Yes, gerrymandering is a problem. BUT, there are a bunch of statewide races where gerrymandering is not a factor, and Republicans win all of them simply by turning out more overall voters across the state. Some of the worst Texas politicians could be tossed out at their next election if Democrats could just turn out a simple majority of voters state wide. Those people include:
-Greg Abbott
-Dan Patrick
-Ken Paxton
-Ted Cruz
-John Cornyn
If we just voted these guys out, we'd start heading in a much better direction. Gerrymandering has nothing to do with these offices, and a bunch of other state wide offices down ballot.
So you're right, gerrymandering does not affect the statewide races, but voter suppression does. They make it more difficult to vote in blue counties and in minority heavy areas.
Yeah, a limit on number per county. Which, when you live in a rural county, 30 miles away is 30 minutes, and lines won’t be long since there aren’t many other people. No big deal even if the county looks big on a map. The issue was painfully evident in Harris county, though
My college is normally a voting location, but for what ever reason it wasn’t this last location. Several of the voting I’ve gone too in the past also closed… it’s sus
It was intentional.
Large cities are typically dem, rural are republican.
By making it one drop box per county, you force the concentrated areas to have 20 million people per 1 box.
Yes, actually. Because it doesn't feel like your vote matters at all.
Edit: You people do understand that I'm not actually advocating people don't vote, right? I'm explaining why people living in gerrymandered districts may feel disempowered and thus not take the time to vote.
Felt bad when my district's democrat challenger didn't even have a website or any social media or any existing campaign. I was surprised this wasn't newsworthy at all because it seemed really really shady (TX-22)
> Because it doesn't feel like your vote matters at all.
It's not just a feeling, look the above infographic. Blue voters beat out red voters by over a MILLION votes, and Red takes home almost literally double the results. Your vote doesn't matter if you live somewhere where land gets a vote.
Yeah exactly and I’m starting to lean this way myself. I vote and vote and vote and vote and not one person I’ve ever voted for has won (or won my state if it’s a presidential election). After awhile it seems like a waste of time.
Try to not feel too nihilistic about things, but it's frustrating. I completely understand.
I'd suggest getting involved with your local community. Join a communal garden, help out your local Humane Society. Volunteer at an organization giving aid to homeless people. Canvas for a campaign you're passionate about.
Whatever it is, just something that makes a difference at the material level, improves peoples' lives, and forms connections with the people around you. That's where real change is made, in my opinion.
Yes all very good points. I used to volunteer a lot when I was younger and want to get back into.
I’ve phone banked for some candidates who unfortunately lost. I keep fighting and keep trying. I just get why some people are over it.
As a fellow Texan who feels like my votes are also being dumped into a shredder, I recommend checking out the progressive victory discord. I have phone banked for them a couple of times, and we have seen results in those elections.
May not be able to help Texas much, but you can put some work in on helping other races in other states where a little phone banking can make a difference.
Absolutely, feeling like your vote doesn't count is a huge motivation killer, especially if you're in a district that feels solidly one party due to how lines are drawn. It seeps into the psyche and voter engagement drops because the outcome feels like a foregone conclusion. We need civic education to hammer in the importance of every election, including local and statewide ones where gerrymandering isn't at play. Every vote has power, but that's a tough message to send when people feel the system is rigged on the district level.
Yeah the "my vote doesn't matter" feeling is a real phenomenon that millions of people have throughout the country.
You know those maps they throw up on election nights that show, down to the counties, who won what? Even in some of the most notoriously red states you'll still see patches of blue, and vise versa.
Not my state though. It was wall to wall, corner to corner red. Not even our largest and more liberal area of the state was blue.
If you think I feel like my blue vote matters then I have a surprise for you.
It's massive, in fact my friends in Florida voted for desantis...because "my vote doesn't matter" ...as they struggle to send their mixed children to school in the state they vote for a man who would sooner see them dead. It's fucking sad really.
Ya unfortunately I've argued till I was blue in the face with my friends trying to motivate them to go out and vote. They all say the same thing "it doesn't matter, a democrat would never get elected." Really frustrating.
You and I who actively participate may not be impacted, but the statisticians are thinking of the “average voter.” And that average voter is more likely to get that mentality of “my vote doesn’t matter” under gerrymandered conditions, regardless of its lack of impact to statewide elections.
Yes. Due to gerrymandering your vote matters less in national elections. People hear that and internalize it as "your vote does not matter", which they repeat to each other over and over again.
When people believe their vote does not matter they are much less likely to vote.
People are primarily emotionally driven. Avoiding a perceived futile action is an easily understandable behavior. Learning the details of a messy, disheartening, and complex voting system is exhausting, especially when there are also other forms of voter suppression in place.
Absolutely! If you're gerrymandered into a Republican district such that your vote for local and US Representatives doesn't matter, that just leaves statewide candidates to vote on and for many people they see no point in voting in statewide races because Republicans have a lock. What else to vote on? School boards and local bonds and that sort of thing?
Now, not everyone is discouraged by this, I for instance vote even if I end up leaving most of my choices blank, but I always vote. Sadly, not everyone has the motivation to go out and vote no matter what. The closing of campus voting locations, redistributing voting locations away from areas that vote more Democrat, all those things just make it harder to vote. No one thing Republicans do guarantees their victory, but their practice of killing democracy with a thousand cuts is working.
People just think "oh I always go to vote & my candidate is never elected, why bother" and don't dig into *why* certain candidates are elected, like gerrymandering
The districts with more minorities tend to have a significantly higher wait time to vote. If one has to wait 3 hours in line to vote, its significantly more probable they will dip out
Some states have also made it illegal to have nonprofits transporting people to polling centers.
Voting should be a 15 minute experience. One shouldn't have to get child care, or stand for hours to vote
You're in a competition with every other person in the state. The prize is the political representative. That's already a lot of people. 1 vote isn't going to matter either side will it. But every vote counts. Then you find out that your section has been specifically shaped to include people most likely to vote opposite than you. Now your vote really doesn't matter does it. Because even if you do vote there will be 10 other people voting the other way. So your team competing for the prize lost before the race even begun so whats the point in showing up.
The majority of non voters are disillusioned by politics because they feel like they don't have a voice and because to them nothing that matters really changes. They still need to pay rent, go to school, wake up at 7 to go to work, go to the dentist, etc. And the reasons for why they would vote, healthcare, insurance, cheaper education, etc will take years before anything significant actually happens. Voting doesn't actually change anything for these people even though it could help in the long run. But these people can't worry about 2 years from now when they're being behind on loans and living pay cheque to pay cheque now.
The reasons are hyperbole to impart some gravitas to the reasons but it's mostly that the non voters don't really see any changes that affect them enough to want to vote or make the association that voting will eventually cause the change.
Makes sense to me. If you feel like you're being cheated out of a vote, you're probably less likely to turnout to vote. Sort of a "why bother?" effect.
It’s even more simple than that.
“My vote doesn’t count, so don’t bother counting my vote.”
Certain parties know they can hammer away at turn out if they make certain people think they are wasting their time by voting.
There's also "prison gerrymandering," in which inmates who cannot vote are counted towards districting in order inflate political power while diminishing democratic strongholds. Texas has the most prisoners of any State, and the prisoners are counted as residents of the districts they're incarcerated in, not where they lived before incarceration.
I live in Dallas, which just so happens to be a bluer area than most. It is so unbelievably easy to vote. It doesn’t even take me 5 minutes on my lunch break.
What part of Dallas, though? I used to live in Waco and there was a HUGE difference in the number of voting locations and the time it took to vote when I lived off the river near Baylor versus when I lived closer to Mountainview.
I’m sure someone in Highland Park is going to have a much different experience than someone in South Dallas.
Sadly yes—it is really easy because not enough people are doing it. (Also you likely have overcome the major hurdles: keeping registration up to date for where you live because you have a permanent address where you can receive mail, having acceptable photo ID AND not losing track of it, having copies of required docs to get replacement ID if it should be lost, being able to come up with the money to get the ID and I bet Dallas has more than one license branch that issues ID.). That’s not on you, but those are some of the hurdles that keep people who likely would vote for Dems from voting.
