Could Texas go BLUE? (Houston, Austin: school, high income, taxes)

[Spade]

Originally Posted by Smooth from ELP

Not all of Austin is Blue. Just Travis county is blue (where all the "Keep Austin Weird" crowd lives). You have the majority of long time Austinites, hippies, and alternative lifestyles live in this county. Williamson, Hays, and Bastrop are red counties. This is where the good ol' boys, rednecks, and some transplants live.

Yeah I know. I said that Williamson and Hays saw the percentages closer than Republicans would care for. In fact, Hays didn't turn red until the very end of the night. I'm thinking that you can probably thank Texas State for this though. But Buda and Kyle are not as conservative as Western Hays county.

[Bowie]

The precinct map in Bexar County (San Antonio) showed a lot more blue precincts this time around than it did in the previous two elections. I haven't seen what the trend is in other big counties. But if concentration of blueness in the state's urban areas continues in the direction that Bexar County's seems to be going, I could see the balance tipping to blue.

I'm surprised no one has pointed out yet how the Texas House narrowly missed (by two seats) tipping over to a Democrat majority. Redistricting in 3 years could concentrate the seats in urban areas even further and push the House solidly into blue.

[KerrTown]

Originally Posted by txguy2009

It all depends on who candidates are and HOW MUCH MONEY dems spend (they haven't spent a dime since Clinton.

Or how much effort they will put into this state. The national party writes us off for some reason. I guess they don't like working for the long-term; 34+ electoral votes aren't a good enough reason to put Ohio or Florida out of the battleground state group?

[txguy2009]

Originally Posted by Metro Matt

You are wrong

Whites represent 48.9% of the population in Texas according to the 2006 Census. How fair is it to compare one demographic group to five others?

I didn't say it was "fair."

But last I looked 48.9% is not a majority. It is a plurality.

What I said was exactly correct - whites are outnumbered by minorities in TX.

[ryneone]

Do the math your premise of the metro's are blue is wrong.

For Example Houston Metro

Harris County Obama by 18,468
Fort Bend County McCain By 4,710
Montgomery County McCain by 83,012
Waller County McCain by 1,131
Austin County McCain by 5,958
Chambers County McCain by 6,781
Liberty County McCain by 9,437
Brazoria County McCain by 30,983
San Jacinto County McCain by 3,430

So McCain won the metro area by 126,974 votes!

[HookTheBrotherUp]

Originally Posted by KerrTown

Or how much effort they will put into this state. The national party writes us off for some reason. I guess they don't like working for the long-term; 34+ electoral votes aren't a good enough reason to put Ohio or Florida out of the battleground state group?

This is much like California, being blue, the experts in the field of politics know when a state can be changed, and so they never really campaign in California because it would be a waste of money. The same is true of Texas, no one really campaigns here. They DO show up to raise funds, but that is not the same as campaigning.

[ocean2026]

Texas could one day go Blue if

A. It had better educated voters. Those who attended grad school in the last two elections, went Blue overwhelmingly . Texans who did not finish high school RED

B. if the population were more mobile and people actually went out and saw the world. Counties where people are born- live and die such as those in the Panhandle went for Bush and MCcain by huge numbers - Ochiltree - Roberts both had 92% or more BLUE. Not a diverse culture

C. More minorities either moved in or became of voting age. Here education does not help Blue as uneducated minorities also vote Blue.

Some don't like this a TexasBob or TexDave said thats because all the universities have socialist professors and so I asked him to name ONE and I got everything else but an answer.

Independents also tend to be better educated, in fact they are the most educated of the bunch.

[ocean2026]

Immediate suburbs of big cities have traditionally been red- the majority of those people fled the cities which they perceived to be high crime - minority areas. They are mostly white and conservative. Some of this is changing - minorities are also moving outside the city. The recent economic downturn has hurt these people disproportionally, and in many nationwide suburbs - the blue vote is substantial Bucks County PA , Monroe County IN, Orange County Ca. Texas is still dominated by the factors in my previous post so the effect is more muted.

[ryneone]

Originally Posted by ocean2026

Texas could one day go Blue if

A. It had better educated voters. Those who attended grad school in the last two elections, went Blue overwhelmingly . Texans who did not finish high school RED

B. if the population were more mobile and people actually went out and saw the world. Counties where people are born- live and die such as those in the Panhandle went for Bush and MCcain by huge numbers - Ochiltree - Roberts both had 92% or more BLUE. Not a diverse culture

C. More minorities either moved in or became of voting age. Here education does not help Blue as uneducated minorities also vote Blue.

Some don't like this a TexasBob or TexDave said thats because all the universities have socialist professors and so I asked him to name ONE and I got everything else but an answer.

Independents also tend to be better educated, in fact they are the most educated of the bunch.

You make it sound like Republicans are idiots.

Bring stats to back it up.

Whites, Republicans, seniors, evangelical Christians and the affluent flocked to the Republican presidential nominee, and Sen. John McCain also appeared to carry the independent vote. McCain won about two-thirds of the white vote, and nearly three-fifths of those whose families earn more than $50,000 a year.

This seems to blow your whole post out of the water.

Black voters were stunningly united in their support for Sen. Barack Obama, bidding to become the nation's first black president — perhaps only 1 percent of blacks supported McCain. Hispanics, who constituted a bigger bloc of the Texas electorate,

Obama did get the minority vote and did better among whites than Kerry but missed the educated and affluent.

Dallas Morning News | News for Dallas, Texas | Texas/Southwest

While what you posted might be true in other states it is not true here in Texas.

[txguy2009]

He's absolutely right htat people with graduate educations overwhelmingly vote democrat.

The problem is that in any state that is a tiny fractoin of the population. Not many people get MDs/JDs/PHds.

So you can't hope to make a state blue by getting more of those - it's unrealistic. Not enough of them.

The reason states like CAL are blue is complicated but it comes down to 1) Huge numbers of minorities and 2) huge numbers of poors and 3) how your MIDDLE CLASS with just a 4-year degree or lower votes. That is the huge swing class in america.