Diversity, new districts strengthen Democrats
Hillary Clinton, in Houston on Saturday for a fundraiser with Annie’s List and some 2,500 like-minded Texans, said that Texas was a bright spot in her 2016 campaign. Puzzlingly enough, Clinton said the deep-red state offered her hope for the Democrats’ ability to expand its coalition in the South. Granted, the state has voted for a Republican president in every election since 1976, but does the election of Donald Trump by the slimmest margin in the Lone Star State in recent memory paint the portrait of a softening GOP stronghold? What can we learn from the prospects of U.S Senate candidate Beto O’Rourke and congressional members in the weakly held GOP districts?
It’s certainly possible that O’Rourke, a Democrat from El Paso who represents Texas’ 16th congressional district, could win next year’s election — but that’s not to say it is probable. The fact that O’Rourke is running a campaign with seemingly enthusiastic support from moderate and liberal Democrats generally united against incumbent Ted Cruz suggests that such a campaign might just be viable. But that evidence is just circumstantial. The real writing on the wall comes from the long-term growth of Democratic competitiveness in the state.
According to the recently released 2017 version of the Cook Partisan Voter Index — a numerical system of measuring the strength of each major political party in all of the United States’ 435 congressional districts — Texas holds 5 of the top 25 “trending Democratic” congressional districts in the country. California is the only state with more of these districts.
On top of good news from this update, Democratic Texans are also looking forward to seven new majority-minority districts as a result of a recent redistricting decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The same decision also ordered the state to redraw the bounds of TX-21, Rep. Will Hurd’s gerrymandered district that stretches from San Antonio to El Paso, as well as TX-27 and TX-35. According to the margin of victory in Hurd’s district, his is the most competitive in the state, and the redrawing could certainly help Democrats win another seat in 2018.
Read more: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2017/04/10/diversity-new-districts-strengthen-democrats