When Did Texas Become a State Again

Texas wasn't always a dependably Republican state. It was in one case a bastion for Democrats, but has since drifted ruby-red. And then how did that happen?

Editors' Annotation: This story was originally published on Oct 24, 2016.

We all know Texas is a red country. Democrats haven't won a statewide election since 1994, and Republicans have carried the state in every presidential election since 1976.

The question of how that came to be got Gilda Garcia wondering, so she asked TXDecides – our statewide public radio collaborative that'southward answering Texas voters' questions alee of Ballot Day.

"I remember growing up my parents talking nearly Texas being all Democratic – menses," Garcia said. "So what happened?"

In short, information technology'south complicated.

Go Due west

Let's kickoff by talking about what happened to voters. Even when Texans voted for Democrats, information technology was all the same a conservative country. It notwithstanding had two parties, only the parties were conservative Democrat and moderate Democrat. Up until the 1970s, voting for Democrats was just what you did.

"A lot of southerners would exist Democrats back then," explained Lynn Foster, who grew upwardly an Oklahoma Democrat. "And, so, they would inherit the Democratic party from their parents, on downwards and grandparents and and so on."

When he came to Texas in the tardily '70s, just like hundreds of thousands of others did, the state'due south economy was booming. Matthew Dowd, who worked on President George W Bush'due south 2004 re-ballot campaign, says the people that came here brought even more conservative ideals with them.

"People that were coming here because they wanted lower taxes, or they were coming here considering they didn't similar regulations, or they were coming hither because they had a greater degree of liberty," he said.

Those people settled in the state'due south metro areas. People like Lynn Foster, who moved to Fort Worth.

"In that location were a lot of conservatives where I worked. It was a armed services contractor," said Foster. "I got to listening to what they were maxim, and seeing what the Democratic Party was doing, and I decided that they were right and the Democratic party was incorrect."

Changing Parties

And then, more conservatives were moving to Texas, but, similar Foster, many were still Democrats. Changing that took encouragement, or discouragement, from the parties. Dowd says that began with the parties moving abroad from the centre.

"The brands of the two political parties. The way they became and the way they moved to the outer edges," said Dowd. "The Democratic make becoming more liberal or progressive; the Republican brand becoming more than conservative."

Former Democrat Foster says it was his perception that Democrats were giving away tax dollars to help others.

"Well, certainly one of the big things was the welfare land. I certainly as a college educatee had a lot of sympathy for people and things like that," said Foster. "But, afterwards I afterward adamant that other people were having to pay for that kind of matter, I didn't think it was right."

Creating a Villain

Hither's where the Republican Party jumped in. Information technology used concerns like this to create the idea of the "tax-and-spend liberal."

And for presidential elections, that tactic worked pretty well. Foster, forth with near Texans voted for Ronald Reagan in 1980. Merely, when Republicans used the aforementioned attack against Democrats in local races, it didn't piece of work likewise. Harvey Kronberg is publisher of a political newsletter called Quorum Report.

"When they started running these harsh negative campaigns confronting them, it backfired for most a decade," explained Kronberg. "People would say, 'candidate or State Representative X is a tax-and-spend liberal.' But the folks that saturday around the java shop with them knew that he wasn't a tax-and-spend liberal. And so it undermined the Republican bulletin."

So, that provided a scrap of a firewall for Democrats, but, as those known lawmakers started to retire, the unknown Democrats running to replace them had a harder fourth dimension shaking the liberal characterization.

While the state started voting for Republican presidents in 1980, Republicans didn't lock downwardly all the statewide offices until the mid to tardily '90s, and didn't totally control the state legislature until 2003.

Now along the manner, there weren't just wins at the ballot box. At that place were wins in back rooms. Meetings disarming business groups that had given money to Democrats for decades to kickoff funding Republican campaigns, and, Dowd says, meetings with bourgeois Democrats on the brink of losing their next ballot.

"There was a lot of disarming that Republicans were doing for Democratic part holders saying, 'Y'all better switch or yous're going to get beat.' And that happened," said Dowd. "They basically simply ran the numbers for them and said, 'If yous desire to hold function, you lot better switch parties.'"

And, switch they did; probably the nearly famous one being a West Texas Democrat named Rick Perry.

Carmine Today, Blue Tomorrow?

Texas is now a Red Land. Just, how long volition information technology stay that way? Polls in Texas show GOP Presidential nominee Donald Trump leading Democrat Hillary Clinton by just three or iv points. Only at that place's a lot of evidence that suggests it's not support for Clinton, simply dislike of Trump that's causing the close race.

Dowd said mix that with ongoing dislike of the Democratic brand and you have a country ready to elect an independent candidate.

"So you accept Democrats who can't elect somebody statewide that's disenfranchised. Yous have independents who don't participate in the two parties that's disenfranchised. And you accept about a third of Republican main voters who are reasonable, thoughtful, sort of principal stream, who actually take no power considering of what the party has become," Dowd explained. "That is a big group of voters that really, fundamentally, tin can only be tapped by an independent."

Who will that independent candidate be? What office will they run for? And when will they run? Nosotros may be able to start answering those questions after Nov. viii.

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Source: https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/politics/2016/10/31/174443/why-is-texas-so-red-and-how-did-it-get-that-way/

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