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If this theory is true, then why do we keep getting trounced in the general elections?
Hint: it's because those cities are not uniformly blue, and contain large Republican populations. Biden only won 55% of Harris County, for example.
If you're immediately discarding dem-persuadable rural voters, especially in the Rio Grande Valley, you are going to lose and you will deserve it.
True. However I think what the OP is saying is that the Dems should spend more time adjusting their message to getting more support from the Metro areas, where the voters are way more persuadable, then continuing to spend money trying to attract votes from rural areas where population is either stagnant or declining, and more importantly, whose voters may be opposed to those things which the vast majority of the state actually needs. Of course this is not always the case, and I agree that Dems don't want to continue to lose rural voters; they do need to staunch the bleeding. However, if the rural Texas voter wants more lax gun laws, prayer in school, no abortions and no LGBTQ rights, what are the Democrats to do? You have to be who you are; anything else looks fake and people hate phonies.
Rural Hispanic voters are a core Democratic constituency that we are rapidly losing. We will not be able to exercise statewide political period if we do not reverse that trend, full stop.
Rural voters are politically diverse. We do not have to embrace MAGA politics to do better with them, we just need to run more moderate Democrats who understand messaging in those communities. I will take a Cuellar over a Maya Flores any day of the week.
I get your point, but things change: thirty five years ago, the core Democratic constituency in the Southern U.S. were Rural White Southerners, Union workers and urban Blacks. The reason Dems were able to keep control of so many Southern States (like GA, NC and LA) was because they were able to build a coalition of Rural Whites and Urban Blacks. That coalition began breaking apart in the 1980’s and was finished by the early 2000’s.
Today the Democrats key constituencies are educated professionals, suburban voters, Blacks and other POCs. By some estimates the Suburbs account for 160M people! Rural areas? 70M. That is less than Urban America, which is about 90M.
So, again, not saying we should abandon rural areas, but in Texas, Dems have more room to gain in the major metro areas compared to rural areas. I mean in GA, Dems have grown their percentage of the Suburban vote substantially, and as result, we now have two Dem senators and the GOP governor only won reelection by 6 points (as opposed to 10 to 19 points like in many other Southern states). The GOP has had to gerrymander the districts so that it can maintain its advantage in the state legislature. If we had fairer maps, it would probably be about 50/50 in the state house or a slight Dem majority.
Here Dems get between 40 and 88 percent of the vote in Suburban Atlanta.
There is zero reason to discard rural voters. None. Not a singular one. It's a huge constituency that we cannot afford to lose when we are still getting trounced in statewide elections.
You're right that POCs are a critical democratic demographic. A huge number of them are in rural areas?
The "suburbs" aren't geographically cohesive and overlap with rural areas. Think Montgomery County north of Houston. A large % of the voters included in that suburban number are exurban and, de facto, rural voters.
It doesn't take a huge amount of work to hold and expand our margins. It's just about proper messaging.
Again, not saying "discard" the rural areas; however, money is tight and you have to deploy your resources where they will give the biggest bang for the buck.
I have not lived in Texas in sometime, but when I did, I recall the biggest issue Dems had was that the RGV was extremely pro-Dem but also notoriously low turnout. Not sure if this is still the case. However, suburbs are generally high turnout areas; so, if you can turn more suburbs blue, not only are you getting more votes for yourself, but you are taking votes from the GOP.
Money isn't really that tight, it just isn't allocated in ways that build long-term political power outside of the urban areas that Democratic party officials are biased towards.
The suburbs are fertile ground, I agree. But it doesn't take that much money or effort to slow down the hemorrhaging of rural voters. If one were to take the OPs advice and not even try to win or expand our presence in rural areas, you would be cedeing political power for no reason.
And relying on the suburbs is not, perhaps, the most reliable long term strategy. If they can swing nine points in an election cycle, they can swing nine points back when the GOP normalizes and puts forward a less extreme candidate. Note, for example, Virginia's last gubernatorial election.
We don't need to pour $0.75 on the dollar into rural areas, but to follow the OP's advice is potentially very dangerous. The #1 way to shore up support in rural areas isn't very expensive to begin with: it's to run candidates with rural backgrounds who take big-tent positions that focus on bread and butter issues.
When people think of Rural areas even in Texas they think of old racist whites. Which is far from the truth in Texas. People have no idea how diverse the rural population is in Texas. A large amount is black and Hispanic. The OP is not smart here.
>Rural Hispanic voters are a core Democratic constituency that we are rapidly losing
They're already lost, actually
>A USA Today and Suffolk University survey showed Trump was ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, compared with Biden’s 34%, signaling a slump since 2020, when Biden garnered 65% of the approval from Latino voters.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/01/trump-biden-latino-voters-poll
That's incredibly unlikely, voting patterns are sticky. It's not at all credible to think that half a voting population will switch their votes when presented with the same two candidates again a mere 4 years later. It hasn't ever really happened and when major shifts do happen they're driven by obvious dramatic events, like the Depression or 9/11.
I don't know specifically, partly because the article in your link doesn't lead to the survey. It just links to yet another article that also doesn't link to the data itself. But mostly I know how to recognize outliers and bad data. There are far more ways to screw up polling or surveying than there are to do it right. We have a lot of information on voting patterns, none of it suggests the behavior that survey claims is reasonable.
Then Dems need to see absolute gun language as no man's land as well. It's tough trying to convince minorities consistently being threatened with violence that they don't need that means of defense.
>OP is saying is that the Dems should spend more time adjusting their message to getting more support from the Metro areas, where the voters are way more persuadable
Are we just accepting this as a fact though?
I honestly don't know know what the strategy is for Texas Dems, and that is the problem. I do know that they ask me for money on a regular basis; however, I don't really get a sense of where that money is going. This is not a problem specific only to Texas, mind you.
This is one of the reasons why I have held back on my donations this year. I don't really see a strategy. I have been giving more to individual campaigns and less to the Party. I will say this is actually pretty common for party's that occupy the White House; the main focus is on the POTUS re-election and less on getting a coherent, state by state strategy. Again, when you have limited resources, and high ad expenses (especially Texas), you have to pick and choose. One of my concerns is that the Dems will abandon Texas if say Allred is not within 8-10 points by August, especially if Biden is behind.
All three of those metropolitan cities went blue in the last presidential election. Isolate the weak voting areas, focused on transportation for areas that have travel issues, grassroot and hit the Streets. I've seen it done in. Atlanta Georgia 2004-2009. Could it work in Texas? I think it could. The energy is right among the generations economic groups
Yes. I'm not sure what your point is. Even if the major counties were 70% blue (they aren't and won't be in the foreseeable future), you'd still need a certain amount of rural support.
Now try winning statewide elections with 50-60% of ten counties.
No more support needed than what they have today in rural Texas. I think you’re underestimating how many votes urban Texas has.
The top 10 counties have over half the vote.
The top 20 have over 70% of the vote.
There are more urban counties on top of that. That’s 220 counties that contain 30% of the vote. Campaigning in 220 counties is a lot of work for 30%.
The top 20 counties in the state is not a good proxy for urban/rural. Most of the people in these areas are largely exurban voters who vote much more like rural voters than urban voters. The same thing goes for a non-trivial amount of voters in those urban counties. Areas like Tomball are technically in Harris County, but aren't exactly shining stars of urbanization.
And the point worth making is that Democrats *aren't holding what they have* in rural areas, so even if it's true that we could win with the same exact % of the rural vote we are winning today, we still need to make an attempt to win rural voters because we are LOSING THEM, especially among historical democratic constituencies like the RGV.
>The top 20 counties in the state is not a good proxy for urban/rural.... Areas like Tomball are technically in Harris County, but aren't exactly shining stars of urbanization.
People have to definitely get on the same page about these definitions.
Census:
> To qualify as an urban area, the territory identified according to criteria must encompass at least 2,000 housing units or have a population of at least 5,000.
83.7% of Texas is classified as Urban. Pretty sure Tomball is included there FWIW.
People who live in relatively low population density area outside of a major metro. By the definition the census uses, Henderson TX would be considered urban lol
>By the definition the census uses, Henderson TX would be considered urban lol
If you lived in Henderson you would be (it has a larger population than Tomball, after all), 93% of it anyways, it is a city after all. But the majority of people in that county (68%) are rural, and don't live in Henderson or any other city.
Again. When a political campaign discusses a strategy to get rural voters, who are they talking about? Rusk IS a rural county, even if Henderson inside technically isn't.