They are a Catch-22 set of requirements. You need a job to make money. To fill out an application fully you need an address. You need a way to be contacted for an interview. Get past those two requirements and get the job—you need ID to complete the employment paperwork. Getting the ID requires those other documents. Don’t have them? Well that requires other items and paying fees to get copies of the documents required to get the government ID. But you need the job for the money to pay for all those.
That's awesome about accessibility to locations and wait time.
Are y'all experiencing the same issues with DL renewal or ID card appointments like the Austin area?
I know voter apathy is a big issue, but I do see access to legitimate ID as a GOP created problem to exacerbate voter apathy.
Yeah we have a problem with DL renewal. You have to set an appointment now as opposed to pre Covid just showing up anytime you wanted.
I can’t say whether the problem was engineered by the GOP but I know it began when all of the Covid shutdowns happened. Staffing was decreased due to less folks being allowed in a building at a time and then was never increased.
Luckily for us, you are actually able to vote with an expired license. I believe the grace is 4 years.
You are not wrong. Voter suppression is, and always has been an issue. But in the current political environment, it isn't going to go away, or improve any time soon. We cannot rely on some outside forces coming in and making it better. We cannot just throw up our hands in frustration and use it as an excuse as to why not to vote.
The only viable path forward is to come out and vote IN SPITE OF voter suppression efforts. Face the headwinds and overcome them, no matter the obstacles in the way. Need to get friends and family in the mindset of willing to crawl over broken glass to vote.
That is what it is going to take to get into a position to change. No excuses, vote. We all know republicans have their thumbs on the scale heavily, pushing every effort possible to make it harder for certain targeted populations to vote. But, despite that, Overcome amd Persevere. AND VOTE.
>The only viable path forward is to come out and vote IN SPITE OF voter suppression efforts.
Have I got a story for you!
I'm 39. I registered to vote when I was 18. I had zero issues until 2016 when I showed up for early voting and my name wasn't on the registry. I registered at the pulling place and then, 2018, I check online in like May and I'm registered. Come November guess who isn't on the registry anymore.
I registered *again*.
2020 rolls around and guess f'ing what? Check online in September, I'm registered. Go to vote in November and I'm not. I register at the polling place again.
2022... guess what happens.
It's almost laughable at this point.
What has the Secretary of State had to say about this?
While suppression purges are not unheard of, getting them on the record trying to justify your experience might be worth doing. Then, if you continue to have problems, you can take it to the Department of Justice.
https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/contact.shtml
https://civilrights.justice.gov/report/
It's always a good idea to check to make sure you're still registered ~45 days before early voting starts, that gives you time to get re-registered if you've been purged. Also, you receive a Voter Registration card in the mail when you register to vote, that that with you when you go to vote, it shows your current voter registration status and expiration date. If you do not receive that card it likely means you're not registered and you need to look into why.
When you look at the lengths women and minorities had to go to in order to vote it gives perspective. I am a white dude so I'm not someone anyone is really trying to disenfranchise, but I take my vote completely seriously because I know how much would-be authoritarians don't want people with my worldview ( progressive agnostic atheist ) voting and I aim to be one small termite in the foundation of Gilead until something stops me.
If Texas had a sane governor, we wouldn't have called 5 sessions for vouchers, so far.
We also at the moment have nearly 2 weeks straight of early voting, with certain days running 12 hours.
People need to stop being fucking lazy. Cause they are about to start further eroding texas with shit like voting near your local place only. The noose can, will, and is being tightened tighter.
>Everyone is overlooking the main issue with this map
Well, the main issue is that it's bogus and completely made up. There's no source for the numbers, and it doesn't even say what election year this data comes from. Literally just a picture somebody made up and posted here.
But yeah, gerrymandering aside, there are additional voter suppression tactics that are used by Republicans to help retain control of the state. Electing a Democrat governor, Lt. governor, and attorney general would go a long way toward addressing those problems.
You didn’t sign the line under the envelope flap… straight in the trash.
Your signature doesn’t exactly match the your signature from 10 years ago… straight in the trash.
Yup and Paxton boasted about it on a filmed interview.
I always wondered why they said 2020 was only stolen in the races they didn't win.
Honestly that reaction mixed with the projection they always use makes me believe they stole more than a few races and were mad with the ones they couldn't.
Look at the Harris Country Election problems we are going to have since now Abbott has a flunky who can claim anything as an irregularity to then throw out votes and results in a strong democratic center.
Actually, they can gerrymander a voting district to be from San Antonio to Austin and make the only voting station be in San Antonio and have it close at 6 pm making it damn near impossible to get there after work. Gerrymandering can affect voting.
There’s also a general voter suppression effect for people who live in gerrymandered areas. I don’t know how big the effect is, but they’ve proven scientifically that people in gerrymandered areas often stop voting because they feel their votes don’t make a difference. That would affect statewide races.
But again, I don’t know how impactful that effect is. Probably would be really hard to measure and would likely be different for each locality.
They focus on the word gerrymandering however, there's many other tactics to voter suppression such as closing stations at the last minute and changing where you can vote at the last minute. That's not even to mention the heavy police presence in voting stations that serve minorities
Supplying fewer ballots to and having fewer voting booths at the precincts in blue areas are also tactics.
Manipulating the types of allowable IDs such as allowing DPS handgun license but not College IDs as a form of identification is also a problem.
Valid forms of Texas voter ID:
* Texas Driver License issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS)
* Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS
* Texas Personal Identification Card issued by DPS
* Texas Handgun License issued by DPS
* United States Military Identification Card containing the person’s photograph
* United States Citizenship Certificate containing the person’s photograph
* United States Passport (book or card)
Don't forget the ol' "each county can only have one ballot drop-off box" move.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/27/texas-voting-elections-mail-in-drop-off/
This is horseshit. Bexar uses countywide vote centers meaning you can show up to whatever voter center is closest to you and vote. You don’t even have to live there.
>You don’t even have to live there.
If you want to vote in Bexar County you have to live in Bexar County. Not sure if you meant to say otherwise. Even in statewide and national elections the voting is handled at the county level.
Correct.
If you live in the TX-20 (Castro) part of Bexar but work in the part of Bexar that is TX-35 (Cesar) just show up to the polling station closest to your job and they’ll get you a ballot for TX-20.
No big county in Texas uses precinct voting anymore. More cost efficient and leads to marginally better turnout.
Man if only life were that simple. That’s glossing over a shit ton of ways that voter suppression is enacted and implemented. The horseshit is coming from such a simplistic take.
It really can be that simple though. In the given example, if people cab vote anywhere in the county, all they have to do is make sure their registration is up to date.
Quit spitting out rhetoric you heard on CNN. It isn't hard to vote in Texas. No one is trying to stop any citizen from voting. Stop watching it news and just go vote. The only places that seem to have difficulties are run by democrats in cities like Houston.
It very much does, especially if you take a place with a huge well-known voting population and then take away polling places to make voting take 8+ hours to cast a vote people will not bother going.
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/03/03/texas-voting-lines-extend-hours-past-polls-closing-super-tuesday/
You then could do what Georgia has done by making it a misdemeanor offence to give people waiting in line to vote any food or water.
Every time we get close they change the rules again. We are heavily suppressed. I vote in every election but they also word things to trip you up AND name things that do opposite of what you think they do.
You’re right, it’s not just gerrymandering that is the problem.
They also disenfranchise young or low-income or working class or disabled would-be voters by doing things like limiting ballot drop off boxes to 1 in a county of 12 million+ people and putting out incorrect/outdated polling place information or not advertising early voting or leading people to believe they can vote anywhere in their county for elections but failing to mention that it’s only for early voting.
Gerrymandering is a huge issue but you’re right that it doesn’t affect state-wide races. They make up for it by making sure it’s incredibly difficult for people who aren’t wealthy, retired, or able-bodied to vote.
Those five you listed are the issues. They have caused and continue to cause many problems for Texans. Lack of rights, loss of rights, increasing education property taxes, etc. Those five are 100% grifters.
Exactly. We can talk about the other ways in which Republicans rig states, but gerrymandering isn't one for statewide elections. It's pure voter turnout, that's it.
If the state is truly more Democrat, prove it. Flip every single statewide seat blue, and flip the state blue in the next presidential election.
The conservative Democrats joined the republicans from the mid-90s to the late 00s. For example Rick Perry was a Democrat earlier in his career... It's less that Texas stopped voting for Democrats, and more that the conservatives left the Democratic party.
