Drew Landry, an assistant professor of government at South Plains College in Levelland, Texas, wrote today for for the Dallas Morning News: under the headline, "The rural Texas vote is more powerful than you think."
On election night, as losing political campaigns across Texas look back at what they should have done differently, they should consider that big red section of the state map west of Interstate 35.
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The difference in Texas politics is the rural vote. In a state like Illinois, Pennsylvania or New York, the big-city vote is the end all, be all. To win statewide in Illinois, one must win Chicago, its surrounding counties and a few other counties to capture victory. A map of its 2020 presidential vote easily shows this. The same rule applies to Pennsylvania and New York. In those states, the rural vote is not strong enough to overcome the urban vote. Unlike those states, however, Texas’ rural vote is powerful.
According to 2022 county election data, from the Panhandle to the Concho Valley, West Texas has roughly 1 million voters. About half of the rural vote comes west of I-35. Add that to the registered voters in Central, East and South Texas, that equates to roughly 2 million voters in rural Texas.
Readers may wonder why that matters. There are more voters in the metros and suburbs than West Texas. There has been speculation that Dallas County — with its star power and resources — could boost Democrats statewide.
But observers often forget the numbers and turnout. In 2020, Trump got more than 40% of the vote in Harris County, around 35% in Dallas County, 40% in Bexar County and a tick over 30% in El Paso County. Trump barely got a quarter of the vote in Travis County. How did Trump win Texas without winning the urban vote? The rural vote came to his rescue, as it did with Sen. Ted Cruz in his 2018 reelection.
Texas Democrats acknowledged the need for an improved rural outreach at the state convention this past summer. But what has been done since the acknowledgment?
Voter outreach usually falls to down-ballot candidates, and in a lot of rural areas, that is a tremendous challenge for Democrats. In West Texas, there are Republican advertisements in almost every commercial break on radio and television, urging voters to support all Republican candidates. The Democratic response? One group purchased a billboard ad.
Democrats, by and large, do not want to advertise west of I-35, and that is to their detriment. All roads come through West Texas when it comes to winning statewide. Republicans get it. Both Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick visited the area knowing they need to win there, and win big.
One of the ways Democrats are finding to crack into the “Red Wall of Texas” — a.k.a. West Texas — is by discussing kitchen table issues like public education, health care and property taxes. They like to point out the support from Abbott and Patrick for school vouchers. Rural communities orbit around public schools. And Democrats make the case that if voters want to lower property taxes, the Texas Legislature must make public education funding a top priority, not fund wealthier families in the suburbs. Also, Democrats pin shrinking access to rural health care on Republicans. Democrats argue the Republicans’ decision not to expand Medicaid coverage came at the cost of losing local hospitals, 26 of which closed between 2010 and 2020 in rural Texas, according to the Texas Organization of Rural and Community Hospitals.
Does that strategy cause enough rural voters to cross over or simply leave the ballot blank? We will see in two days. But let us remember a critical fact: Republicans need West Texas, and in a big way. If statewide Republicans’ support in their most reliable area is in question, then so is their ability to win.
For Democrats to win statewide, they not only need to win the urban areas, key suburban areas and South Texas, but they also need to compete in West Texas. Until the Texas Democratic Party realizes that, Republicans will continue their dominance; for as West Texas goes, so goes the state.
Here are two pieces from earlier this by Jon Mark Hogg of the 134 PAC, the "leading voice for rural Texas Democrats." The first is headlined "Nobody Knows What They are Doing," and includes this lede:
I am going to say the quiet part out loud. Nobody knows how to win an election as a Democrat in rural Texas, at least not in deep red rural Texas. The Texas Democratic Party doesn't, none of the statewide campaigns do, political professionals, activists, consultants and operatives don't either. We have completely lost that institutional memory. Anyone who tries to tell you they know what will work in rural Texas politics is either lying to you or selling something,
So why does The 134 PAC think it does? We don't. We admit it. But The 134 PAC is not about knowing what works in any given county. The 134 PAC is about being a political laboratory, free from the restrictions of the party and unreasonable expectations. Over the next twenty to thirty years we are going to figure out what works and what doesn't by being present and fostering county parties with the freedom to throw away the book and start experimenting.
A few weeks earlier, Hogg wrote "A Plan to Rebuild Rural Texas," including:
When the party Chairman joined us for our fundraiser event in Amarillo in July, he told me that while he knew that I had been critical of the party, after he won his reelection as Chair he wanted to sit down and talk with The 134 PAC about what the party should be doing in rural Texas. That was in July. Tomorrow is Labor Day. We still have not heard from the Chair.
Last week the party announced a media tour to talk about the party platform and issues in "every corner of the state". Every corner of the state did not include The 134.
This theme of Democratic Party neglect of rural reaches is a recurring one among rural political organizers.
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