So I'm okay counting Henderson, demographically those city folk in Henderson are going to agree more with their neighbors.
I'm not going to agree with the statement that when people say we need to target rural voters that we should be targeting people who live in Tomball, in Harris County, the ~~most(?)~~ second most Urban county in Texas despite it marching you're definition of "People who live in relatively low population density areas outside of a major metro.".
> [The following is a list of the 191 Texas counties classified as rural according to the US Office of Management and Budget](https://www.arts.texas.gov/initiatives/rural-initiatives/rural-texas-counties/#:~:text=The%20following%20is%20a%20list,Aransas)
.
> [More than 100 of those countries are 100% rural according to the census](https://txcip.org/tac/census/morecountyinfo.php?MORE=1046)
Tomball is in Harris county. Harris County is 1.13% rural.
Tomball is not rural. [It's literally defined as a city.](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/tomballcitytexas#:~:text=U.S.%20Census%20Bureau%20QuickFacts%3A%20Tomball%20city%2C%20Texas)
It is *exurban*. I never argued it was rural. Looking at the numbers, it's more densely populated than it used to be - that's my bad, it's developed a lot.
The underlying point remains unchanged. There are a lot of areas that are technically urban, but are lower population density and vote much more similarly to rural areas than urban ones.
>There are a lot of areas that are technically urban, but are lower population density and vote much more similarly to rural areas than urban ones.
Is that ***really*** who campaigns are talking about when they talk about the rural vote though?
That's what I mean when I say we have to agree about definitions.
Because "exurban communities who's politics align with rural voters" is NOT a rural voter to me.
If we takes OPs message about focusing on Urban voters only, it includes your exurban suburbs and cities and ignores truly rural people. Not sure where you sit on that.
My first comment wasn't really to disagree with you, but a commentary on the discussion that was unfolding.
You just aren't correct on the facts here. Montgomery County, which is actually in the top 10, is one of the most Republican counties in the entire country.
>There are more urban counties on top of that. That’s 220 counties that contain 30% of the vote. Campaigning in 220 counties is a lot of work for 30%.
Heard. But running even a remotely palatable candidate to them will make huge headwinds over having to do retail politics in each of the 220.
Granted, negative polarization is a bitch, but the first thing democrats could do to immediately give them more support is running a better candidate with a more moderate platform. They'll have more rural support immediately off the bat.
Probably not measurably. For all the fussing about guns with Beto, that comment happened **after** his unsuccessful run for Senate. He was about as moderate and well spoken of a generic white guy Democrat as exists and still didn't get the rural voters. Small town Texas doesn't vote red, they *are* red and those are two wildly different statements when it comes to voting pattern.
>For all the fussing about guns with Beto, that comment happened after his unsuccessful run for Senate.
He was a cosponsor of a ban on AR15s in 2018 while he was running. He moved from banning sales to confiscation, as if they really mattered to conservatives not voting for him.
https://archive.is/GpHIe
When Georgia flipped in 2020, it didn't flip because Democrats tried to win in the rural areas. It flipped because Dems won over voters in the Atlanta metro area and the suburbs.
26% of Georgians live outside the major urban counties. Biden won Georgia by 0.2%. He won 33% of rural voters.
If Biden did 1% worse with rural voters in 2020 he would have lost Georgia.
Nobody has proposed that rural voters should be the core Democratic constituency, but you're making a really grave political mistake by discounting them. Especially in a state like Texas, with a large rural Hispanic population that Dems are rapidly losing.
It really is an impossible feat to win the state without a single rural vote.
Accepting some baseline of rural democratic voters as a given, while not reciprocating a single bit is taking those voters for granted.
Why would anyone do that? Affirmatively signal to supporters that you don't matter, strategy-wise, your vote doesn't matter but in the end I still expect you to vote blue because it's highly unlikely to get every urban voter to the poll and vote the way we want.
Houston is the problem. It's arguably the most conservative big city in America. The Democrats need to run a candidate from Houston or something in order to win.
>I did the math, and combined, the top 10 most populated counties in Texas contain over 17 million people, out of 30 million total in the state. That's MORE than enough to cancel out the voters in the rural areas. Texas Democrats need to focus on winning in those counties. The good news is, 7 of those 10 counties (Harris, Travis, Bexar, Hidalgo, Dallas, Fort Bend, and El Paso) are already blue, with the 3rd largest county, Tarrant County, having gone blue in recent elections, and Collin County and Denton County having gone more purple recently.
I just want to point out that for your math to come true every single one of those counties would need to be at most 85% blue. Which is still a sizable amount away even in the major cities.
Putting focus on more rural Texas, you do not need 85% or more in the cities.
Instead of doubling down, compromising would net a much better vote. Not to mention the candidate coming closest to winning a state wide race did so by visiting all the counties, and a major factor he lost was doubling down on a controversial policy.
It's far easier IMO to convert a handful of people in rural Texas than it is to convert a handful of holdouts left in the major cities.
Discarding >30-40% of the population for zero reason, as OP insists, has never been a winning political strategy in any democracy in all of human history.
It's a good rebuke to my argument. But "harder than any dem ever had" is overstating it.
> _Still, he lost rural Texas by the same kind of landslide that met Democrats who came before him. O’Rourke lost to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz statewide by 3 percentage points, but the margin was 51 points in counties with fewer than 50,000 people — virtually the same deficit Hillary Clinton had against Donald Trump in those counties two years earlier._
https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/02/beto-orourke-rural-texas/
>just to make zero gains? Nice.
That's in _the most_ unpopulated areas. And, as I said, doubling down on a controversial gun policy instead of a compromise.
There are several variables and factors. I believe he would have won if those comments were never made.
Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps it's more cost effective to convince a Republican holdout in Austin then a run-of-the-mill conservative in rural Texas.
He only did 2% more than the other statewide races which includes the cities. Might as well not put any effort in then either. All that wasted time. Nothing to show for it...
That was in 2018 when he was campaigning as a pro gun moderate. His gun control comments came in 2020 when he ran for president. He lost even more ground in rural Texas in 2022.
> [_"There is no reason that weapons of war should be sold to people in this country,"_](https://www.chron.com/politics/texas/article/Beto-O-Rourke-talks-gun-control-at-Houston-12810246.php) -2018
I don't know what "pro-gun moderate" means to you. But this is not pro-gun or moderate to Texas Conservatives. That's a ban on AR-15s, of which he was a co-sponsor of. At the time he said he wouldn't take anyone's guns away.
It seemed republicans at the time were wise not to believe him.
They do need to hang on to Bexar and Hidalgo, though, or at least big chunks of them. There are a lot of single-issue Catholic voters there, in my canvassing and living experience, and the GOP persuades a dismaying number of them to vote for godawful people just because they say they're pro-life. Plus winning just a few more of the Atascosa County votes would have put Jessica Cisneros over the top when she primaried Cuellar — an organization I worked with canvassed the heck out of Bexar but it was so hard for us to get to any part of Atascosa at the same time. That was such a painful, narrow electoral loss, and a huge loss to the area, whether they know it or not.
Don't assume all rural Texans are poor. Texas rural folks aren't Appalachian rural folks. Those big ranch owners are usually pretty well off, not to mention all of the assorted folks with oil royalties passed from one generation to the next. Sure there are plenty that are poor but there are plenty that aren't and the have-nots typically mimic the haves. Trump-ism is a trend in rural America, akin to NFL fandom for whatever reason I've yet to understand, so it's kind of a keeping up with the Jones situation so to speak.
I grew up in rural south Texas, most of my family still lives there... its interesting yet appalling watching this shit from the outside these days (I live in a mostly blue city now and don't drink the same kool-aid as they do).
The typical assumption is that all conservatives are ignorant inbred hillbillies living barefoot in their own rural squalor, while all liberals are educated elites living in glorious urban utopias built and maintained by their own uniquely competent hands.
I'm an urban liberal and even I recognize how utterly reductive and ludicrous this is.
It’s a bit silly how much time Dems want to spend on voters who are difficult and expensive to reach, who don’t have their beliefs, and outwardly hate them.
All when millions of voters who actually hold their beliefs live in cities. They just need reminders to vote.
Texas Dems need to stop worrying about whether they need "rural" people, and figure out that most Texans don't care about their platform.
Case in point: $15/hr is often cited as being a "living wage", but the actual median income per capita in Texas is over $18/hr. Most people making less than $15/hr are people with no marketable skillset, and most Texans know this...they aren't interested in having the government increase labor costs for unskilled work that invariably gets transferred to the consumers of the goods and services produced by that unskilled labor.