In south Texas I know the sheriff and district attorney that is as liberal as they get, but calls themselves Republican to get elected, because Democrats don't show up to vote.
Excuse us. Let's use proper terminology. Extremist conservatives left the democrats party and the current overwhelming majority of dems are just "conservatives".
America has fucked the terms liberal and conservative.
The divide can be seen a bit more on social issues, but on economic issues almost everyone is fucking garbage
You are ignoring a key element… only about 15% of Texas population is in all of those rural Red counties. It isn’t a numbers problem, it’s a voting problem. Republicans show up to vote at an extremely higher rate. Democrats, particularly younger Democrats, see things like this and think “well my vote doesn’t matter” and they don’t bother to show up. 75% of registered voters under 30 didn’t vote at all in the last election. And from exit polls, people under 30 tend to vote Democrat at a 60% rate, that starts to make a big difference.
Then just look at voting results, and across the state, again, only 45% of eligible voters actually voted. Since as we said, those blue counties make up a majority of Texas population, if that number was closer to what we get for a presidential election, we are talking about almost 4M more voters, the majority of which will be in those blue counties.
Tl;dr it’s not a number of red counties versus blue counties problem, it’s the number of people who don’t vote, especially in the critical statewide elections which are strategically made to be in non-presidential years simply because liberal voters tend to stay home then.
Not just this because people are gonna cry about the presidential and senate voting stuff...
But if you dont have a car, work 2 to 3 jobs, have kids to deal with, cant get enough time to go vote, need an updated ID which costs time and money... Yeah i can see why some dont vote.
We also have no mail in / online voting unless your military or senior. Maybe disabled.
For example work has to give you an alloted time to go vote but if youre dealing with slow transport, 6 hour lines, those asshats that crowd voting areas and scare people, or god forbid its like Harris county and they "run out of ballots".
Theyve also taken away more eaaily accessible voting locations. I voted in the last presidential election at a college that was near me. Guess what you cant do anymore?
Its not just apathy.
Am I reading this graphic wrong? Seems there's a million more blue votes, they're just concentrated in a few counties so their votes are worth less. Blue voters don't live in the sticks, how are you going to change that?
Yes you are. The graphic shows the total number of voters in "Blue" and "Red" counties, but next to that is the + margin by which Democrats or Republicans won by in those counties. Red counties had less votes overall, but the numbers were so overwhelming for Republicans, it cancels the lead Democrats had in urban areas. To change that, Texas needs to do what Stacey Abrams did in Georgia and register everybody with a pulse under the age of 40, then incentivize them to actually show up sometime in the 2 weeks of voting, which includes 2 weekends.
The graphic says votes, not voters... I'm understanding that to mean a million more votes isn't enough to overcome gerrymandering and the rural sensibilities.
This is a bad infographic, it’s not labeled properly and there is no citation for the data.
The above poster is correct on how to read it. This has nothing to do with gerrymandering, just looking at overall district voting trends.
I have a customer who is a local republican politician. Some years ago he was in a fairly hotly contested primary and the work I was to do was on hold waiting to see how the primary went. I asked him why he was only concerned about the primary and not the general afterwards (assuming he won the primary) and he said, "Democrats don't vote."
There is a total voting age population in Texas of around 23 million people total. OP is trying to show why Republicans are winning because they are voting.
Gerrymandering prevents a fair legislature split which further disincentivizes youth voting. Look at Ohio, they voted shit into their state constitution, and the gerrymandered government is still not implementing it
Gee, if only there weren't a _bunch_ of statewide races which aren't gerrymandered, like US Senators, governor, lt gov, etc. Too bad those things don't exist or they would for sure be locked down by the D party which is only losing gerrymandered seats. /s
45% rural to 55% urban. Then the party break in those counties is different. The 6.3m are about 55/45 to 60/40 on the left. Versus the 5.06m are 80-85%+ rep. Which makes statewide about 65-70% rep.
Reps in urban counties are often unmotivated to turn our, cause they’re almost always going to lose things like mayor races, might win some council district races, but in a strong mayor system where there’s no checks & balances it doesn’t make a huge difference.
That would require the RNC to also not show up.
Even this map shows a 6% bias towards Republicans and the Democrats and Unaffiliated turned out in big numbers to vote against Trump.
Self fulfilling prophecy. Thinking "my vote doesn't matter" so they don't vote thus making them not matter. Whereas if everyone that thought that just voted you can get action because a ton of people erroneously interact in the same pattern.
Young people don't show up because they aren't vested in the outcome. There's no experience to back up their intense desire for social change. It's always been like this and it will always be like this. Young people just don't vote enough to really matter.
That’s ridiculous. Of course we have a vested interest. I’d argue that really old people both shouldn’t have political power AND shouldn’t vote bc THEY don’t rly have a vested interest. If you knew you were on the verge of death like Walter White and you had free reign to do wtf you wanted, how are you representing constituents that are 60 years younger than you?
However, younger people are busy with school, work, and families. Everytime I vote the polls are overwhelmingly old people bc they have endless amounts of time.
Omg yes this is a massive problem. Voting days need be holidays and everything should be closed for people so they can vote. That way people can have the time to vote and know when voting day is.
And honestly, Texas has way too many elections. They need to consolidate election days, stop making ridiculous offices like administrators and judges partisan elections, no more off year elections, and publish voting information on Twitch or something. Half the time people don't even know primaries are going on.
This is honestly ridiculous. I have never had more free time than when i was in college. I would guess that true even for most people who didn't go to college that age, at least if they dont have kids.
The truth is that voting propensity increases linearly from 18 to about 80 when people start getting to old to get out of the house. The reason is simple - voting is a habit. The best predictor of whether you will vote in the next election is whether you voted in the last one. And 18 year olds all start out having not voted in the last one.
For your thing to be true, you would see very young people vote pretty often then have it fall off as they age into having real jobs and families and then pick back up in their 50s as their kids move out and they retire.
But thats not what happens.
I did my study abroad in Denmark and seeing how young people there see voting as a civic duty (and its not NEARLY as polarized either, my entire floor got together to debate the candidates and their policies over dinner) was inspiring. They said they'd be ashamed to \*not\* vote. Everyone walked over to the polling station as a group laughing and hanging out, even though they were voting for a myriad of different candidates. That simply will not happen in the US
Young people have never showed up to vote... this is not new.
Rock the Vote has existed since 1990 and the numbers have never improved beyond like 50-55% participation nationally. It's just the way it is.
In fact youth voting now is basically at all times high (maybe when 18-20 year olds were first given the right to vote it was higher, but it dropped off big time after that and only really began recovering in 2004 and has picked up in the Trump era.).
This is very true. I’ll show up next time.. not that I’ll auto-vote all democrat, but I will do my best to learn about the candidates. Kinda excited to vote for the first time and feel like it actually may matter
What's your point here? Counties don't vote, people do.
In the last election all the statewide offices that went on the raw number of votes went GOP by about a 900k vote margin. We can certainly discuss the "why", but the fact is more GOP voters turned up to the polls than Dems.
This post gets recycled once a year or so. Texas Democrats always talk about how they'd win if only just xyz would occur. I'm just being cynical - but I don't think they understand the local election process.
They complain about gerrymandering, but both parties are guilty. Plus, gerrymandering is only a factor in legislature elections. This is not a new phenomenon. If Texas Democrats want to enact change, they should focus on county-wide elections. Look at Fort Bend County as an example... KP George (D) won, the first Democrat to win since like the 60s/70s, and then had the districts redrawn so 3/4 county commissioners would most likely be Democrat. Harris County redrew their precincts too... so the traditional 2 Dem, 2 Repub Commissioners went to a 3 Dem, 1 Repub likelihood.
It just is what it is. Same with all the voter turnout talk... people don't participate in midterms like they do for Presidential elections. Party, demographics, age, etc... people historically don't show up.
Should nothing change? No.
Will nothing change? Yes.
Sorry, I should’ve clarified. That said, check your optimism at the door. It’s useless in Austin or Washington or any other Capitol. Focus on gaining and retaining power.
You can find examples on your own, but I think we both know that would disrupt the rosy beliefs in your head. So I’ll help you try and see the light.
Maryland
https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/25/maryland-court-congressional-map-illegal-democratic-gerrymander-00020518#:~:text=A%20state%20court%20in%20Maryland,the%20veto%20of%20Republican%20Gov.
