Politically, Texas is becoming the new Virginia.

[Yavin4]

Texas like Virginia before it and like California before Virginia were reliably Republican red states. However, as their populations grow, become more diverse racially and ethnically, and as the people become better educated through top flight public universities and colleges, we're seeing these states migrate from deep red to simply red to purple and finally to blue.

Now, this is not to say that Texas will go for the Democrat in 2020, but this may be the last election that a Republican presidential nominee will win in this state esp. given the potential chaotic aftermath of a post-Trump Republican party.

[lapfog_1]

1. It's been predicted for a long time

hope it arrives like a texas thunderstorm next fall

[marble falls]

2. The big two cities, Dallas and Houston have voted more Democratic than the ...

previous election for at least the last half dozen cycles. The Bluing is inevitable.

[Beausoleil]

4. San Antonio now outranks Dallas by population.

But has probably voted reliably Democratic for longer than Dallas and Houston. Just a guess though.

[marble falls]

7. San Antonio has been reliably blue for quite a while.

[Rstrstx]

10. That's just the city limits

Dallas County has about 600k more people than Bexar County (SA) and its metro area is 2 to 3 times bigger, depending on whether you include Fort Worth. Dallas County is the only reliably blue county in the state north of an El Paso-Austin-Houston line.

Bexar County used to be a bellwether county for presidential politics until 2016. Before then the only time it didn't go for the presidential winner since the Depression was McGovern in '68. Dallas County used to be more conservative up until the mid-2000s, now it nets more Dem votes than any other county in the state. It's a relatively small county and with the DFW metro area fast approaching 8 million it is squeezing more of an urban voting demographic into it with no signs of reversing.

[Beausoleil]

11. True and Dallas has a lot more white, "middle-class" Republican suburbs than SA too.

But it's great to see.
I grew up in suburban Dallas and lived in SA for 15 years, so I'm pleased at the trend.

Now if we can turn East Texas!

[JCMach1]

19. North Dallas burbs have gone from +20-30 red to BETO

Losing by just single digits...

I live in McKinney between all the northern burbs...

Just the neighborhood I have lived the last four years has gone from Lilly white to very diverse in a short span. My family is multi-racial so it's a good place to be.

Irony, the El Paso murderer lived about 1mile from my home and even went to college with my daughters.

[cojoel]

12. McGovern was the Democratic Party Candidate in 1972

In 1968 it was Hubert Humphrey.

[Rstrstx]

15. Sorry yes it was Humphrey

In 72 they went for Nixon

[JCMach1]

17. Dallas is a Metroplex, not just Dallas County

Dallas County= 2.618
Tarrant County= 2.054m
Collin County= 969,000 (Wikipedia #s)

That's 2017... Collin is way over 1m now


That comes to 6.8m for the whole urban complex ... http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/dallas-population/

[JCMach1]

18. DFW is not just city of Dallas and it's all trending Blue... Or

Blue already

[Wounded Bear]

3. Not to argue against your main point, but...

I don't think California was "reliably a red state" lately. Not sure exactly, but I suspect that Reagan was the last Repub CA went for in the national election.

I lived there for many years, and was always amused at how "liberal" the media thought the state was. It was internally Repub run for quite some time, with some back and forth.

If Texas actually did go blue, the Repub party could probaby be blocked out of the White House for decades. I'm all for it.

[Beausoleil]

5. California went to HW in '88. n/t

[uponit7771]

6. WOW, my voting life HAS been pretty short ... Red Dons admin feels like 342143 years I guess

[Yavin4]

8. And it had Republican governors, Pete Wilson and Schwarzenegger

into the 1990s and early 2000s.

[kimbutgar]

9. Schwarzenegger was so terrible he destroyed the repuke party in California

He wasn’t evil though like fat donnie. But he was incompetent and in over his head. After that Jerry Brown returned and put California back o the right course with his experience. The repukes in California think they can take the state back. That ship has sailed. Only out in those rural areas where it is old white Rush loving repukes is it still conservative. The SF Bay Area has repukes who commute long hours and listen to right wing radio are still there but they are losing.

[RhodeIslandOne]

21. Ah-nold was a fluke

He was a mega celebrity, and Cali went for it. His party and whatever he said and promised meant nearly nothing compared to being a world famous person.

[pwb]

13. If Putin is stopped the entire south may be blue?

Who knows what him and Mitch have done to southern voting??/

[UTUSN]

14. K&R

[Xolodno]

16. Well, to be fair...

Republicans in California in the past were far more liberal than those of say, Kansas and the like. But as the GOP moved further to the right, more moderates left the party. Leaving only the rabid rural Republicans to run the party...and they still refuse to see the light.

Schwarzenegger was the GOP's last hurrah in California....and he was too liberal for them.

[radius777]

20. Metro areas are the base of the Dem party

and have been for a generation now, why Dems should play to that strength and drive up the count in such areas.. of young people, PoC, women, etc... instead of pandering to rural white working class voters who will vote Repub anyway.

States like CO and VA went blue due to the growth of metro areas, just like the Sunbelt (AZ, TX, GA, NC) is going.

The fundamental reason is that metros - cities and suburbs - are culturally liberal and cosmopolitan.

Even Repub voters in such areas usually favor more liberal solutions.

[Yavin4]

22. Why do you think that is?

Why do metro areas make people more Liberal? I grew up in DC, and I vividly recall how red VA was. As the state's metro areas have grown, its become more and more blue on the federal and state level. Yet, there's no big Liberal city in the state like a SF or Boston or NY.