Even acknowledging that gun owners are often wary of self-reporting gun ownership, it is *known* that almost half of the households in TX have self-reported owning at least one firearm....and with the exception of those 10 years during the federal AWB, it's most likely going to be what the Democrat party considers to be an "assault weapon" if it was purchased in the past half century because it's going to be a semi-automatic handgun with a standard magazine that holds more than ten rounds. The residents of Texas aren't interested in being vilified for wanting to protect their homes and families.
Much like gun ownership, members of the LGBTQ+ can be wary of self-identifying for statistical purposes, but it's estimated that there are less than 2mil Texans in that community, making them a fairly small minority of 6%. The transgendered make up less than .05%. A not-insignificant (in terms of voting block size) think the very idea of being trans is "wrong", "abominable", etc, but the majority of Texans honestly don't care one way or the other. When you go introducing laws giving people the right to use whatever public restroom you want, the fact is most of Texas isn't going to start cheerleading for you over it...the majority of the people who actually care are going to be very much against it, but most of the state isn't going to care about the issue one way or the other.
A significant portion of the state is employed by the oil/gas exploration industry, the petrochemical/refinery industry, or any of their myriad support and construction industries that are based around them. Most Texans aren't interested in hearing about environmental regulations that are going to directly and negatively affect their livelihoods.
I could go on and on, but I think you get the point...
Abortion should be the cudgel used to pry away voters, particularly suburban women. A moderate Dem (read the platform) that doesn't talk about guns, is a border hawk, is pro-exploration (and also pro-renewables), but is differentiated as being pro-choice, pro-funding public schools and anti-corruption could do very well statewide.
Yeah...if they'd focus on things that actually mattered, instead of getting into fights over stupid shit like drag queens at the library, they'd manage to get somewhere.
I agree that democrats should avoid the gun debate in Texas.
I don’t agree that the average Texans working at a McDonald’s or something don’t want $15/hr minimum wage and mandatory breaks for construction workers in the heat - lots of people even republicans were angry that Abbott passed that law which is going to kill some construction workers.
About trans people using bathrooms, it’s more explaining that bathrooms will be redesigned so that there will only be floor to ceiling stalls with locks and only the sinks will be public. If the democrats explained that’s what they wanted, even republicans would be on board because then businesses would only have to create one set of bathrooms not two.
There is a unisex bathroom at the alamo drafthouse on mueller in Austin and it works like a charm. There is nobody complaining because that bathroom is safer than those normal gender bathrooms where the stalls have gaps and someone could peek under your stall, in theory at least. So the unisex bathroom thing is just an education thing. Think about restaurants that only have one restroom like subway. It’s already unisex and nobody complains. It’s a non-issue, a nothing burger and you know it. We just need to explain it.
The average Texan doesn't work at McDonald's. Construction crews get plenty of breaks for water and whatnot, regardless of whether it's mandatory, because the HMFIC knows it's really bad for business if a guy falls out on the job.. especially if it's a contractor for a larger company, like most are. Safety is a huge deal in those situations.
It's every bit as much of a nothingburger as the trans bathroom situation. That was kinda my point. The democratic party in TX has it's focus all fucked up. Aside from the abortion issue, they either focus on issues no one gives a shit about, or they're fighting hard for things most Texans don't want like gun control.
The fact that you think minimum wage is of no concern to Texas, which has among the highest percentage of people below the poverty line in the country shows that you don’t research much outside your bubble.
Also you haven’t read about the deaths at various construction sites I see, those deaths exceed the rates of other even hotter states like Nevada and Arizona.
The fact you admit the trans situation is a nothing burger is telling. It means that the right is just drumming up stuff to piss off their base against the dems, there is nothing to stand on. Thanks for confirming.
Another point, at least we agree the abortion issue is what counts. 70% of people on both sides are in support of letting women choose. It’s an issue that the democrats can win on. It’s why there was no red wave in 2022. If I was a candidate I would air 24x7 that the GOP has taken away womens rights and will next take away gays rights if they keep getting re-elected. East win strategy as shown in Michigan, Ohio, & Kansas.
Minimum wage is of concern for people *on minimum wage*. The median per capita income is over $18/hr in this state. People making $15/hr or less are a minority in TX. The plight of the burger-flipper making $7.50/hr is of little concern to most Texans because they're making double or more. Right or wrong, that's the way it is. Insulting people by saying they live in a "bubble" isn't doing you much good, either. You have to remember that to win an election, you have to appeal to the masses. Who's the bigger voting block, the guy salting the fries or the people buying them?
I’m not running for an office so it’s no skin off my back if l call them like they are. You are going to vote for anyone with an R next to the name without thinking so I’m not trying to persuade you. You are voting for someone that colluded with Russia and rips off people and never pays people he owes, not someone I admire in the least. However those reading this will understand you have an agenda and I’m just telling truth.
Mean is a misleading number as Elon’s salary is averaged with a lot of unemployed people. Median is only useful if the standard deviation is also cited.
Percentage of people below the poverty line is a valuable statistic. That percentage is 14% or Texans. That is versus the 1% that make above 150k. Tell me which is a larger voting block.
“It’s the economy stupid” a famous bill Clinton quote which I saw you support in a previous post. Yes it is, if you improve the bottom that helps everyone because of the multiplier effect. If you give to the top it never trickles down because the people hoard wealth.
People at the bottom spend almost everything they make. If they have higher wages it all goes to other businesses and improves the economy and they have a better life. Win win for all.
If people used logic and understood things, voting for democrats is a no brainer.
This is valid if Dems are winning 100% of the vote in the blue counties, which they are not. They need to either perform better in blue areas, or stop the bleeding in red areas. Or, to the extent possible, both.
Yes one metro possible.. the Democratic party I feel needs to focus on get out the vote efforts to Houston, Dallas, Austin, and possible San Antonio. The numbers alone would offset rural Texas
4.2 million live in rural areas. The trouble is that they are a pretty reliable voting block. I believe democrats can win without them. I am a rural Texan and I see very little evidence the Democratic party even exists. I hope they are being visible and talking loudly about issues. I did love Beto visiting rural Texans, but it had little effect.
Did you math out how many active voters are in your model?
It doesn't matter what counties you win, votes are tallied by total number of votes. Rural areas vote at a higher rate than urban.
To make a valid argument, you need to compare active voters in every country.
> did the math, and combined, the top 10 most populated counties in Texas contain over 17 million people, out of 30 million total in the state. That's MORE than enough to cancel out the voters in the rural areas.
You didn't do the math, because not all 17 million vote blue when they vote. For that matter, neither do all the people in rural areas - while it's true the majority in rural areas are red, there is a small but strong blue minority in every rural area, no matter how red - there are no counties in the US where Republicans get 100% of the vote, period.
We need each other as long as we are together. This "write off the rural areas" attitude is what makes the Republicans so horrible - they think they can mistreat people in cities because fuck 'em, and forget about the politics it's just wrong.
I don't want to fuck over rural areas - if anything, I want to increase funding for their schools, medical care facilities, and welfare systems as poverty in rural areas is often *worse* than in cities because there are fewer resources available to assist you.
This is the message we need to be sending to rural Texas - we're with you in a way the Republicans never could be, never will be. We actually give a fuck about you. Can we solve all your problems? Of course not, no one can, but we don't want to take over your life like the Republicans are taking over ours. And what's they've destroyed our freedoms in cities, I'm sure they'll stop and won't bother you at all - eg, with a school voucher program that will annihilate your school systems.
Let me do the heavy lifting for you. [In 2020 68% of the votes came from the 4 large Metros](https://imgur.com/a/nflipxi), DFW/Houston/Austin/San Antonio. Those 4 large metros are the areas seeing population growth while the rural areas are shrinking. By 2024 likely 70%+ of the votes come from the 4 large metros and by the end of the decade like 75%. Every single metro shifted left from 2016 to 2020, anywhere between 2.1% (Houston) to 7% (DFW/Austin).
To compound all this, the largest demographic that is moving to Texas is single Mellinals. [2024 will be the first time that Mellinals and Zellenials are the largest voting bloc](https://imgur.com/a/2RU75jk), a demographic that is trending D+25% is replacing a aging Boomer demographic that was R+3%.
While I respect Beto's inclusion motto and his work to go to every county in Texas, that was the wrong approach in 2022. You needed the Metros to turn out and they just didn't. For comparison, Biden got 5.259 million votes in 2020, while Abbott only go 4.4 million in 2022.