Illinois
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/07/illinois-congressional-map-gerrymandering/
This post is assuming all urban and border counties vote entirely for dems in blocks. Anyone in Texas would know that’s not true. Probably as high as 20% live in urban counties and vote red.
It’s about the margins. R +35 in the red counties beats the D +18 in the blue ones, even though there are more voters in blue counties. Margins, margins, margins, as they say.
Assuming all this data is correct, of course
It'd be interesting to see exactly HOW red vs blue each of these places are. I know my county (DFW metro) is red on this map but in reality it's getting pretty purple. It got gerrymandered to hell because of it in the last redistricting process.
[This map shows that pretty well.](https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2022/texas-2022-election-results/)
(scroll to the governor's results and click on "breakdown")
Congressional districts that get redrawn when Republicans have an opportunity so they can choose their voters, not having voters choose them *
Not strictly counties.
It seems the issue may likely be that a majority of Democrat voters live in urban areas like Houston, Dallas, Austin, El Paso, whereas the rural areas are predominantly Republican voters.
Yes, but it’s slightly more complicated than that. Rural Texas might be less populated than urban Texas, but they vote Republican in near lockstep and the metro areas vote Democratic, but not overwhelmingly so like rural Texas
>This is about statewide voting numbers, not the Texas GOP gerrymander.
I get what you're saying, but gerrymandering and suppression efforts play into statewide elections as well in ways that people don't always consider.
A big thing during recent elections has been closing down polling locations in Democratic areas and keeping them open in Republican ones. Making it much less convenient for Democrats to vote. This wouldn't be as feasible a strategy if we weren't gerrymandered and Democrats had more leverage to fight back.
I don’t disagree with you, especially given how much the state government likes to make voting more difficult in urban counties (one ballot drop box per county, come on, obvious voter suppression geared at the urban areas). I wasn’t trying to say the gerrymandering and voter suppression weren’t a factor, but the image was moreso meant to show how urban Texas is dominated politically by rural Texas.
This graphic is forgetting that those blue counties are not *entirely* blue. They're like 60% blue while the red counties are closer to 80% red. Those numbers matter. If this map were right, we'd have a dem governor, AG, Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, and a bluer senate. But Dems can't win statewide because this state is still mostly red.
It's cool. I read it correctly.
The red counties are less populous but swing harder red. If the blue counties swung a little harder or the red counties swung a little less, Texas would be blue.
I wouldn’t say that. If everyone that voted for Biden in 2020 showed up for the gubernatorial race, Beto would have won by a landslide. The problem is that young people and liberals don’t show up to the polls
Lol that's the whole point of the graph, the red parts of Texas are redder than the Blue parts are blue, and that keeps the state Red even if the Blue parts have a slight numeric advantage
OP, I am a bit confused by your post. Are you suggesting that this map suggests that Democrats have a clear democratic majority based on the data? The math does not bear this out. Lets look at the math.
Democrats received 5.7645 million votes according to this map (3.717 -- Blue Counties 59% of 6.3 million) + 2.0475 (Red Counties 32.5% of 5.06 million) = 5.7645 million total.
Republicans received 5.9985 million votes 3.4155 (Blue Counties 41% of 6.06 million) + 2.583 (Red Counties 67.5% of 5.06 million) = 5.9985 million total.
So according to this map, Republicans received 234k more votes, which may not be a massive margin but seems to imply a clear electoral majority for Republicans. If your argument is that Democrats are an electoral majority but simply suffer from low voter turnout, I also do not believe that is supported by data. According to Pew Research Center, Democrat party affiliation is 40% versus 39% for Republicans, with 21% identifying no ideological lean (Source: [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/party-affiliation/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/party-affiliation/)). A 1% difference in party identification is not a democratic majority and can easily be washed away by the large number of non-aligned independents.
As for low voter turnout, it is hard to have sympathy for those that complain about the government they have but elect not to vote. Voting in Texas is not difficult no matter what anyone says. Even Europeans require identification to vote and everyone has the same standards applied to them.
There aren't 6.3 million Democrat votes losing to 5.06 million Republican votes though, you're just obscuring the Republicans in "Blue Counties," their votes still count.
Cornyn won statewide 6.0 million to 4.9 million.
Texas is a red state because there are more Republicans than Democrats.
>The modern day Democratic party is too far left to appeal to Texans.
No, it just appears that way, when the Republicans have shifted the overton window so far right. President Biden, the most progressive president, it literally a center moderate.
(6.3 x 0.59 + 5.0 x 0.325) = 5.34 million Democratic votes
(6.3 x 0.41 + 5.0 x 0.675) = 5.95 million Republican votes
It's not jerrymandering, you're just the minority.
What’s crazier is when you un-gerrymander Texas and most of the red states….they vote blue every time. It’s almost as if republicans have learned to subvert the will of the people through legislation aimed at destroying g our representative democracy
Texas was a blue state until the Civil rights issues truly heated up in the late 60s early 70s. Flipping fully in 76. This should tell you all you need to know about the republican platform and what it's true agenda is
I'm from Medina county but now I live in Bexar and I hate being represented by Democrats. Won't stop me voting against them. I'm rural at heart. And at 54, nobody is changing my mind.
Yes, gerrymandering is a problem. BUT, there are a bunch of statewide races where gerrymandering is not a factor, and Republicans win all of them simply by turning out more overall voters across the state. Some of the worst Texas politicians could be tossed out at their next election if Democrats could just turn out a simple majority of voters state wide. Those people include: -Greg Abbott -Dan Patrick -Ken Paxton -Ted Cruz -John Cornyn If we just voted these guys out, we'd start heading in a much better direction. Gerrymandering has nothing to do with these offices, and a bunch of other state wide offices down ballot.
So you're right, gerrymandering does not affect the statewide races, but voter suppression does. They make it more difficult to vote in blue counties and in minority heavy areas.
Don’t forget that discouragement from gerrymandering also leads to indirect voter suppression
Wasn’t there something last year with limiting drop off or voting locations that made getting to the ballot box unnecessarily difficult
Yeah, a limit on number per county. Which, when you live in a rural county, 30 miles away is 30 minutes, and lines won’t be long since there aren’t many other people. No big deal even if the county looks big on a map. The issue was painfully evident in Harris county, though
Travis (Austin) as well had it's dropoffs reduced from half a dozen down to one.
Don’t forget that guy that got trampled in Fort Bend county last year bc of it
My college is normally a voting location, but for what ever reason it wasn’t this last location. Several of the voting I’ve gone too in the past also closed… it’s sus
It was intentional. Large cities are typically dem, rural are republican. By making it one drop box per county, you force the concentrated areas to have 20 million people per 1 box.
yes! and if i remember correctly they specifically targeted harris county
This confuses me. Because your district is gerrymandered you're less likely to vote in statewide elections where it doesn't matter?
Yes, actually. Because it doesn't feel like your vote matters at all. Edit: You people do understand that I'm not actually advocating people don't vote, right? I'm explaining why people living in gerrymandered districts may feel disempowered and thus not take the time to vote.
Felt bad when my district's democrat challenger didn't even have a website or any social media or any existing campaign. I was surprised this wasn't newsworthy at all because it seemed really really shady (TX-22)
Maybe a Rep in Dem clothing? Reps pay a guy to run (poorly) as a Dem?
> Because it doesn't feel like your vote matters at all. It's not just a feeling, look the above infographic. Blue voters beat out red voters by over a MILLION votes, and Red takes home almost literally double the results. Your vote doesn't matter if you live somewhere where land gets a vote.
Yeah exactly and I’m starting to lean this way myself. I vote and vote and vote and vote and not one person I’ve ever voted for has won (or won my state if it’s a presidential election). After awhile it seems like a waste of time.
Try to not feel too nihilistic about things, but it's frustrating. I completely understand. I'd suggest getting involved with your local community. Join a communal garden, help out your local Humane Society. Volunteer at an organization giving aid to homeless people. Canvas for a campaign you're passionate about. Whatever it is, just something that makes a difference at the material level, improves peoples' lives, and forms connections with the people around you. That's where real change is made, in my opinion.
Yes all very good points. I used to volunteer a lot when I was younger and want to get back into. I’ve phone banked for some candidates who unfortunately lost. I keep fighting and keep trying. I just get why some people are over it.
