Red to Purple? Changing Demographics and Party Change in Texas

Abstract

In the 2018 U.S. Senate election in Texas Democrat Beto O'Rourke came within 2.5% of defeating Senator Ted Cruz. In the 2016 presidential election Hilary Clinton lost to Donald Trump by 9%points. While this was a large loss, it was narrower than Barack Obama's 16%-point loss in 2012. Do these results indicate the long-awaited party transformation in Texas has begun, or was it simply a case of a 2018 Democratic wave election? The state's ethnic and racial minority groups (people of color [POC]) are now a majority of the population, and the non-Hispanic white population is aging and being replaced by a much smaller cohort of whites. Have the demographic changes that Texas has experienced primed Texas for change from Republican domination to competitive elections between Democrats and Republicans? This research will examine party identification in Texas by investigating demographic data and political generations. Individual level survey data from 2009-through 2019 will be used to measure trends in party identification by POC and generational cohorts. The initial findings suggest that Texas may be entering a transition phase as older white Texans (a large and very Republican cohort) are replaced by younger whites who are less likely to identify as Republican and are a relatively small cohort. In addition, the growing POC population that is replacing the older white cohorts is also the most likely to identify as Democratic. Thus, the research indicates that change is coming to Texas, and this change will have national political implications.