Texas Is Swinging From A Red State To Blue

We already know the 2024 Presidential election is going to be one of the most talked about, and most interesting elections we've have in United States history. The question is how is Texas going to play into it?

For the longest time, it's been widely discussed and said that Texas is a "red state", meaning that the Republican party tends to win out in just about every election, whether it's a state election or national election.

Something has been changing however, and it isn't something that happened overnight. Vice President Harris is going to be in Houston on Thursday, and many people are wondering if she'd be there if she felt like she couldn't win Texas should she become the Democratic nominee.

Yes, the Houston area is dealing with some damage from Hurricane Beryl, but that's not what she's in town for. She is speaking at the teachers union convention.

So why after all these years and elections of Texas being this so-called "red state" are people starting to wonder if Texas is going to shift to a "blue state"? It's been said for many years that's the direction the state was headed in, but many, including myself, didn't believe that was possible.

As you know, all this data ends up being tracked. We can see how cities, counties, and regions have a tendency to vote, and it's been quite a shift over the last 20 years in Texas. There are 17 different areas or regions in the data that were tracked, and it seems to be the most populous areas in Texas, which makes perfect sense. Those areas/regions are:

Harris County (Houston)
Greater Houston
East Texas
Dallas County (Dallas)
Collin/Denton Counties
Tarrant County (Ft. Worth/Arlington)
Bexar County (San Antonio)
Central Texas
Travis County (Austin)
Outer DFW Metroplex
Lower Rio Grande Valley
Greater Austin
High Plains/Panhandle
Southeast Texas
Upper Rio Grande Valley
Greater San Antonio
West Texas

Let's take a look at some of the data.

2000

During the 2000 election, out of those 17 areas/regions, only TWO of them leaned blue. Lower Rio Grande Valley and Upper Rio Grande Valley were the only two areas that showed a lean in the blue direction. The rest of the state was popping red.

There were several counties that were showing they were more even than the other counties and showed they may tend to swing from red to blue. Those areas were Dallas County, Bexar County, and Travis County.

2004

Four years later, both Rio Grande Valley areas were still on the blue side of things, but they had a friend join them. Travis County took a HUGE swing in the blue direction, giving the Democratic party a rather large county to be able to glob on to.

Dallas County remained a red county but by the slimmest of margins, while Bexar County became stronger for the Republican side of things despite teetering on the edge of flipping to a blue area.

2008

This is where things started to get interesting. In 2004, we had 3 areas/regions that were on the blue side, with 14 still on the red side. In 2008, the entire landscape shifted. Two more areas/regions were added to the blue side, Dallas County and Bexar County.

The interesting one here is Bexar County. They started as a county on the line of the two parties, then strengthened the red hold in 2004, before dramatically swinging to a blue county. Was it due to a population shift or a beliefs flip? That's something we can't be sure of.

2012

This is the one year where we didn't really see any type of movement. We stayed at 5 areas/regions for blue, with 12 on the red side of things. There is one important note here though. Harris County continued their trend towards being a blue county for the fourth election in a row, and was a literal 50/50 county in 2012.

2016

This would be the election year where Harris County would become a blue area, and not slightly, but pretty dramatically. Outside of that flip, every area/region that was red remained that way.

That doesn't mean there weren't some takeaways. Dallas County ticked up even more for the Democratic party and had become solidly blue at this point. Same story for Travis County, who in 5 election cycles went from being a slight red area to the second strongest Democratic stronghold in the state, trailing only Upper Rio Grande Valley.

2020

So we've arrived at the most recent Presidential election we've gone through. We've seen three areas/regions flip from red to blue so far, and some start a trend towards being a blue region. After years of staying steady, we saw some change.

Two more areas/regions flipped from red to blue in 2020, Tarrant County and Greater Austin. Both of those flips were significant for the Democratic party as it essentially gave ownership to the party in the entire Austin area as well as the core of the Dallas area.

RECAP

As you break it all down, we started 2000 with 15 areas & regions leaning or being a Republican stronghold, thus giving Texas the label of being a "red state". By the end of 2020 though, we'd seen a seismic shift with the Democratic party picking up 5 areas & regions, giving them 7 compared to the Republican's 10 areas/regions.

With such an interesting, and potentially divisive, election on the cusp of happening, where will Texas land? Is it possible that this is the year Texas will become a "blue state"? Or will we see it shift back towards the "red state" it's been for as long as we can remember?

Time will tell, but it's something to watch as the process moves to November.