The Evolution of Texan Politics & Why it Matters for November

By Jasper Cao

Texas has now become a battleground state in the November presidential election, garnering national attention due to polls showing a considerably small margin between President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden. Texas has been a Republican “safe state” since 1976 (44 years as of 2020), but the results of the heavily scrutinized senate race between Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz in 2018, in which O’Rourke lost to Cruz by less than 3 points, are being reconsidered for 2020. Trump and Biden have been neck to neck by less than 3 percent for months, FiveThirtyEight reports, opening the possibility that Biden could defeat Trump in Texas, since O’Rourke’s numbers in 2018 proved that blue voters are often underestimated in poll predictions. Political analysts have credited this change to shifting demographics: increasingly urbanized cities, growing numbers of minority/immigrant populations (primarily Latinx and Asian), and a rising group of college educated voters. However, why did Texas become such a deep red state in the first place?

Consider the year 1976: former president Jimmy Carter won the Texas electoral college by 51 percent of the votes, citing Carter’s southern roots as former governor of Georgia and the defamed Republican party post-Watergate. This was considered a significant win, since the Republican party had been gaining popularity in the 1960’s, but exactly how did the Republican party prevail against the century-long dominance of the Democratic party in the 60’s? Let’s examine both sides of the spectrum, first from the left perspective. Preceding the Civil War, when Texas was still a part of Mexico, millions of settlers flooded the region, and in agreement with settlement, they must have become Mexican citizens. Settlers refused to comply with Mexican law, primarily against prohibiting slavery. This contention fomented battles for Texan independence, and it wasn’t until the late 1840’s, when Texas was annexed as a slave state after the Mexican-American War under the controversial efforts of James K. Polk and possible provocation from southern slaveholders, that it finally declared its annexation into the Union. Their autonomy and “Slave Power” proved to be extremely controversial, though, and would set a dangerous precedent for sectionalism and political parties that led to the Civil War. Keep in mind that the latter was conducted under the reign of the Southern, Democratic Party in Texas, which was (historically) pro-slavery. 

Texas, a part of the Deep South, undoubtedly disenfranchised blacks during the Reconstruction. They instituted a number of laws restricting civil progress, including Black Codes, which limited freedmen's rights to make a living in Southern states. However, the mid-20th century inspired a national turn in the political ideologies of both the Republican and Democratic parties, as white conservatives began to clash with the adoption of Civil Rights laws by the Democratic Party outside of Texas, and a clearer definition of the ideas supported by both parties as opposed to the 19th century “Northern and Southern” principles. The election of John Tower in 1961, the first Republican senator elected from Texas since Reconstruction who also staunchly opposed Civil Rights, echoed the beginning of a change taking place in the Texan status quo.

The year 1994 marked a critical shift in Texan politics, as Governor Ann Richards, the second female and last Democratic governor of Texas, lost her bid for re-election against Republican George W. Bush, and cemented the age of Republican dominance. So why does this evolution matter for 2020? It is to imprint on voters how the roots of the Republican Party were built on paradoxical ambiguities regarding the rights of colored peoples between both parties, and how a complete paradigm shift is very much possible. Take a look at Richards’ gubernatorial tenure, in which she championed feminism, reform, and a number of other liberal ideals, compared to Bush’s tenure of starkly different conservative values. Cut to just 4 years ago, when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump by a margin of less than 10 percent, the lowest in 20 years. If Texas can go blue for 2020, it would likely be a signal that the state is starting to head on a vastly different political trajectory, and this kind of pivot is historically proven to be very much a possibility. In the meantime, Texans should encourage voting in the wake of efforts by Governor Greg Abbott limiting absentee ballot drop-off sites to one per county, and voice their values for November.