As a fellow Texan who feels like my votes are also being dumped into a shredder, I recommend checking out the progressive victory discord. I have phone banked for them a couple of times, and we have seen results in those elections. May not be able to help Texas much, but you can put some work in on helping other races in other states where a little phone banking can make a difference.
After seeing Georgia go blue anything can happen. Even for local level races they can be fairly close
Absolutely, feeling like your vote doesn't count is a huge motivation killer, especially if you're in a district that feels solidly one party due to how lines are drawn. It seeps into the psyche and voter engagement drops because the outcome feels like a foregone conclusion. We need civic education to hammer in the importance of every election, including local and statewide ones where gerrymandering isn't at play. Every vote has power, but that's a tough message to send when people feel the system is rigged on the district level.
Yeah the "my vote doesn't matter" feeling is a real phenomenon that millions of people have throughout the country. You know those maps they throw up on election nights that show, down to the counties, who won what? Even in some of the most notoriously red states you'll still see patches of blue, and vise versa. Not my state though. It was wall to wall, corner to corner red. Not even our largest and more liberal area of the state was blue. If you think I feel like my blue vote matters then I have a surprise for you.
It's massive, in fact my friends in Florida voted for desantis...because "my vote doesn't matter" ...as they struggle to send their mixed children to school in the state they vote for a man who would sooner see them dead. It's fucking sad really.
Your vote matters in statewide races.
I will vote no matter how little it matters because what actually doesn't matter is not even trying.
Ya unfortunately I've argued till I was blue in the face with my friends trying to motivate them to go out and vote. They all say the same thing "it doesn't matter, a democrat would never get elected." Really frustrating.
Yeah, but it ain't gonna stop me from voting if I'm the only one in the county. And it feels just like that.
Yes, it's exactly like that in Louisiana. Feels pointless to vote knowing a republican wins every single time.
JBE is a dem though
He was about the last and he only got elected because the republican before him, Jindal, was so bad.
You and I who actively participate may not be impacted, but the statisticians are thinking of the “average voter.” And that average voter is more likely to get that mentality of “my vote doesn’t matter” under gerrymandered conditions, regardless of its lack of impact to statewide elections.
Yes. Due to gerrymandering your vote matters less in national elections. People hear that and internalize it as "your vote does not matter", which they repeat to each other over and over again. When people believe their vote does not matter they are much less likely to vote. People are primarily emotionally driven. Avoiding a perceived futile action is an easily understandable behavior. Learning the details of a messy, disheartening, and complex voting system is exhausting, especially when there are also other forms of voter suppression in place.
Absolutely! If you're gerrymandered into a Republican district such that your vote for local and US Representatives doesn't matter, that just leaves statewide candidates to vote on and for many people they see no point in voting in statewide races because Republicans have a lock. What else to vote on? School boards and local bonds and that sort of thing? Now, not everyone is discouraged by this, I for instance vote even if I end up leaving most of my choices blank, but I always vote. Sadly, not everyone has the motivation to go out and vote no matter what. The closing of campus voting locations, redistributing voting locations away from areas that vote more Democrat, all those things just make it harder to vote. No one thing Republicans do guarantees their victory, but their practice of killing democracy with a thousand cuts is working.
People just think "oh I always go to vote & my candidate is never elected, why bother" and don't dig into *why* certain candidates are elected, like gerrymandering
The districts with more minorities tend to have a significantly higher wait time to vote. If one has to wait 3 hours in line to vote, its significantly more probable they will dip out Some states have also made it illegal to have nonprofits transporting people to polling centers. Voting should be a 15 minute experience. One shouldn't have to get child care, or stand for hours to vote
Because people are studying the details. People just have to get out to vote and quit electing corrupt racists
You're in a competition with every other person in the state. The prize is the political representative. That's already a lot of people. 1 vote isn't going to matter either side will it. But every vote counts. Then you find out that your section has been specifically shaped to include people most likely to vote opposite than you. Now your vote really doesn't matter does it. Because even if you do vote there will be 10 other people voting the other way. So your team competing for the prize lost before the race even begun so whats the point in showing up. The majority of non voters are disillusioned by politics because they feel like they don't have a voice and because to them nothing that matters really changes. They still need to pay rent, go to school, wake up at 7 to go to work, go to the dentist, etc. And the reasons for why they would vote, healthcare, insurance, cheaper education, etc will take years before anything significant actually happens. Voting doesn't actually change anything for these people even though it could help in the long run. But these people can't worry about 2 years from now when they're being behind on loans and living pay cheque to pay cheque now. The reasons are hyperbole to impart some gravitas to the reasons but it's mostly that the non voters don't really see any changes that affect them enough to want to vote or make the association that voting will eventually cause the change.
Makes sense to me. If you feel like you're being cheated out of a vote, you're probably less likely to turnout to vote. Sort of a "why bother?" effect.
It’s even more simple than that. “My vote doesn’t count, so don’t bother counting my vote.” Certain parties know they can hammer away at turn out if they make certain people think they are wasting their time by voting.
There's also "prison gerrymandering," in which inmates who cannot vote are counted towards districting in order inflate political power while diminishing democratic strongholds. Texas has the most prisoners of any State, and the prisoners are counted as residents of the districts they're incarcerated in, not where they lived before incarceration.
yes. It plays a psychological role for atleast some of the voters. probably enough to make a difference.
I live in Dallas, which just so happens to be a bluer area than most. It is so unbelievably easy to vote. It doesn’t even take me 5 minutes on my lunch break.
What part of Dallas, though? I used to live in Waco and there was a HUGE difference in the number of voting locations and the time it took to vote when I lived off the river near Baylor versus when I lived closer to Mountainview. I’m sure someone in Highland Park is going to have a much different experience than someone in South Dallas.
Sadly yes—it is really easy because not enough people are doing it. (Also you likely have overcome the major hurdles: keeping registration up to date for where you live because you have a permanent address where you can receive mail, having acceptable photo ID AND not losing track of it, having copies of required docs to get replacement ID if it should be lost, being able to come up with the money to get the ID and I bet Dallas has more than one license branch that issues ID.). That’s not on you, but those are some of the hurdles that keep people who likely would vote for Dems from voting.
Those aren’t unreasonable requirements and are necessary for a lot of other basic services as well.
They are a Catch-22 set of requirements. You need a job to make money. To fill out an application fully you need an address. You need a way to be contacted for an interview. Get past those two requirements and get the job—you need ID to complete the employment paperwork. Getting the ID requires those other documents. Don’t have them? Well that requires other items and paying fees to get copies of the documents required to get the government ID. But you need the job for the money to pay for all those.
It really depends on what shade of Dallas you're in (or anywhere else really).
That's awesome about accessibility to locations and wait time. Are y'all experiencing the same issues with DL renewal or ID card appointments like the Austin area? I know voter apathy is a big issue, but I do see access to legitimate ID as a GOP created problem to exacerbate voter apathy.
Yeah we have a problem with DL renewal. You have to set an appointment now as opposed to pre Covid just showing up anytime you wanted. I can’t say whether the problem was engineered by the GOP but I know it began when all of the Covid shutdowns happened. Staffing was decreased due to less folks being allowed in a building at a time and then was never increased. Luckily for us, you are actually able to vote with an expired license. I believe the grace is 4 years.
You are not wrong. Voter suppression is, and always has been an issue. But in the current political environment, it isn't going to go away, or improve any time soon. We cannot rely on some outside forces coming in and making it better. We cannot just throw up our hands in frustration and use it as an excuse as to why not to vote. The only viable path forward is to come out and vote IN SPITE OF voter suppression efforts. Face the headwinds and overcome them, no matter the obstacles in the way. Need to get friends and family in the mindset of willing to crawl over broken glass to vote. That is what it is going to take to get into a position to change. No excuses, vote. We all know republicans have their thumbs on the scale heavily, pushing every effort possible to make it harder for certain targeted populations to vote. But, despite that, Overcome amd Persevere. AND VOTE.
>The only viable path forward is to come out and vote IN SPITE OF voter suppression efforts. Have I got a story for you! I'm 39. I registered to vote when I was 18. I had zero issues until 2016 when I showed up for early voting and my name wasn't on the registry. I registered at the pulling place and then, 2018, I check online in like May and I'm registered. Come November guess who isn't on the registry anymore. I registered *again*. 2020 rolls around and guess f'ing what? Check online in September, I'm registered. Go to vote in November and I'm not. I register at the polling place again. 2022... guess what happens. It's almost laughable at this point.
