Kos writes about Texas’s steady march to swing-state status, but he overlooked one thing. He notes that the latest PPP Poll shows Romney with an anemic 50-43 lead in the Lone Star State, but he doesn’t dwell on the numbers among Latinos, where Obama leads by an equally meager 56-34 margin. A February Fox News Latino poll found Obama leading Romney 70%-14% nationally. An April Pew Research Poll found Obama ahead 67%-27%. If Obama were doing as well among Latinos in Texas as he is nationally, Texas would already be a swing-state. And there are the 2.7 million Latinos in Texas who are legally eligible to vote but who haven’t registered. Imagine if they all voted. At a 56% level of support, Obama would net 300,000 votes. At a 67% level of support, he would net 600,000 votes. McCain won the state by about 950,000. If the Latinos who are registered and likely to vote are added and their support is 67%, then the state would probably lean in Obama’s direction. And, remember, Romney is polling weaker than McCain, so Obama probably doesn’t have to make up a 950,000 vote deficit. It’s probably more like 650,000.
The Obama administration isn’t going to devote the kind of resources that would be required to take a real shot at winning Texas. But the fact that there is a clear path there already shows how quickly the GOP is going to have to change its nature. As Kos points out, the demographics of Texas tell an unforgiving tale for conservatives.
Out of Laredo’s 24,788 students, just 81 are Anglo. In Houston, just 8 percent of public schoolchildren are white, and that number is 5 percent in Dallas. In Fort Bend, 40 percent of kids were white in 2000. Today, it’s 19 percent. Lubbok went from 42 percent to 28 percent.
In the entire state, 43.1 percent of public schoolchildren were Anglo in 2000, compared to just 30.5 percent. And if Republicans are hoping that those are undocumented immigrants, turns out that just 5.4 percent of Texans lack the proper paperwork. Yes, that’s a serious number — 1.2 million — but it won’t save them in the long term.
Once those kids turn 18, the entire political culture of Texas will change. And if Texas is no longer the anchor of the Republican Party, the national political culture will change, too.
I notice it’s the percentage of public schoolchildren. I wonder how much of the change is demographic and how much of it is a shift of Anglo children from public to private schools.
Yes, obviously it is both. As the schools get less white, it becomes more likely that parents will spend for private school or relocate. And then home-schooling becomes more attractive, too. Fortunately, we have recent census data, so we don’t have to rely on public school numbers. The census is how we know that there are 2.7 million unregistered eligible Latino voters.
Never been to Texas, but I’ve seen the education stats and Texas is at or near the bottom on a lot of education ratings. Then in the last year, Perry decided to slash even more from what was a system on life support.
I’m betting there are a lot of folks doing whatever it takes to get their children into a decent private school.
That 2.7 million isn’t exactly a cause for celebration if we can’t get them registered.
Kos writes about Texas’s steady march to swing-state status, but he overlooked one thing. He notes that the latest PPP Poll shows Romney with an anemic 50-43 lead in the Lone Star State, but he doesn’t dwell on the numbers among Latinos, where Obama leads by an equally meager 56-34 margin.
Two reasons are my guess. One Kos addresses, that they are young. Second, anyone know how hard Texas Latinos have been hit by Obama’s ramp-up of deportations?
I live in the DFW area and I have a number of Latino friends. I’m not sure that I hear beaucoup resentment about the Obama deportment policy here from them.
But then again, most people make the same mistake that alot of people outside of Texas does and just assumes that the majority of latino are recent immigrants. That’s not true. My BFF in particular’s parents are themselves 3 or 4th generation American. His immediate family are all 4th or 5th generation.
Not all people of Mexican decent are 1st generation American.
My friend’s brother in fact is always biching about “immigrant Mexicans” himself.
I posted this to the orange.
Voter registration down among Hispanics, blacks
I’m feeling this election swinging back toward Romney a bit the last few days.
What you are feeling is the consolidation of the Republican vote, and the modest gain from that. I’m watching without opinion until June. Romney’s got the honeymoon until then.
Obama camp pushes back against the story I posted here.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/will-low-hispanic-and-black-voter-registration-doom-obama
.php?ref=fpblg
I’m more concerned about the student vote. A lot of the voter registration crap is directed at again making it difficult for students to vote in college towns. It’s the same for 40 years since the voting age dropped – college towns hate students voting on property taxes, local officials, and other stuff.
It’s not an unreasonable position. Most of the students don’t have to pay the property taxes, and they’re gone after only a few years. Now of course students as a group have certain issues they should be heard on as well and it’s not like renters pay property taxes either and they still vote on them because they live there. I’m just saying I see both sides.
