.
A big chunk of the Houston area, too - same as any other Democrat that might run. No, Texas won't be helping to put her wrinkled butt in office.
You'd also give up any right to gun ownership.
anyone that thinks TX is not in play for the democRATS need only look at these cities - Dallas, Houston, Austin, Ft.Worth, San Antonio...all run by true blue children of Yellow Dog DemocRATS!! The cities are gone and the suburbs are slowly following, as 1200 people each day pour in from east and west to WORK.
No.
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