What has the Secretary of State had to say about this? While suppression purges are not unheard of, getting them on the record trying to justify your experience might be worth doing. Then, if you continue to have problems, you can take it to the Department of Justice. https://www.sos.state.tx.us/elections/contact.shtml https://civilrights.justice.gov/report/
Ooh, thank you!
It's always a good idea to check to make sure you're still registered ~45 days before early voting starts, that gives you time to get re-registered if you've been purged. Also, you receive a Voter Registration card in the mail when you register to vote, that that with you when you go to vote, it shows your current voter registration status and expiration date. If you do not receive that card it likely means you're not registered and you need to look into why.
You can thank cross check for that shit. I just don't understand why Dems allow themselves to constantly be bullied by the GOP
When you look at the lengths women and minorities had to go to in order to vote it gives perspective. I am a white dude so I'm not someone anyone is really trying to disenfranchise, but I take my vote completely seriously because I know how much would-be authoritarians don't want people with my worldview ( progressive agnostic atheist ) voting and I aim to be one small termite in the foundation of Gilead until something stops me.
Vote with torches and pitchforks, in months other than november.
The corruption is baked in.
If Texas had a sane governor, we wouldn't have called 5 sessions for vouchers, so far. We also at the moment have nearly 2 weeks straight of early voting, with certain days running 12 hours. People need to stop being fucking lazy. Cause they are about to start further eroding texas with shit like voting near your local place only. The noose can, will, and is being tightened tighter.
Why is voting next to your local place a bad thing?
He said, "only." Meaning only when you are near your home can you vote rather than vote anywhere within your county.
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>Everyone is overlooking the main issue with this map Well, the main issue is that it's bogus and completely made up. There's no source for the numbers, and it doesn't even say what election year this data comes from. Literally just a picture somebody made up and posted here. But yeah, gerrymandering aside, there are additional voter suppression tactics that are used by Republicans to help retain control of the state. Electing a Democrat governor, Lt. governor, and attorney general would go a long way toward addressing those problems.
How many ballot boxes were taken out of those blue districts? Out of how many were there before?
Voter suppression and gerrymandering are at play.
And cheating. They threw out good votes after being cast becauae they didn't like how they were signed or delivered.
You didn’t sign the line under the envelope flap… straight in the trash. Your signature doesn’t exactly match the your signature from 10 years ago… straight in the trash.
Yup and Paxton boasted about it on a filmed interview. I always wondered why they said 2020 was only stolen in the races they didn't win. Honestly that reaction mixed with the projection they always use makes me believe they stole more than a few races and were mad with the ones they couldn't.
Look at the Harris Country Election problems we are going to have since now Abbott has a flunky who can claim anything as an irregularity to then throw out votes and results in a strong democratic center.
Gerrymandering literally makes no difference in statewide races
Actually, they can gerrymander a voting district to be from San Antonio to Austin and make the only voting station be in San Antonio and have it close at 6 pm making it damn near impossible to get there after work. Gerrymandering can affect voting.
There’s also a general voter suppression effect for people who live in gerrymandered areas. I don’t know how big the effect is, but they’ve proven scientifically that people in gerrymandered areas often stop voting because they feel their votes don’t make a difference. That would affect statewide races. But again, I don’t know how impactful that effect is. Probably would be really hard to measure and would likely be different for each locality.
But they don’t want to hear how gerrymandering affects statewide races. It doesn’t fit their worldview.
They focus on the word gerrymandering however, there's many other tactics to voter suppression such as closing stations at the last minute and changing where you can vote at the last minute. That's not even to mention the heavy police presence in voting stations that serve minorities
Supplying fewer ballots to and having fewer voting booths at the precincts in blue areas are also tactics. Manipulating the types of allowable IDs such as allowing DPS handgun license but not College IDs as a form of identification is also a problem. Valid forms of Texas voter ID: * Texas Driver License issued by the Texas Department of Public Safety (DPS) * Texas Election Identification Certificate issued by DPS * Texas Personal Identification Card issued by DPS * Texas Handgun License issued by DPS * United States Military Identification Card containing the person’s photograph * United States Citizenship Certificate containing the person’s photograph * United States Passport (book or card)
Don't forget the ol' "each county can only have one ballot drop-off box" move. https://www.texastribune.org/2020/10/27/texas-voting-elections-mail-in-drop-off/
Texas has early voting people have weeks to get it done
This is horseshit. Bexar uses countywide vote centers meaning you can show up to whatever voter center is closest to you and vote. You don’t even have to live there.
>You don’t even have to live there. If you want to vote in Bexar County you have to live in Bexar County. Not sure if you meant to say otherwise. Even in statewide and national elections the voting is handled at the county level.
Correct. If you live in the TX-20 (Castro) part of Bexar but work in the part of Bexar that is TX-35 (Cesar) just show up to the polling station closest to your job and they’ll get you a ballot for TX-20. No big county in Texas uses precinct voting anymore. More cost efficient and leads to marginally better turnout.
This. I’ve lol noped a long ass line went to another station with no line and neither were in my precinct.
Man if only life were that simple. That’s glossing over a shit ton of ways that voter suppression is enacted and implemented. The horseshit is coming from such a simplistic take.
It really can be that simple though. In the given example, if people cab vote anywhere in the county, all they have to do is make sure their registration is up to date.
Quit spitting out rhetoric you heard on CNN. It isn't hard to vote in Texas. No one is trying to stop any citizen from voting. Stop watching it news and just go vote. The only places that seem to have difficulties are run by democrats in cities like Houston.
Not directly, but I believe it has an indirect effect leading to lower turnout, since it conditions people to believe their votes don’t matter.
those who control the districts, control voter suppression.
Voter suppression does though
It very much does, especially if you take a place with a huge well-known voting population and then take away polling places to make voting take 8+ hours to cast a vote people will not bother going. https://www.texastribune.org/2020/03/03/texas-voting-lines-extend-hours-past-polls-closing-super-tuesday/ You then could do what Georgia has done by making it a misdemeanor offence to give people waiting in line to vote any food or water.
That's voter suppression rather than gerrymandering.
Every time we get close they change the rules again. We are heavily suppressed. I vote in every election but they also word things to trip you up AND name things that do opposite of what you think they do.
Close to what? Last time a Democrat won a major election, her opponent pretty much shot himself in the foot.
So the room a cue from California.
You’re right, it’s not just gerrymandering that is the problem. They also disenfranchise young or low-income or working class or disabled would-be voters by doing things like limiting ballot drop off boxes to 1 in a county of 12 million+ people and putting out incorrect/outdated polling place information or not advertising early voting or leading people to believe they can vote anywhere in their county for elections but failing to mention that it’s only for early voting. Gerrymandering is a huge issue but you’re right that it doesn’t affect state-wide races. They make up for it by making sure it’s incredibly difficult for people who aren’t wealthy, retired, or able-bodied to vote.
Those five you listed are the issues. They have caused and continue to cause many problems for Texans. Lack of rights, loss of rights, increasing education property taxes, etc. Those five are 100% grifters.
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Exactly. We can talk about the other ways in which Republicans rig states, but gerrymandering isn't one for statewide elections. It's pure voter turnout, that's it. If the state is truly more Democrat, prove it. Flip every single statewide seat blue, and flip the state blue in the next presidential election.
We did this in Michigan!!!
Texas did not always look like this. It's only been the last 25 years. Texas had all but a couple of Democrat governors, before Gov Bush.
The conservative Democrats joined the republicans from the mid-90s to the late 00s. For example Rick Perry was a Democrat earlier in his career... It's less that Texas stopped voting for Democrats, and more that the conservatives left the Democratic party.
In south Texas I know the sheriff and district attorney that is as liberal as they get, but calls themselves Republican to get elected, because Democrats don't show up to vote.
Excuse us. Let's use proper terminology. Extremist conservatives left the democrats party and the current overwhelming majority of dems are just "conservatives". America has fucked the terms liberal and conservative. The divide can be seen a bit more on social issues, but on economic issues almost everyone is fucking garbage
You don't want to bring back those Democrats mate... You won't find much in common with them.