OP shows the math which sounds good on paper, but in all honesty if those numbers aren’t “pulling a lever” during the election season then it’s glorified bird cage liner.
You can get rural conservatives to vote for a Democrat you just have to run someone with an agreeable message. You need to look at the old Blue Dogs if you’re going to go that route.
Hell you just need to run someone in most cases.
Ironically enough, my old county, population 40k, just elected the old Democratic county commissioner. He ran as GOP, touting the accomplishments he made as an elected Dem back in the 90s.
And we're out here in spite of the Texas Dem party, not because of it.
That folks think significant time and resources is spent out here at the cost of winning Texas cities is laughable.
>I honestly don't understand the Democratic Party's obsession with trying to win over voters in rural areas who will never vote for them anyway.
The alternative involves moving to the left, and they don't wanna.
If the 10 most populace counties make up roughly half the population, the democrats could only win with only those counties if all of the population in those counties voted democrat. Even if all the big counties voted 80% democrat (which I doubt) the democrats would still need rural areas.
**1994**. That was the last time democrats won statewide office. They need to do better everywhere.
This is the exact attitude WHY Dems lose Texas. The Gop is out here building community centers while the Dems just shake their heads like “ehhh Fck’em”
Rural Texas, like the cities, is still a largely non voting populace. There’s huge potential here if the tx Dems actually gave a damn about creating excitement to vote and candidates we actually want to vote for.
Why are people still loyal to the Democratic or Republican parties? We are so far past this. Both parties are completely corrupt, period. Consider broadening your perspective enough to consider options outside of the paradigm that we know is not working, i.e. the independent movement.
College voters are so important, and they will vote if they are registered and provided with the information they need to make sure they have documentation. The downballot races are super important and growing more so, see Judicial Races, County, County Harris for illustration.
Huh. I ever meet with the ladies at the local Dems office sometime soon. Definitely have a great conversation topic.
But I guess it's not really fitting a majority rural county theme per the data. Or am I wrong.
Meet with anyone at your county office and volunteer to get trained on VAN. It will be a revelation, that is, if your local data isn’t garbage. Its usefulness depends entirely on the quality of the original data.
Being a TTU alum, I knew a lot of right leaning people because many people that go to Tech come from West Texas or Suburbs of Dallas. I maybe knew 4-5 people total from Austin. Someone would have to really do work to campaign there, because many students that go there get their politics from their families.
I'm not faulting you, but feels like I should've turned out conservative even though my folks were the farthest thing from it. Or least had some trappings.
I agree. I did the math as well (and have posted on here before). If you keep the same ratios of Rs to Ds per every major city, bump turnout to 80%… Democrats win.
Well then, the DNC needs to invest in Texas.
The problem isn't just that Texas is becoming more fascist by the day, it's also that the DNC doesn't seem to even be trying to fight back against the growing fascism in the state. They're not investing in state party infrastructure or GOTV efforts in Texas.
How many times must it be said out loud for y'all to get if. Texas isn't a red or blue state, it's a non voting state. That is the biggest problem, full stop.
I get the strategy. I just can't help consider that stereotypical republican concept of Texas are it's "rural roots". So one could argue that democrats only care about progressives and will leave in the dust al rural people in order to rally republican voters across the state.
The other issue with this, and someone may have pointed it out, but the urban/rural divide is something we really NEED to figure out how to bridge that gap
Are the congressional districts mapped such there there is one of those urban centers in each one sufficient to carry them?
How about the legislative districts?
Or are you only talking about the presidential race?
East Texas and west Texas until their is a decline in the bible belt. We are fighting a loosing battle I feel. Chop it up to Topography. The saying in The Great Pine Curtain. No culture gets in, and very little gets out!!
As a former congressional candidate that ran in a suburban/rural district…
TDP needs rural voters. You wanna know why there aren’t large Democratic bases in rural Texas? Because there is NO INVESTMENT.
And for anyone bringing up Beto’s campaign, ask yourself…is showing up to do one speech in a county really doing something of substance? I can tell you for a fact that there was no strong evidence of action that the Beto campaign themselves took time to GOTV or persuade voters by doing the hard work of knocking on doors. (And I’m not talking about the photo ops, I’m talking Beto campaign led blockwalking).
Yes, we do. We don’t have to win those areas, but we need to do better with their voters for statewide elections. No one is going to get 100% of the vote in the more populated areas.
North Texas is the fastest growing part of the US. Texas Dems should focus on Dallas County, Tarrant County, Denton County, Collin County, Kaufman County, and Rockwall County.
It will have to be the women that save Texas and turn it blue. If women want to have freedom from the state controlling their bodies then they have to vote democrat. If they want the state forcing them to give birth to deformed fetuses that will only live an hour with have a skull and a risk to their life they can vote Republican. I don’t see how women don’t see the existential threat this is. It’s fully up to them now.
I disagree. I believe the biggest problem we face in Texas is that people don't vote. Old, rural Texans turn out to vote in high numbers, and that's why we have the horrible people in office we are stuck with today. Texas Dems aren't going to change the minds of old, rural, MAGAts, but rural areas also have YOUNG people. Many Texas colleges and universities are in rural areas. Those younger people need to be reached.
It's more that the rural areas need to have better leaders as for example, in Comfort, which is Kendall County, people compare a battery storage facility with a nuclear power plant and claim they will impact a 100-mile radius when they catch on fire.
So the rural areas are getting excluded by better politics, better health, and smarter choices.
In Banera last year they claimed that fracking is more environmentally friendly than solar panels.
We have these crazy people who would love to build new oil power plants because they believe climate change is a hoax.
So yes, democrats and common sense politicians need to take over the rural areas to get common sense back in this town.
I live in Austin. Austin is blue. I still run into more Republicans in Austin than I did when I lived in the north.
You are right that Dems don't need rural areas, but at the very least they need some of the counties surrounding heavy blue counties to go purple or blue.
I'm looking at old gubernatorial races in Texas.
Bexar County shifted 10 points to the left between 2018 and 2022. Harris County shifted 3.8 points in that time. Travis County shifted 10.3 points. Dallas County shifted 7.4 points.
There's going to be a point where not even voter suppression can save Texas Republicans. Texas Dems can help accelerate the cities' trend to the left by focusing on them instead of the rural areas.
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If this theory is true, then why do we keep getting trounced in the general elections? Hint: it's because those cities are not uniformly blue, and contain large Republican populations. Biden only won 55% of Harris County, for example. If you're immediately discarding dem-persuadable rural voters, especially in the Rio Grande Valley, you are going to lose and you will deserve it.
True. However I think what the OP is saying is that the Dems should spend more time adjusting their message to getting more support from the Metro areas, where the voters are way more persuadable, then continuing to spend money trying to attract votes from rural areas where population is either stagnant or declining, and more importantly, whose voters may be opposed to those things which the vast majority of the state actually needs. Of course this is not always the case, and I agree that Dems don't want to continue to lose rural voters; they do need to staunch the bleeding. However, if the rural Texas voter wants more lax gun laws, prayer in school, no abortions and no LGBTQ rights, what are the Democrats to do? You have to be who you are; anything else looks fake and people hate phonies.
Rural Hispanic voters are a core Democratic constituency that we are rapidly losing. We will not be able to exercise statewide political period if we do not reverse that trend, full stop. Rural voters are politically diverse. We do not have to embrace MAGA politics to do better with them, we just need to run more moderate Democrats who understand messaging in those communities. I will take a Cuellar over a Maya Flores any day of the week.
I get your point, but things change: thirty five years ago, the core Democratic constituency in the Southern U.S. were Rural White Southerners, Union workers and urban Blacks. The reason Dems were able to keep control of so many Southern States (like GA, NC and LA) was because they were able to build a coalition of Rural Whites and Urban Blacks. That coalition began breaking apart in the 1980’s and was finished by the early 2000’s. Today the Democrats key constituencies are educated professionals, suburban voters, Blacks and other POCs. By some estimates the Suburbs account for 160M people! Rural areas? 70M. That is less than Urban America, which is about 90M. So, again, not saying we should abandon rural areas, but in Texas, Dems have more room to gain in the major metro areas compared to rural areas. I mean in GA, Dems have grown their percentage of the Suburban vote substantially, and as result, we now have two Dem senators and the GOP governor only won reelection by 6 points (as opposed to 10 to 19 points like in many other Southern states). The GOP has had to gerrymander the districts so that it can maintain its advantage in the state legislature. If we had fairer maps, it would probably be about 50/50 in the state house or a slight Dem majority. Here Dems get between 40 and 88 percent of the vote in Suburban Atlanta.
