Talk of Texas Going Blue is Premature, but GOP Should Still Pay Attention to Demographics
Jose Nino
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Is Texas on the verge of going blue?
In a recent post for The Hill, columnist Kristin Tate warns about the potential of the GOP losing Texas in the 2020 election cycle.
Although the media have been talking about inevitability of Texas turning blue for years, there is some validity in this fear.
That being said, 2020 will likely not be the year that this will happen.
This entire discussion centers around demographics.
Ever since the passage of the 1965 Immigration Act, immigration to the U.S. has predominately come from Third World countries. Above all, Mexico and Central America. This has had a profound impact on states like California, which was originally a swing state in the 20th century, but now is pretty much a lock for the Democratic Party. Amnesty programs like the Reagan amnesty of 1986 have helped accelerate this trend.
Tate acknowledges some of these comparisons between California and Texas.
“Texas demographics today are strikingly similar to those of California in 1990, before Democrats began their seven to nothing streak of Golden State victories in presidential races. Like California in 1990, the Texas population currently hovers around 29 million and is changing rapidly in light of heavy immigration from Mexico. The second generation children of Mexican immigrants have played a major role in keeping California out of Republican reach. This same transformation is taking root in Texas.”
The name of this game is demographics, which Tate highlights:
Immigration has already had a very tangible impact on Texas politics. While illegal immigrants cannot vote, their children born in the United States are indeed citizens and make up a significant share of the new generation of voters in the southern state. There are around 35 percent of Texans under the age of 18 who are the children of immigrants, a figure that has nearly doubled in the last 30 years. This carries weight.
Talks of Texas going blue in the 2020 election cycle are premature at the moment. However, 2018 showed what 2028 and beyond could potentially look like for the Lone Star State. Beto O’Rourke nearly pulled off an upset against incumbent Senator Ted Cruz. O’Rourke had a strong showing with Latino voters in 2018, when he won that demographic by a 64 percent to 35 percent margin.
These numbers are in line with historic macro trends concerning the immigration to voter pipeline in the U.S. Should they hold up, the country could be in a radical for a radical political transformation by 2050.
Immigration is no longer a trivial issue given its potential in shifting demographics and disrupting social order, as witnessed with Europe’s current mass migration social experiment.
But there is still time to fight back and bring some sanity to immigration policy. After all, it is the #1 issue heading into the 2020 elections.
Nevertheless, Republicans should not take Texas going blue as inevitable and instead go on offense on the immigration issue.
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