An incredible night for Democrats in Texas

[FarPoint]

An incredible night for Democrats in Texas

CLSB Politics

Two special elections that mean a lot for the future of Texas Democratic Politics.

In this video I look at the turnout and final conclusion of the of the U.S. Congress District 18 race. After not having any representation for over 300 days thanks to Greg Abbot, the seat now has an elected official. That wasn’t the only good news last night. In the State Senate Special Election in District 9 a huge upset happened, a 34-point swing to the Left for Democrats in Tarrant County. This is a canary in the coal mine for the Texas GOP.

[randr]

1. I hope this is indicative of the rest of the country

Imagine people getting their souls back along with a new spine.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. I have been active in Texas politics for a long time and I am still hoping that Texas will turn blue

I have been following some demographic trends for a while that would indicate that Texas should turn blue. Texas is getting older and more urban. Texas was more republican that these trends would indicate in 2024 in large part because Hispanics voted for trump and the GOP in larger numbers than what one would expect. I grew up in or near the Rio Grand Valley that went for trump. I was surprised by this result.

Last night was a great result in a state senate runoff race where a Democrat won a seat by 14 percentage points that trump won by 17 percentage points.

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If this swing was held up nationally, Texas would be blue as would the rest of the country

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This race was largely symbolic in that the next time the next time the Texas legis will be in session will be after the November elections and special elections are not necessarily representative of national/regular elections.

I am encouraged by the fact that Hispanic voters in SD 9 went for the Democrat.

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In Texas, there is a racist tradition called sundown towns where non-whites used to have to be out of the city limits by sundown or face lynching. Vidor Texas is one such city. The democrat in this race flipped a local sundown city in this race

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These results are encouraging to me. I still believe that Texas will turn blue. trump's alienation of Hispanic voters should continue given the current ICE operations.

[LessAspin]

3. GOP turnout was good

Reading that GOP voters actually turned out in big numbers.

Although hopefully in a harbinger of things to come a large percentage of those GOP voters switched to the Democrats.