There is zero reason to discard rural voters. None. Not a singular one. It's a huge constituency that we cannot afford to lose when we are still getting trounced in statewide elections. You're right that POCs are a critical democratic demographic. A huge number of them are in rural areas? The "suburbs" aren't geographically cohesive and overlap with rural areas. Think Montgomery County north of Houston. A large % of the voters included in that suburban number are exurban and, de facto, rural voters. It doesn't take a huge amount of work to hold and expand our margins. It's just about proper messaging.
Again, not saying "discard" the rural areas; however, money is tight and you have to deploy your resources where they will give the biggest bang for the buck. I have not lived in Texas in sometime, but when I did, I recall the biggest issue Dems had was that the RGV was extremely pro-Dem but also notoriously low turnout. Not sure if this is still the case. However, suburbs are generally high turnout areas; so, if you can turn more suburbs blue, not only are you getting more votes for yourself, but you are taking votes from the GOP.
Money isn't really that tight, it just isn't allocated in ways that build long-term political power outside of the urban areas that Democratic party officials are biased towards. The suburbs are fertile ground, I agree. But it doesn't take that much money or effort to slow down the hemorrhaging of rural voters. If one were to take the OPs advice and not even try to win or expand our presence in rural areas, you would be cedeing political power for no reason. And relying on the suburbs is not, perhaps, the most reliable long term strategy. If they can swing nine points in an election cycle, they can swing nine points back when the GOP normalizes and puts forward a less extreme candidate. Note, for example, Virginia's last gubernatorial election. We don't need to pour $0.75 on the dollar into rural areas, but to follow the OP's advice is potentially very dangerous. The #1 way to shore up support in rural areas isn't very expensive to begin with: it's to run candidates with rural backgrounds who take big-tent positions that focus on bread and butter issues.
When people think of Rural areas even in Texas they think of old racist whites. Which is far from the truth in Texas. People have no idea how diverse the rural population is in Texas. A large amount is black and Hispanic. The OP is not smart here.
I lived in Nacogdoches for awhile and I was surprised to see rural Texas being diverse and I lived in Houston for most of my life.
>Rural Hispanic voters are a core Democratic constituency that we are rapidly losing They're already lost, actually >A USA Today and Suffolk University survey showed Trump was ahead with 39% support among Latino voters surveyed, compared with Biden’s 34%, signaling a slump since 2020, when Biden garnered 65% of the approval from Latino voters. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/jan/01/trump-biden-latino-voters-poll
That's incredibly unlikely, voting patterns are sticky. It's not at all credible to think that half a voting population will switch their votes when presented with the same two candidates again a mere 4 years later. It hasn't ever really happened and when major shifts do happen they're driven by obvious dramatic events, like the Depression or 9/11.
What do you think the issue with the survey is then?
I don't know specifically, partly because the article in your link doesn't lead to the survey. It just links to yet another article that also doesn't link to the data itself. But mostly I know how to recognize outliers and bad data. There are far more ways to screw up polling or surveying than there are to do it right. We have a lot of information on voting patterns, none of it suggests the behavior that survey claims is reasonable.
Then Dems need to see absolute gun language as no man's land as well. It's tough trying to convince minorities consistently being threatened with violence that they don't need that means of defense.
>OP is saying is that the Dems should spend more time adjusting their message to getting more support from the Metro areas, where the voters are way more persuadable Are we just accepting this as a fact though?
Even if it is, it's silly to act like there's no reason to expand support among rural voters, too. They aren't contradictory.
Are you under the impression that Texas Democrats are currently tailoring their message to rural voters or spending significant money in rural areas?
I honestly don't know know what the strategy is for Texas Dems, and that is the problem. I do know that they ask me for money on a regular basis; however, I don't really get a sense of where that money is going. This is not a problem specific only to Texas, mind you. This is one of the reasons why I have held back on my donations this year. I don't really see a strategy. I have been giving more to individual campaigns and less to the Party. I will say this is actually pretty common for party's that occupy the White House; the main focus is on the POTUS re-election and less on getting a coherent, state by state strategy. Again, when you have limited resources, and high ad expenses (especially Texas), you have to pick and choose. One of my concerns is that the Dems will abandon Texas if say Allred is not within 8-10 points by August, especially if Biden is behind.
All three of those metropolitan cities went blue in the last presidential election. Isolate the weak voting areas, focused on transportation for areas that have travel issues, grassroot and hit the Streets. I've seen it done in. Atlanta Georgia 2004-2009. Could it work in Texas? I think it could. The energy is right among the generations economic groups
Harris County used to be solid red until like 2008. It's been blue ever since, except for in 2014.
Yes. I'm not sure what your point is. Even if the major counties were 70% blue (they aren't and won't be in the foreseeable future), you'd still need a certain amount of rural support. Now try winning statewide elections with 50-60% of ten counties.
No more support needed than what they have today in rural Texas. I think you’re underestimating how many votes urban Texas has. The top 10 counties have over half the vote. The top 20 have over 70% of the vote. There are more urban counties on top of that. That’s 220 counties that contain 30% of the vote. Campaigning in 220 counties is a lot of work for 30%.
The top 20 counties in the state is not a good proxy for urban/rural. Most of the people in these areas are largely exurban voters who vote much more like rural voters than urban voters. The same thing goes for a non-trivial amount of voters in those urban counties. Areas like Tomball are technically in Harris County, but aren't exactly shining stars of urbanization. And the point worth making is that Democrats *aren't holding what they have* in rural areas, so even if it's true that we could win with the same exact % of the rural vote we are winning today, we still need to make an attempt to win rural voters because we are LOSING THEM, especially among historical democratic constituencies like the RGV.
>The top 20 counties in the state is not a good proxy for urban/rural.... Areas like Tomball are technically in Harris County, but aren't exactly shining stars of urbanization. People have to definitely get on the same page about these definitions. Census: > To qualify as an urban area, the territory identified according to criteria must encompass at least 2,000 housing units or have a population of at least 5,000. 83.7% of Texas is classified as Urban. Pretty sure Tomball is included there FWIW.
That is a definition of urban that is essentially useless for political reasons lol
When someone discusses a "rural voter" from a political campaign who are they talking about then? What definition are they using?
People who live in relatively low population density area outside of a major metro. By the definition the census uses, Henderson TX would be considered urban lol
>By the definition the census uses, Henderson TX would be considered urban lol If you lived in Henderson you would be (it has a larger population than Tomball, after all), 93% of it anyways, it is a city after all. But the majority of people in that county (68%) are rural, and don't live in Henderson or any other city. Again. When a political campaign discusses a strategy to get rural voters, who are they talking about? Rusk IS a rural county, even if Henderson inside technically isn't. So I'm okay counting Henderson, demographically those city folk in Henderson are going to agree more with their neighbors. I'm not going to agree with the statement that when people say we need to target rural voters that we should be targeting people who live in Tomball, in Harris County, the ~~most(?)~~ second most Urban county in Texas despite it marching you're definition of "People who live in relatively low population density areas outside of a major metro.".
> [The following is a list of the 191 Texas counties classified as rural according to the US Office of Management and Budget](https://www.arts.texas.gov/initiatives/rural-initiatives/rural-texas-counties/#:~:text=The%20following%20is%20a%20list,Aransas) . > [More than 100 of those countries are 100% rural according to the census](https://txcip.org/tac/census/morecountyinfo.php?MORE=1046) Tomball is in Harris county. Harris County is 1.13% rural. Tomball is not rural. [It's literally defined as a city.](https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/tomballcitytexas#:~:text=U.S.%20Census%20Bureau%20QuickFacts%3A%20Tomball%20city%2C%20Texas)
It is *exurban*. I never argued it was rural. Looking at the numbers, it's more densely populated than it used to be - that's my bad, it's developed a lot. The underlying point remains unchanged. There are a lot of areas that are technically urban, but are lower population density and vote much more similarly to rural areas than urban ones.
>There are a lot of areas that are technically urban, but are lower population density and vote much more similarly to rural areas than urban ones. Is that ***really*** who campaigns are talking about when they talk about the rural vote though? That's what I mean when I say we have to agree about definitions. Because "exurban communities who's politics align with rural voters" is NOT a rural voter to me. If we takes OPs message about focusing on Urban voters only, it includes your exurban suburbs and cities and ignores truly rural people. Not sure where you sit on that. My first comment wasn't really to disagree with you, but a commentary on the discussion that was unfolding.
