Texas Is Still An Extremely Red State

I voted early yesterday, voting for a mixture of Democratic and Green Party candidates. But I don't really expect any of those candidates to actually win here in Texas. Why do I say that? Isn't the demographic trend making Texas a blue state?

Well yes, but the demographic change in Texas (when whites will make up a minority of the population) will not turn the state blue for perhaps another 20 years. The school system already has a majority of minorities (when you combine African-Americans and Hispanics), but it will take that generation growing up to make that a reality for the state in general -- and the Republicans are trying to put that off as long as they can through voter suppression efforts (like Voter ID).

For now, the Republican Party seems to have an iron grip on the state. This is verified by the newest Texas Tribune/University of Texas Poll (taken this month of 800 Texas adults). The poll shows that Willard Mitt Romney (aka Wall Street Willie) will easily capture Texas' electoral votes, and Texas will be sending a lying Republican teabagger to the United States Senate. Here are the numbers:

WHO WILL YOU VOTE FOR IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE?
Barack Obama...............39%
Willard Mitt Romney...............55%
Someone else...............6%

WHO WILL YOU VOTE FOR IN THE SENATE RACE?
Paul Sadler (Democrat)...............39%
Ted Cruz (Republican)...............54%
John Jay Myers (Libertarian)...............3%
David Collins (Green)...............2%
Someone else...............2%

The same strong lean toward Republicans can be seen by the poll's favorability numbers on each of these candidates:

BARACK OBAMA
favorable...............39%
unfavorable...............57%
neither/dk/no opinion...............4%

WILLARD MITT ROMNEY
favorable...............52%
unfavorable...............41%
neither/dk/no opinion...............7%

PAUL SADLER
favorable...............23%
unfavorable...............14%
neither...............20%
don't know enough about him...............43%

TED CRUZ
favorable...............49%
unfavorable...............29%
neither...............11%
don't know enough about him...............11%

There was one number that gives some hope for the future. The poll showed that almost as many people identified themselves as Democrats (41%) as those who identified themselves as Republicans (44%). About 12% identified as Independents, and about 3% as other. Evidently though, at least for now, those Independents seem to be breaking largely for the Republicans. If this trend continues down-ballot, then the voters will most likely return significant majorities for the Republicans in both houses of the Texas legislature.

There is another important statewide race -- for a seat on the Railroad Commission. This is sort of a misnomer, since the Railroad Commission has nothing to do with railroads. What it actually does is supervise oil and gas production in the state. Here are those numbers:

WHO WILL YOU VOTE FOR IN THE RAILROAD COMMISSION RACE?
Dale Henry (Democrat)...............36%
Christi Craddick (Republican)...............50%
Vivekandanda Wall (Libertarian)...............6%
Chris Kennedy (Green)...............6%
Someone else...............3%