And then there’s the fact that any student that votes in say, Wyoming or something is a vote wasted. Wouldn’t their votes be more important back if they lived in a swing state?
I myself always voted in my home state when I was away at college.
I vote where it’s more important. My vote was in the same state, but the district was Democratic in college (Blue Dog who’s since lost, but he lost by a close margin). So I voted in my college area.
Check out Paul Loeb’s Campus Election Engagement Project, which is designed not only to register students, but specifically to help them navigate the new state-level Voter ID laws that have a lot of provisions targeted specifically at them:
http://www.campuselect.org/
The current round of Voter ID bullshit targeting students has nothing to do with locales resenting votes on property taxes etc., and everything to do with Republican-dominated legislatures intentionally trying to suppress yet another demographic that tends to vote Democratic.
why wouldn’t the Obama campaign try and seriously go after Texas?
Utility calculus. Effort * expense * payoff – opportunity cost of not spending in PA, WI, OH, MI, NJ, VA, NC, UT, NV, NM, AZ, and OR (maybe).
Texas is probably an expensive market, simply due to size.
They probably would in a world without Citzens United; if this were the 2008 playing field for sure. But the Obama campaign is going up against not only Romney but the SuperPAC money that will flow into the presidential race irregardless of Romney’s chances to simply help suppress any coattails the President may have.
Texas takes big money; and the campaign probably can’t afford to make a play for it.AZ is in a similar position and they’re doing a huge registration drive this spring to see if they’ll put money their in the fall.
Hopefully, by 2016 the state will be at swing state status.
Mainly because there is no likely scenario where winning Texas would change the outcome of the election, and because it’s really a very hard challenge this year. To get to toss-up category, he’d have to both improve his numbers among Latinos and get many hundreds of thousands of them registered to vote. Then he’d have to turn them out. And all that effort and expense would still only give him a shot at winning. Better to do this in Arizona where the odds of success are higher and the outcome is more likely to be significant.
I’d say by 2020, Texas will be purple. Right now it is still red.
Indeed.
Why is this all on the Obama administration? The Latino demographic in TX (and elsewhere) has been known for years. Where has the democratic party, the DNC been on this all this time?
Again, this points to the overall incomptence and weakness of the democratic party. They never have a dynamic, current plan for success.
“Ironically”, I don’t see the GOP sitting around doing nothing regarding other important swing states. The 2010 election saw GOP governors elected in Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio.
Obama doesn’t have the luxury of running against the unpopular/loser bush this time. this time he’s the incumbent, this time we’re still in the middle of a recession with no end in sight.
In 2008, Obama barely won Ohio (20 electoral votes); by a mere 200,000 plus popular votes. That’s not what I call a strong victory. Ohio is by no means a lock for Obama this time, neither is Indiana which is not really a swing state- for the most part they are a red state.
Keep in by not contesting Texas, with its whopping 34 electoral votes, he ensures the GOP has more resources to spend in Ohio and the midwest in general- states where Obama is clearly vulnerable.
It’s beyond astonishing the democrats don’t bother to bring 2.7 million eligible Latino voters to the polls in Texas.
I’ve a feeling this sad fact is about more than “resources”.
Well they DID and then Obama succeed him with a pathetic toady with a history of party-wrecking.
In 2008, 3.5 million Texans voted for Obama. How is it that the Texas Democratic Party can’t pull together a huge voter registration drive? They have the resources. They are called people. Does Chicago need to send more Alinsky organizers down there or something?
Texas Dem site:
http://www.txdemocrats.org/
So I share your feeling:
‘I’ve a feeling this sad fact is about more than “resources”. ‘
The Texas Democratic Party suffers from the same problems a lot of states do. The hierarchy is often times a lot more conservative than Democratic voters, and the hierarchy can’t be bothered to do the work it requires. For some reasons, they are satisfied with the scraps of power they presume themselves to have.
If the party doesn’t help, I wonder what else the 3.5 Obama voters are waiting for?
Or, as I suspect, they feel they have NO power to change things, and sit back and do nothing.
Remember that Bush said “I work well with Democrats”, and it turned out that he was the least bipartisan president for a long time, if not period. The reason he said that is because he worked well with TEXAS Democrats, who are RIABNs (republicans in all but name).
but like was said above 3.5 million Texans voted for Obama in 2008, that’s not something to sneeze at. I think it comes down to them feeling powerless since TX is generally thought of as a deep red state and it really isn’t anymore.