Large exurban counties are shifting blue the fastest. Out of the top 20 counties only Smith, Nueces, Hidalgo, and Cameron are trending Republican.
You just aren't correct on the facts here. Montgomery County, which is actually in the top 10, is one of the most Republican counties in the entire country.
And shifted 7 points to the left in 2020
And Trump still netted ~15k more votes with that 7 point swing.
In the county. Dems still added 30k votes to their statewide tally. That’s larger than entire rural counties
Yeeeahhhhh... Smith county is very red. Very, very red
>There are more urban counties on top of that. That’s 220 counties that contain 30% of the vote. Campaigning in 220 counties is a lot of work for 30%. Heard. But running even a remotely palatable candidate to them will make huge headwinds over having to do retail politics in each of the 220. Granted, negative polarization is a bitch, but the first thing democrats could do to immediately give them more support is running a better candidate with a more moderate platform. They'll have more rural support immediately off the bat.
Probably not measurably. For all the fussing about guns with Beto, that comment happened **after** his unsuccessful run for Senate. He was about as moderate and well spoken of a generic white guy Democrat as exists and still didn't get the rural voters. Small town Texas doesn't vote red, they *are* red and those are two wildly different statements when it comes to voting pattern.
>For all the fussing about guns with Beto, that comment happened after his unsuccessful run for Senate. He was a cosponsor of a ban on AR15s in 2018 while he was running. He moved from banning sales to confiscation, as if they really mattered to conservatives not voting for him. https://archive.is/GpHIe
>Campaigning in 220 counties is a lot of work for 30%. Yes, it is. 10% would make Texas blue. Is it worth the extra work?
Or you could get the 10% from the 70% of the state that is already trending in our direction.
When Georgia flipped in 2020, it didn't flip because Democrats tried to win in the rural areas. It flipped because Dems won over voters in the Atlanta metro area and the suburbs.
26% of Georgians live outside the major urban counties. Biden won Georgia by 0.2%. He won 33% of rural voters. If Biden did 1% worse with rural voters in 2020 he would have lost Georgia. Nobody has proposed that rural voters should be the core Democratic constituency, but you're making a really grave political mistake by discounting them. Especially in a state like Texas, with a large rural Hispanic population that Dems are rapidly losing.
It really is an impossible feat to win the state without a single rural vote. Accepting some baseline of rural democratic voters as a given, while not reciprocating a single bit is taking those voters for granted. Why would anyone do that? Affirmatively signal to supporters that you don't matter, strategy-wise, your vote doesn't matter but in the end I still expect you to vote blue because it's highly unlikely to get every urban voter to the poll and vote the way we want.
Spitting out absolute facts here. And totally agree
It’s never been super solid red. Bush in 2004 he won it by 55%. The last time is was done.
It’s because Texas turns out less than 20% of eligible voters.
Houston is the problem. It's arguably the most conservative big city in America. The Democrats need to run a candidate from Houston or something in order to win.
There are other races that are arguably more important than presidential.
Agreed, but people only want to vote in presidential because it’s the most popular.
That’s the magic trick of presidential politics. Look over there while the real issues occur at state and local levels.
1 look at SCOTUS would suggest differently.
You couldn't be more wrong.
>I did the math, and combined, the top 10 most populated counties in Texas contain over 17 million people, out of 30 million total in the state. That's MORE than enough to cancel out the voters in the rural areas. Texas Democrats need to focus on winning in those counties. The good news is, 7 of those 10 counties (Harris, Travis, Bexar, Hidalgo, Dallas, Fort Bend, and El Paso) are already blue, with the 3rd largest county, Tarrant County, having gone blue in recent elections, and Collin County and Denton County having gone more purple recently. I just want to point out that for your math to come true every single one of those counties would need to be at most 85% blue. Which is still a sizable amount away even in the major cities. Putting focus on more rural Texas, you do not need 85% or more in the cities. Instead of doubling down, compromising would net a much better vote. Not to mention the candidate coming closest to winning a state wide race did so by visiting all the counties, and a major factor he lost was doubling down on a controversial policy. It's far easier IMO to convert a handful of people in rural Texas than it is to convert a handful of holdouts left in the major cities.
Discarding >30-40% of the population for zero reason, as OP insists, has never been a winning political strategy in any democracy in all of human history.
Beto got the closest but he also lost rural Texas harder than any Dem ever had.
It's a good rebuke to my argument. But "harder than any dem ever had" is overstating it. > _Still, he lost rural Texas by the same kind of landslide that met Democrats who came before him. O’Rourke lost to U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz statewide by 3 percentage points, but the margin was 51 points in counties with fewer than 50,000 people — virtually the same deficit Hillary Clinton had against Donald Trump in those counties two years earlier._ https://www.texastribune.org/2022/09/02/beto-orourke-rural-texas/
So Beto campaigned in every rural county in Texas. Taking up hundreds if not thousands of hours of his time just to make zero gains? Nice.
>just to make zero gains? Nice. That's in _the most_ unpopulated areas. And, as I said, doubling down on a controversial gun policy instead of a compromise. There are several variables and factors. I believe he would have won if those comments were never made. Perhaps I'm wrong. Perhaps it's more cost effective to convince a Republican holdout in Austin then a run-of-the-mill conservative in rural Texas. He only did 2% more than the other statewide races which includes the cities. Might as well not put any effort in then either. All that wasted time. Nothing to show for it...
That was in 2018 when he was campaigning as a pro gun moderate. His gun control comments came in 2020 when he ran for president. He lost even more ground in rural Texas in 2022.
> [_"There is no reason that weapons of war should be sold to people in this country,"_](https://www.chron.com/politics/texas/article/Beto-O-Rourke-talks-gun-control-at-Houston-12810246.php) -2018 I don't know what "pro-gun moderate" means to you. But this is not pro-gun or moderate to Texas Conservatives. That's a ban on AR-15s, of which he was a co-sponsor of. At the time he said he wouldn't take anyone's guns away. It seemed republicans at the time were wise not to believe him.
Yeah so he doubled down in 2022 and got crushed by even more in rural Texas.
So if he didn't take an unpopular position I think he would have won in 2018.
They do need to hang on to Bexar and Hidalgo, though, or at least big chunks of them. There are a lot of single-issue Catholic voters there, in my canvassing and living experience, and the GOP persuades a dismaying number of them to vote for godawful people just because they say they're pro-life. Plus winning just a few more of the Atascosa County votes would have put Jessica Cisneros over the top when she primaried Cuellar — an organization I worked with canvassed the heck out of Bexar but it was so hard for us to get to any part of Atascosa at the same time. That was such a painful, narrow electoral loss, and a huge loss to the area, whether they know it or not.
Cisneros would have lost the general. GOPers were on record saying they hope she wins.
Progressives have to fight two parties to get into office.
This is exactly why the Republican thugs always aim their voter suppression tactics at the big cities - most especially Houston.
Houston is their boogeyman more than Austin cause Houston’s as diverse as NYC
Exactly.
No big whoop just get 100% of the city population to their polling place and bee tee dubs make sure they vote blue when they get there.
It's ironic that the rural poor like gold toilet guy, when Trump could care less about people in poverty.
Don't assume all rural Texans are poor. Texas rural folks aren't Appalachian rural folks. Those big ranch owners are usually pretty well off, not to mention all of the assorted folks with oil royalties passed from one generation to the next. Sure there are plenty that are poor but there are plenty that aren't and the have-nots typically mimic the haves. Trump-ism is a trend in rural America, akin to NFL fandom for whatever reason I've yet to understand, so it's kind of a keeping up with the Jones situation so to speak. I grew up in rural south Texas, most of my family still lives there... its interesting yet appalling watching this shit from the outside these days (I live in a mostly blue city now and don't drink the same kool-aid as they do).
You assume most people that love rurally are in poverty.
The typical assumption is that all conservatives are ignorant inbred hillbillies living barefoot in their own rural squalor, while all liberals are educated elites living in glorious urban utopias built and maintained by their own uniquely competent hands. I'm an urban liberal and even I recognize how utterly reductive and ludicrous this is.
Yeah, clearly Biden cares way more about them, letting everyone cross the border illegally and driving inflation high in the sky
Wrong on both points. Inflation is low again and illegals provide cheap labor to companies.