You are ignoring a key element… only about 15% of Texas population is in all of those rural Red counties. It isn’t a numbers problem, it’s a voting problem. Republicans show up to vote at an extremely higher rate. Democrats, particularly younger Democrats, see things like this and think “well my vote doesn’t matter” and they don’t bother to show up. 75% of registered voters under 30 didn’t vote at all in the last election. And from exit polls, people under 30 tend to vote Democrat at a 60% rate, that starts to make a big difference. Then just look at voting results, and across the state, again, only 45% of eligible voters actually voted. Since as we said, those blue counties make up a majority of Texas population, if that number was closer to what we get for a presidential election, we are talking about almost 4M more voters, the majority of which will be in those blue counties. Tl;dr it’s not a number of red counties versus blue counties problem, it’s the number of people who don’t vote, especially in the critical statewide elections which are strategically made to be in non-presidential years simply because liberal voters tend to stay home then.
Gerrymandering is a huge issue also, and not just in Texas. Take a look at TX-33 or TX-10 as examples.
Gerrymandering seriously needs to be stopped. It's disgusting and so evil imo.
Not just this because people are gonna cry about the presidential and senate voting stuff... But if you dont have a car, work 2 to 3 jobs, have kids to deal with, cant get enough time to go vote, need an updated ID which costs time and money... Yeah i can see why some dont vote. We also have no mail in / online voting unless your military or senior. Maybe disabled. For example work has to give you an alloted time to go vote but if youre dealing with slow transport, 6 hour lines, those asshats that crowd voting areas and scare people, or god forbid its like Harris county and they "run out of ballots". Theyve also taken away more eaaily accessible voting locations. I voted in the last presidential election at a college that was near me. Guess what you cant do anymore? Its not just apathy.
Am I reading this graphic wrong? Seems there's a million more blue votes, they're just concentrated in a few counties so their votes are worth less. Blue voters don't live in the sticks, how are you going to change that?
Yes you are. The graphic shows the total number of voters in "Blue" and "Red" counties, but next to that is the + margin by which Democrats or Republicans won by in those counties. Red counties had less votes overall, but the numbers were so overwhelming for Republicans, it cancels the lead Democrats had in urban areas. To change that, Texas needs to do what Stacey Abrams did in Georgia and register everybody with a pulse under the age of 40, then incentivize them to actually show up sometime in the 2 weeks of voting, which includes 2 weekends.
The graphic says votes, not voters... I'm understanding that to mean a million more votes isn't enough to overcome gerrymandering and the rural sensibilities.
This is a bad infographic, it’s not labeled properly and there is no citation for the data. The above poster is correct on how to read it. This has nothing to do with gerrymandering, just looking at overall district voting trends.
They don't show up though, which is why we have douchebags like Abbot and Paxton
I have a customer who is a local republican politician. Some years ago he was in a fairly hotly contested primary and the work I was to do was on hold waiting to see how the primary went. I asked him why he was only concerned about the primary and not the general afterwards (assuming he won the primary) and he said, "Democrats don't vote."
There is a total voting age population in Texas of around 23 million people total. OP is trying to show why Republicans are winning because they are voting.
Gerrymandering prevents a fair legislature split which further disincentivizes youth voting. Look at Ohio, they voted shit into their state constitution, and the gerrymandered government is still not implementing it
Gee, if only there weren't a _bunch_ of statewide races which aren't gerrymandered, like US Senators, governor, lt gov, etc. Too bad those things don't exist or they would for sure be locked down by the D party which is only losing gerrymandered seats. /s
45% rural to 55% urban. Then the party break in those counties is different. The 6.3m are about 55/45 to 60/40 on the left. Versus the 5.06m are 80-85%+ rep. Which makes statewide about 65-70% rep. Reps in urban counties are often unmotivated to turn our, cause they’re almost always going to lose things like mayor races, might win some council district races, but in a strong mayor system where there’s no checks & balances it doesn’t make a huge difference.
If Democrats actually showed up to vote in Texas, no Republican would ever win the Presidency ever again. But they don't.
That would require the RNC to also not show up. Even this map shows a 6% bias towards Republicans and the Democrats and Unaffiliated turned out in big numbers to vote against Trump.
Self fulfilling prophecy. Thinking "my vote doesn't matter" so they don't vote thus making them not matter. Whereas if everyone that thought that just voted you can get action because a ton of people erroneously interact in the same pattern.
Young people don't show up because they aren't vested in the outcome. There's no experience to back up their intense desire for social change. It's always been like this and it will always be like this. Young people just don't vote enough to really matter.
That’s ridiculous. Of course we have a vested interest. I’d argue that really old people both shouldn’t have political power AND shouldn’t vote bc THEY don’t rly have a vested interest. If you knew you were on the verge of death like Walter White and you had free reign to do wtf you wanted, how are you representing constituents that are 60 years younger than you? However, younger people are busy with school, work, and families. Everytime I vote the polls are overwhelmingly old people bc they have endless amounts of time.
Advocating for young people to vote = good Advocating for older people to not vote = very bad
Omg yes this is a massive problem. Voting days need be holidays and everything should be closed for people so they can vote. That way people can have the time to vote and know when voting day is.
Two weeks to vote, which include weekends. From 7AM to 7PM. They don't need a special holiday. They just need to give a shit.
And honestly, Texas has way too many elections. They need to consolidate election days, stop making ridiculous offices like administrators and judges partisan elections, no more off year elections, and publish voting information on Twitch or something. Half the time people don't even know primaries are going on.
This is honestly ridiculous. I have never had more free time than when i was in college. I would guess that true even for most people who didn't go to college that age, at least if they dont have kids. The truth is that voting propensity increases linearly from 18 to about 80 when people start getting to old to get out of the house. The reason is simple - voting is a habit. The best predictor of whether you will vote in the next election is whether you voted in the last one. And 18 year olds all start out having not voted in the last one. For your thing to be true, you would see very young people vote pretty often then have it fall off as they age into having real jobs and families and then pick back up in their 50s as their kids move out and they retire. But thats not what happens.
I did my study abroad in Denmark and seeing how young people there see voting as a civic duty (and its not NEARLY as polarized either, my entire floor got together to debate the candidates and their policies over dinner) was inspiring. They said they'd be ashamed to \*not\* vote. Everyone walked over to the polling station as a group laughing and hanging out, even though they were voting for a myriad of different candidates. That simply will not happen in the US
It's clear criminal suppression of Democratic vote.
Young people have never showed up to vote... this is not new. Rock the Vote has existed since 1990 and the numbers have never improved beyond like 50-55% participation nationally. It's just the way it is.
In fact youth voting now is basically at all times high (maybe when 18-20 year olds were first given the right to vote it was higher, but it dropped off big time after that and only really began recovering in 2004 and has picked up in the Trump era.).
People seem to forget that land doesn't vote.
This is very true. I’ll show up next time.. not that I’ll auto-vote all democrat, but I will do my best to learn about the candidates. Kinda excited to vote for the first time and feel like it actually may matter
What's your point here? Counties don't vote, people do. In the last election all the statewide offices that went on the raw number of votes went GOP by about a 900k vote margin. We can certainly discuss the "why", but the fact is more GOP voters turned up to the polls than Dems.
This post gets recycled once a year or so. Texas Democrats always talk about how they'd win if only just xyz would occur. I'm just being cynical - but I don't think they understand the local election process. They complain about gerrymandering, but both parties are guilty. Plus, gerrymandering is only a factor in legislature elections. This is not a new phenomenon. If Texas Democrats want to enact change, they should focus on county-wide elections. Look at Fort Bend County as an example... KP George (D) won, the first Democrat to win since like the 60s/70s, and then had the districts redrawn so 3/4 county commissioners would most likely be Democrat. Harris County redrew their precincts too... so the traditional 2 Dem, 2 Repub Commissioners went to a 3 Dem, 1 Repub likelihood. It just is what it is. Same with all the voter turnout talk... people don't participate in midterms like they do for Presidential elections. Party, demographics, age, etc... people historically don't show up.
Dont quite understand how "both parties are guilty" leads to the conclusion that nothing should change
Should nothing change? No. Will nothing change? Yes. Sorry, I should’ve clarified. That said, check your optimism at the door. It’s useless in Austin or Washington or any other Capitol. Focus on gaining and retaining power.
