Rise of big cities push Texas to swing-state territory -- maybe by 2020

[dalton99a]

1. It is coming

Voters in Harris County, where Houston sits, kicked out a three-term Republican county executive in favor of a 27-year old political neophyte. Nineteen black women ran for judgeships in Harris County; they all won.

In Harris County, Republicans won the straight-ticket vote by nine points in both 2010 and 2014. This year, Democrats outperformed Republicans in straight-ticket votes by 11 points.

Democrats won the straight-ticket vote in Dallas County by one point in 2002, by seven points in 2006 and 2010, by ten points in 2014 — and by 30 points this year. Straight-ticket voters in Travis County, home of liberal Austin, chose Democrats this year by a 45-point margin, as turnout among those voters nearly tripled from 2014.

“Texas is in play for a presidential election,” Homan said. “The candidates we have, the campaigns we run, our ability to talk to a voting population beyond a narrow primary population, what we do in the next two years is going to define how Texas looks for the following ten years.”