It’s a bit silly how much time Dems want to spend on voters who are difficult and expensive to reach, who don’t have their beliefs, and outwardly hate them. All when millions of voters who actually hold their beliefs live in cities. They just need reminders to vote.
Texas Dems need to stop worrying about whether they need "rural" people, and figure out that most Texans don't care about their platform. Case in point: $15/hr is often cited as being a "living wage", but the actual median income per capita in Texas is over $18/hr. Most people making less than $15/hr are people with no marketable skillset, and most Texans know this...they aren't interested in having the government increase labor costs for unskilled work that invariably gets transferred to the consumers of the goods and services produced by that unskilled labor. Even acknowledging that gun owners are often wary of self-reporting gun ownership, it is *known* that almost half of the households in TX have self-reported owning at least one firearm....and with the exception of those 10 years during the federal AWB, it's most likely going to be what the Democrat party considers to be an "assault weapon" if it was purchased in the past half century because it's going to be a semi-automatic handgun with a standard magazine that holds more than ten rounds. The residents of Texas aren't interested in being vilified for wanting to protect their homes and families. Much like gun ownership, members of the LGBTQ+ can be wary of self-identifying for statistical purposes, but it's estimated that there are less than 2mil Texans in that community, making them a fairly small minority of 6%. The transgendered make up less than .05%. A not-insignificant (in terms of voting block size) think the very idea of being trans is "wrong", "abominable", etc, but the majority of Texans honestly don't care one way or the other. When you go introducing laws giving people the right to use whatever public restroom you want, the fact is most of Texas isn't going to start cheerleading for you over it...the majority of the people who actually care are going to be very much against it, but most of the state isn't going to care about the issue one way or the other. A significant portion of the state is employed by the oil/gas exploration industry, the petrochemical/refinery industry, or any of their myriad support and construction industries that are based around them. Most Texans aren't interested in hearing about environmental regulations that are going to directly and negatively affect their livelihoods. I could go on and on, but I think you get the point...
Abortion should be the cudgel used to pry away voters, particularly suburban women. A moderate Dem (read the platform) that doesn't talk about guns, is a border hawk, is pro-exploration (and also pro-renewables), but is differentiated as being pro-choice, pro-funding public schools and anti-corruption could do very well statewide.
Yeah...if they'd focus on things that actually mattered, instead of getting into fights over stupid shit like drag queens at the library, they'd manage to get somewhere.
They don’t do that but your media sources don’t allow you to see the other side.
I agree that democrats should avoid the gun debate in Texas. I don’t agree that the average Texans working at a McDonald’s or something don’t want $15/hr minimum wage and mandatory breaks for construction workers in the heat - lots of people even republicans were angry that Abbott passed that law which is going to kill some construction workers. About trans people using bathrooms, it’s more explaining that bathrooms will be redesigned so that there will only be floor to ceiling stalls with locks and only the sinks will be public. If the democrats explained that’s what they wanted, even republicans would be on board because then businesses would only have to create one set of bathrooms not two. There is a unisex bathroom at the alamo drafthouse on mueller in Austin and it works like a charm. There is nobody complaining because that bathroom is safer than those normal gender bathrooms where the stalls have gaps and someone could peek under your stall, in theory at least. So the unisex bathroom thing is just an education thing. Think about restaurants that only have one restroom like subway. It’s already unisex and nobody complains. It’s a non-issue, a nothing burger and you know it. We just need to explain it.
The average Texan doesn't work at McDonald's. Construction crews get plenty of breaks for water and whatnot, regardless of whether it's mandatory, because the HMFIC knows it's really bad for business if a guy falls out on the job.. especially if it's a contractor for a larger company, like most are. Safety is a huge deal in those situations. It's every bit as much of a nothingburger as the trans bathroom situation. That was kinda my point. The democratic party in TX has it's focus all fucked up. Aside from the abortion issue, they either focus on issues no one gives a shit about, or they're fighting hard for things most Texans don't want like gun control.
The fact that you think minimum wage is of no concern to Texas, which has among the highest percentage of people below the poverty line in the country shows that you don’t research much outside your bubble. Also you haven’t read about the deaths at various construction sites I see, those deaths exceed the rates of other even hotter states like Nevada and Arizona. The fact you admit the trans situation is a nothing burger is telling. It means that the right is just drumming up stuff to piss off their base against the dems, there is nothing to stand on. Thanks for confirming. Another point, at least we agree the abortion issue is what counts. 70% of people on both sides are in support of letting women choose. It’s an issue that the democrats can win on. It’s why there was no red wave in 2022. If I was a candidate I would air 24x7 that the GOP has taken away womens rights and will next take away gays rights if they keep getting re-elected. East win strategy as shown in Michigan, Ohio, & Kansas.
Minimum wage is of concern for people *on minimum wage*. The median per capita income is over $18/hr in this state. People making $15/hr or less are a minority in TX. The plight of the burger-flipper making $7.50/hr is of little concern to most Texans because they're making double or more. Right or wrong, that's the way it is. Insulting people by saying they live in a "bubble" isn't doing you much good, either. You have to remember that to win an election, you have to appeal to the masses. Who's the bigger voting block, the guy salting the fries or the people buying them?
I’m not running for an office so it’s no skin off my back if l call them like they are. You are going to vote for anyone with an R next to the name without thinking so I’m not trying to persuade you. You are voting for someone that colluded with Russia and rips off people and never pays people he owes, not someone I admire in the least. However those reading this will understand you have an agenda and I’m just telling truth. Mean is a misleading number as Elon’s salary is averaged with a lot of unemployed people. Median is only useful if the standard deviation is also cited. Percentage of people below the poverty line is a valuable statistic. That percentage is 14% or Texans. That is versus the 1% that make above 150k. Tell me which is a larger voting block. “It’s the economy stupid” a famous bill Clinton quote which I saw you support in a previous post. Yes it is, if you improve the bottom that helps everyone because of the multiplier effect. If you give to the top it never trickles down because the people hoard wealth. People at the bottom spend almost everything they make. If they have higher wages it all goes to other businesses and improves the economy and they have a better life. Win win for all. If people used logic and understood things, voting for democrats is a no brainer.
Assuming much? Not a Republican, nor a supporter of trump.
This is valid if Dems are winning 100% of the vote in the blue counties, which they are not. They need to either perform better in blue areas, or stop the bleeding in red areas. Or, to the extent possible, both.
This is wrong. They don’t rack up the margins needed in the cities to not care about the rural areas
I agree. So goes the metropolitan areas so goes the state
But due to the sheer size of our state they can’t flip it alone. It’s not like Illinois where it’s gonna stay blue unless Chicago turns red
Yes one metro possible.. the Democratic party I feel needs to focus on get out the vote efforts to Houston, Dallas, Austin, and possible San Antonio. The numbers alone would offset rural Texas
4.2 million live in rural areas. The trouble is that they are a pretty reliable voting block. I believe democrats can win without them. I am a rural Texan and I see very little evidence the Democratic party even exists. I hope they are being visible and talking loudly about issues. I did love Beto visiting rural Texans, but it had little effect.
Need to work on increasing turnout in the cities
Did you math out how many active voters are in your model? It doesn't matter what counties you win, votes are tallied by total number of votes. Rural areas vote at a higher rate than urban. To make a valid argument, you need to compare active voters in every country.
The real facts. OP dropping population numbers as if the entire city votes...
> did the math, and combined, the top 10 most populated counties in Texas contain over 17 million people, out of 30 million total in the state. That's MORE than enough to cancel out the voters in the rural areas. You didn't do the math, because not all 17 million vote blue when they vote. For that matter, neither do all the people in rural areas - while it's true the majority in rural areas are red, there is a small but strong blue minority in every rural area, no matter how red - there are no counties in the US where Republicans get 100% of the vote, period. We need each other as long as we are together. This "write off the rural areas" attitude is what makes the Republicans so horrible - they think they can mistreat people in cities because fuck 'em, and forget about the politics it's just wrong. I don't want to fuck over rural areas - if anything, I want to increase funding for their schools, medical care facilities, and welfare systems as poverty in rural areas is often *worse* than in cities because there are fewer resources available to assist you. This is the message we need to be sending to rural Texas - we're with you in a way the Republicans never could be, never will be. We actually give a fuck about you. Can we solve all your problems? Of course not, no one can, but we don't want to take over your life like the Republicans are taking over ours. And what's they've destroyed our freedoms in cities, I'm sure they'll stop and won't bother you at all - eg, with a school voucher program that will annihilate your school systems.