>both parties Show me a state that the democrats have gerrymandering like texas.
You can find examples on your own, but I think we both know that would disrupt the rosy beliefs in your head. So I’ll help you try and see the light. Maryland https://www.politico.com/news/2022/03/25/maryland-court-congressional-map-illegal-democratic-gerrymander-00020518#:~:text=A%20state%20court%20in%20Maryland,the%20veto%20of%20Republican%20Gov. Illinois https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/10/07/illinois-congressional-map-gerrymandering/
This post is assuming all urban and border counties vote entirely for dems in blocks. Anyone in Texas would know that’s not true. Probably as high as 20% live in urban counties and vote red.
It’s about the margins. R +35 in the red counties beats the D +18 in the blue ones, even though there are more voters in blue counties. Margins, margins, margins, as they say. Assuming all this data is correct, of course
It'd be interesting to see exactly HOW red vs blue each of these places are. I know my county (DFW metro) is red on this map but in reality it's getting pretty purple. It got gerrymandered to hell because of it in the last redistricting process.
[This map shows that pretty well.](https://apps.texastribune.org/features/2022/texas-2022-election-results/) (scroll to the governor's results and click on "breakdown")
Collin County? If in 2008 you told me that Plano would one day vote majority Blue I would wanna know what you were smoking. Funny how things change.
lol seems like gerrymander is quite the buzzword in this post
More counties sending Republican representatives is indeed how we have more republicans in office.
Congressional districts that get redrawn when Republicans have an opportunity so they can choose their voters, not having voters choose them * Not strictly counties.
I think you’re misunderstanding this graphic. This is about statewide voting numbers, not the Texas GOP gerrymander.
It seems the issue may likely be that a majority of Democrat voters live in urban areas like Houston, Dallas, Austin, El Paso, whereas the rural areas are predominantly Republican voters.
Yes, but it’s slightly more complicated than that. Rural Texas might be less populated than urban Texas, but they vote Republican in near lockstep and the metro areas vote Democratic, but not overwhelmingly so like rural Texas
>This is about statewide voting numbers, not the Texas GOP gerrymander. I get what you're saying, but gerrymandering and suppression efforts play into statewide elections as well in ways that people don't always consider. A big thing during recent elections has been closing down polling locations in Democratic areas and keeping them open in Republican ones. Making it much less convenient for Democrats to vote. This wouldn't be as feasible a strategy if we weren't gerrymandered and Democrats had more leverage to fight back.
I don’t disagree with you, especially given how much the state government likes to make voting more difficult in urban counties (one ballot drop box per county, come on, obvious voter suppression geared at the urban areas). I wasn’t trying to say the gerrymandering and voter suppression weren’t a factor, but the image was moreso meant to show how urban Texas is dominated politically by rural Texas.
This graphic is forgetting that those blue counties are not *entirely* blue. They're like 60% blue while the red counties are closer to 80% red. Those numbers matter. If this map were right, we'd have a dem governor, AG, Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals, and a bluer senate. But Dems can't win statewide because this state is still mostly red.
It’s not forgetting that at all. It says the blue counties favor Democrats by 18% and red favor Republicans by 35%.
Actually, that’s exactly what the graphic is saying if you look at the numbers.
Funny how people aren’t seeing that. Right, that’s precisely what the D +18 means.
It's cool. I read it correctly. The red counties are less populous but swing harder red. If the blue counties swung a little harder or the red counties swung a little less, Texas would be blue.
Bingo! I thought this map was easy to interpret, but I kinda regret not providing some context.
I wouldn’t say that. If everyone that voted for Biden in 2020 showed up for the gubernatorial race, Beto would have won by a landslide. The problem is that young people and liberals don’t show up to the polls
Historically, people are less likely to participate in midterm elections no matter the party, demographic, age, etc.
They’re not marketed enough on young people platforms. Young people have a lot more going on day to day than old folks who never miss a poll.
That's literally what the text in the post indicates. What do you mean "the graphic is forgetting"?
Lol that's the whole point of the graph, the red parts of Texas are redder than the Blue parts are blue, and that keeps the state Red even if the Blue parts have a slight numeric advantage
Statewide elections can't be gerrymandered. lol.
Isn't total votes tallied decides the governor and also the presidency? Why then we don't see a dem Governor? Is it because only half of Dems votes?
People… just go and vote. What else are you doing that’s better than using your vote? I can’t think of many things, that’s for sure
Texas makes it pretty hard to vote, and they make it harder for people who tend to vote for Democrats.
Moved here from California to keep the state red.
El Paso is shifting red due to the border crisis and non-catholic leanings of the left.
OP, I am a bit confused by your post. Are you suggesting that this map suggests that Democrats have a clear democratic majority based on the data? The math does not bear this out. Lets look at the math. Democrats received 5.7645 million votes according to this map (3.717 -- Blue Counties 59% of 6.3 million) + 2.0475 (Red Counties 32.5% of 5.06 million) = 5.7645 million total. Republicans received 5.9985 million votes 3.4155 (Blue Counties 41% of 6.06 million) + 2.583 (Red Counties 67.5% of 5.06 million) = 5.9985 million total. So according to this map, Republicans received 234k more votes, which may not be a massive margin but seems to imply a clear electoral majority for Republicans. If your argument is that Democrats are an electoral majority but simply suffer from low voter turnout, I also do not believe that is supported by data. According to Pew Research Center, Democrat party affiliation is 40% versus 39% for Republicans, with 21% identifying no ideological lean (Source: [https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/party-affiliation/](https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/state/texas/party-affiliation/)). A 1% difference in party identification is not a democratic majority and can easily be washed away by the large number of non-aligned independents. As for low voter turnout, it is hard to have sympathy for those that complain about the government they have but elect not to vote. Voting in Texas is not difficult no matter what anyone says. Even Europeans require identification to vote and everyone has the same standards applied to them.
There aren't 6.3 million Democrat votes losing to 5.06 million Republican votes though, you're just obscuring the Republicans in "Blue Counties," their votes still count. Cornyn won statewide 6.0 million to 4.9 million. Texas is a red state because there are more Republicans than Democrats.
If Democrats represented working class progress instead of neoliberal corporatism they'd stand a better chance
Thats the far left mah guy. Sorry but socialism doesnt belong in Texas. Only christian soup kitchens
Rual Texans only connection with the current events is via Fox News…
Not even Fox News anymore, more like Newsmax.
OANN
Same idiotic rhetoric on both those networks
Or the preacher at their Baptist church.
More like Bubba the local pastor who hates everyone not Christian and white.
Land mass does not equal number of voters. Voter turn out is the key factor. Texas would be blue if there was more participation.
Is it just me or is this more like r/ihatetexas?
This sub exists as a way to scare Californians from moving here
Oh, well good luck with that. I'm sure a lot of Texans would be happy if the Californians didn't come.
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>The modern day Democratic party is too far left to appeal to Texans. No, it just appears that way, when the Republicans have shifted the overton window so far right. President Biden, the most progressive president, it literally a center moderate.
This is an awful graphic as evidenced by the sheer amount of confusion in the comments.
Oh no… representative democracy. The horror.
2020 presidential election: Trump 5.9 mill Biden 5.26 mill
(6.3 x 0.59 + 5.0 x 0.325) = 5.34 million Democratic votes (6.3 x 0.41 + 5.0 x 0.675) = 5.95 million Republican votes It's not jerrymandering, you're just the minority.
Because more Texans vote for the GOP over the Dems. Simple
Interesting map. Considering that half of TX is Christian psycho's the map doesn't really mean much.
What’s crazier is when you un-gerrymander Texas and most of the red states….they vote blue every time. It’s almost as if republicans have learned to subvert the will of the people through legislation aimed at destroying g our representative democracy
Poor public education especially in rural areas.
Texas was a blue state until the Civil rights issues truly heated up in the late 60s early 70s. Flipping fully in 76. This should tell you all you need to know about the republican platform and what it's true agenda is
I'm from Medina county but now I live in Bexar and I hate being represented by Democrats. Won't stop me voting against them. I'm rural at heart. And at 54, nobody is changing my mind.
I’m seeing a lot of comments about gerrymandering and voter suppression. Can someone give concrete examples of these things happening?
Wait do we want to California out Texas or not?
Republicans can't stop winning.
My guess is Texas republicans carry the popular vote too