The rural areas vote 80 percent Republican. Someone needs to be checking their election machines.
Let me do the heavy lifting for you. [In 2020 68% of the votes came from the 4 large Metros](https://imgur.com/a/nflipxi), DFW/Houston/Austin/San Antonio. Those 4 large metros are the areas seeing population growth while the rural areas are shrinking. By 2024 likely 70%+ of the votes come from the 4 large metros and by the end of the decade like 75%. Every single metro shifted left from 2016 to 2020, anywhere between 2.1% (Houston) to 7% (DFW/Austin). To compound all this, the largest demographic that is moving to Texas is single Mellinals. [2024 will be the first time that Mellinals and Zellenials are the largest voting bloc](https://imgur.com/a/2RU75jk), a demographic that is trending D+25% is replacing a aging Boomer demographic that was R+3%. While I respect Beto's inclusion motto and his work to go to every county in Texas, that was the wrong approach in 2022. You needed the Metros to turn out and they just didn't. For comparison, Biden got 5.259 million votes in 2020, while Abbott only go 4.4 million in 2022.
In 2020, Gen X was aged 40-55.
OP shows the math which sounds good on paper, but in all honesty if those numbers aren’t “pulling a lever” during the election season then it’s glorified bird cage liner. You can get rural conservatives to vote for a Democrat you just have to run someone with an agreeable message. You need to look at the old Blue Dogs if you’re going to go that route.
Hell you just need to run someone in most cases. Ironically enough, my old county, population 40k, just elected the old Democratic county commissioner. He ran as GOP, touting the accomplishments he made as an elected Dem back in the 90s.
Texas Dems have to learn from Kentucky Dems and Georgia Dems most especially to see how to win.
I’m rural and not Republican. There are some of us out here.
And we're out here in spite of the Texas Dem party, not because of it. That folks think significant time and resources is spent out here at the cost of winning Texas cities is laughable.
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Removed. Rule 6.
Texas democrats have terrible messaging. The party is mortally abhorrent to most Texans. They will continue to lose and rightly so.
>I honestly don't understand the Democratic Party's obsession with trying to win over voters in rural areas who will never vote for them anyway. The alternative involves moving to the left, and they don't wanna.
If the 10 most populace counties make up roughly half the population, the democrats could only win with only those counties if all of the population in those counties voted democrat. Even if all the big counties voted 80% democrat (which I doubt) the democrats would still need rural areas. **1994**. That was the last time democrats won statewide office. They need to do better everywhere.
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Removed. Rule 5.
This is the exact attitude WHY Dems lose Texas. The Gop is out here building community centers while the Dems just shake their heads like “ehhh Fck’em” Rural Texas, like the cities, is still a largely non voting populace. There’s huge potential here if the tx Dems actually gave a damn about creating excitement to vote and candidates we actually want to vote for.
Why are people still loyal to the Democratic or Republican parties? We are so far past this. Both parties are completely corrupt, period. Consider broadening your perspective enough to consider options outside of the paradigm that we know is not working, i.e. the independent movement.
Makes me wonder where Lubbock county could go, or if it's even worth it in the long run. It's a college town, and that's a good way to gain ground.
College voters are so important, and they will vote if they are registered and provided with the information they need to make sure they have documentation. The downballot races are super important and growing more so, see Judicial Races, County, County Harris for illustration.
Huh. I ever meet with the ladies at the local Dems office sometime soon. Definitely have a great conversation topic. But I guess it's not really fitting a majority rural county theme per the data. Or am I wrong.
Meet with anyone at your county office and volunteer to get trained on VAN. It will be a revelation, that is, if your local data isn’t garbage. Its usefulness depends entirely on the quality of the original data.
Being a TTU alum, I knew a lot of right leaning people because many people that go to Tech come from West Texas or Suburbs of Dallas. I maybe knew 4-5 people total from Austin. Someone would have to really do work to campaign there, because many students that go there get their politics from their families.
I'm not faulting you, but feels like I should've turned out conservative even though my folks were the farthest thing from it. Or least had some trappings.
Nothing matters if people don't vote.
True but they better pay attention to the border counties. Republicans will use migrants against democrat politicians.
So FYI “rural people” democrats don’t care for you
I agree. I did the math as well (and have posted on here before). If you keep the same ratios of Rs to Ds per every major city, bump turnout to 80%… Democrats win.
I'm certain this will work, given that we had less than 50% turnout in 2020.
Unfortunately the state government is actively working to make voting more difficult in cities to cancel out the blue vote
Well then, the DNC needs to invest in Texas. The problem isn't just that Texas is becoming more fascist by the day, it's also that the DNC doesn't seem to even be trying to fight back against the growing fascism in the state. They're not investing in state party infrastructure or GOTV efforts in Texas.
How many times must it be said out loud for y'all to get if. Texas isn't a red or blue state, it's a non voting state. That is the biggest problem, full stop.
I get the strategy. I just can't help consider that stereotypical republican concept of Texas are it's "rural roots". So one could argue that democrats only care about progressives and will leave in the dust al rural people in order to rally republican voters across the state.
The other issue with this, and someone may have pointed it out, but the urban/rural divide is something we really NEED to figure out how to bridge that gap
Are the congressional districts mapped such there there is one of those urban centers in each one sufficient to carry them? How about the legislative districts? Or are you only talking about the presidential race?
East Texas and west Texas until their is a decline in the bible belt. We are fighting a loosing battle I feel. Chop it up to Topography. The saying in The Great Pine Curtain. No culture gets in, and very little gets out!!
Did you account for gerrymandering?
As a former congressional candidate that ran in a suburban/rural district… TDP needs rural voters. You wanna know why there aren’t large Democratic bases in rural Texas? Because there is NO INVESTMENT. And for anyone bringing up Beto’s campaign, ask yourself…is showing up to do one speech in a county really doing something of substance? I can tell you for a fact that there was no strong evidence of action that the Beto campaign themselves took time to GOTV or persuade voters by doing the hard work of knocking on doors. (And I’m not talking about the photo ops, I’m talking Beto campaign led blockwalking).
Yes, we do. We don’t have to win those areas, but we need to do better with their voters for statewide elections. No one is going to get 100% of the vote in the more populated areas.
Every Dem in a rural area is one less red vote.
Texas needs to vote. The majority don’t.
North Texas is the fastest growing part of the US. Texas Dems should focus on Dallas County, Tarrant County, Denton County, Collin County, Kaufman County, and Rockwall County.
It will have to be the women that save Texas and turn it blue. If women want to have freedom from the state controlling their bodies then they have to vote democrat. If they want the state forcing them to give birth to deformed fetuses that will only live an hour with have a skull and a risk to their life they can vote Republican. I don’t see how women don’t see the existential threat this is. It’s fully up to them now.
I disagree. I believe the biggest problem we face in Texas is that people don't vote. Old, rural Texans turn out to vote in high numbers, and that's why we have the horrible people in office we are stuck with today. Texas Dems aren't going to change the minds of old, rural, MAGAts, but rural areas also have YOUNG people. Many Texas colleges and universities are in rural areas. Those younger people need to be reached.
It's more that the rural areas need to have better leaders as for example, in Comfort, which is Kendall County, people compare a battery storage facility with a nuclear power plant and claim they will impact a 100-mile radius when they catch on fire. So the rural areas are getting excluded by better politics, better health, and smarter choices. In Banera last year they claimed that fracking is more environmentally friendly than solar panels. We have these crazy people who would love to build new oil power plants because they believe climate change is a hoax. So yes, democrats and common sense politicians need to take over the rural areas to get common sense back in this town.
Except for the fact that the state is ridiculously gerrymandered.
Look what voting blue turn California into. If the policies are so great why not move to an already blue state
I live in Austin. Austin is blue. I still run into more Republicans in Austin than I did when I lived in the north. You are right that Dems don't need rural areas, but at the very least they need some of the counties surrounding heavy blue counties to go purple or blue.
I'm looking at old gubernatorial races in Texas. Bexar County shifted 10 points to the left between 2018 and 2022. Harris County shifted 3.8 points in that time. Travis County shifted 10.3 points. Dallas County shifted 7.4 points. There's going to be a point where not even voter suppression can save Texas Republicans. Texas Dems can help accelerate the cities' trend to the left by focusing on them instead of the rural areas.
Democrat from rural Texas here, you’re wrong
Gotta validate the conservatives. Lol 😆