Analysis: Why the GOP hold on Texas is loosening

The state's other big cities and inner suburban counties are experiencing comparable increases.

"We expected a lot of turnout," Lina Hidalgo, the Harris County judge (the equivalent of a county executive) told me.

Whether or not Biden wins the state, or even precisely meets that prediction, a shift of anything approaching that magnitude would provide Democrats a formidable foundation from which to challenge the Republican hegemony over Texas -- a foundation that will only grow stronger through the 2020s as these urban and inner suburban counties across what's known as the "Texas triangle" drive the vast majority of the state's population and economic expansion.

"If the explosive growth in the urban centers and suburbs continues [for Democrats] that will be the whole ballgame," says Richard Murray, a longtime political scientist at the University of Houston who has forecast the 1 million vote metro advantage for Biden.

While Trump and other Republicans are consolidating crushing advantages in small-town and rural communities, Murray says, the stagnant or shrinking population in those places means Republicans "just can't keep pace with this big [metro] vote."

Republicans still have many advantages in Texas -- particularly overwhelming support in its sprawling rural areas -- and most observers consider Trump something between a slight and a substantial favorite to hold it.

But the trend line in the state's urban centers -- a microcosm of the GOP's retreat in big metro areas almost everywhere under Trump -- is ominous for Republicans.

It's all in."

Even if Biden doesn't win the state, a commanding showing in the metro areas could lift Democrats seriously competing for as many as half a dozen Republican congressional seats and bidding to flip enough seats in the state House of Representatives to regain control of the chamber for the first time since 2002.

Texas voter guide

The New York Times poll released Monday showed Biden leading Trump across the 12 mostly suburban Texas congressional districts considered most competitive, terrain that almost entirely overlaps with the seats Democrats are contesting in the state Legislature.

The University of Texas poll likewise showed Biden leading Trump in all four of the state's major metropolitan areas.

A new era of political competition in Texas would mark a back-to-the-future trajectory for the state.

Democrats relied on a big urban vote combined with support in rural areas with voters whose ancestral loyalties to the party were so great that it was said they would vote for a "yellow dog" before a Republican (at least in state races).

Less visible but also critical has been the shift of the state's population, economic activity and voting totals to the state's metro areas.

The so-called "Texas Triangle," which extends from Houston in the Southeast to San Antonio in the Southwest and then north through Austin and Dallas/Fort Worth, accounts for more than 7-in-10 of the state's jobs and about three-fourths of Texas' economic output.

These prospering cities -- and the rapidly growing suburban counties around them, such as Collin and Denton near Dallas, Williamson and Hays around Austin and Fort Bend outside Houston -- have become a magnet for well-educated transplants from other states, such as California and New York.

The Texas Triangle "is where all the population growth, all the job growth, all the talent is, where all the Californians are moving," says Steven Pedigo, director of the LBJ Urban Lab at the University of Texas at Austin.

Murray and colleague Renee Cross calculated that in 1980, the 27 counties in the metropolitan areas centered on Houston, San Antonio, Austin and Dallas/Fort Worth cast about 55% of the state's votes.

The big change came in the state's 199 non-urban counties, which have become the foundation of the Republican Party: They've fallen from about 37% of the vote in 1980 to just over 23% now.

For years the political impact of this population shift was muted because Democrats did not make gains in the Texas suburbs comparable to their breakthroughs since the early 1990s in demographically similar communities elsewhere.

O'Rourke won nearly 55% of the vote across the full 27-county metro region and became the first top-of-the-ticket Democrat since favorite son Johnson in 1964 to win each of the state's four large metropolitan areas.

Democrats' growing margins

The change is even more apparent when looking at the five core urban counties inside the burgeoning Texas Triangle: Harris (Houston), Dallas, Travis (Austin), Bexar (San Antonio) and Tarrant (Fort Worth).

We're talking about over 35% of people voting in the city are under 40."

Not only is turnout up in Texas' core urban counties, but most observers also expect Biden to exceed Clinton's vote share in them and to match or even surpass the elevated levels of support that O'Rourke achieved in them two years later.

That could put Biden's total lead from the five core counties at roughly 1.1-1.2 million, about double Clinton's level.

The lingering Republican tilt in many of the suburban counties around this urban core will reduce the overall Democratic advantage in the Texas metro areas, but probably not by as much as in the past; Biden is likely to win several of the big Texas suburban counties (such as Fort Bend near Houston and Williamson outside Austin) and at worst significantly reduce the traditional GOP margins in several others (particularly Collin and Denton outside Dallas).

In all, Murray expects the 27 counties in the state's four big metro regions to cast a record 70% of the total vote, and to provide Biden a margin of nearly 900,000 votes.

What's unclear is whether those counties can keep pace with the explosive turnout in the state's urban centers.

If anything, Mackowiak says, compared with 2018, "the rural turnout is going to be so much higher, because they connect with Trump in a way they don't connect with Cruz."

The hurdles that remain

While optimistic that Biden will post strong numbers in the metro areas, many Democrats say they would feel better about their overall Texas prospects if the former vice president's campaign invested meaningful money in turning out voters in the predominantly Hispanic communities along the Mexican border, where participation historically runs low.

(While Biden may reach 60% support from college-educated Whites in states such as Pennsylvania and Colorado, the latest polls released Monday show him still stuck in Texas well below the 44% of them O'Rourke carried.)

Even Democrats acknowledge that Biden's pledge at last week's debate to eventually "transition away" from the use of oil may hurt him in midsized Texas cities that have become dependent on oil services -- though the state's overall reliance on oil jobs has significantly diminished, and Biden's focus on climate change could help encourage more youth turnout.

Turnout in the Hispanic counties may not reach the level Democrats need as well -- and, while media polls often have difficulty accurately measuring Hispanic sentiment, Monday's surveys also showed Biden failing to match Hillary Clinton's margin with those voters.

But if Biden wins the presidency with or without Texas, expanding the Democrats' beachhead in the Lone Star state -- with an eye toward fully contesting the state in 2024 -- would surely rank among the party's highest political priorities.

It used to be just Austin, and obviously we're still bearing the brunt, but it's more than just us."

Adds Hidalgo: "The leadership of the state has made a political calculus they would rather pander to a certain extreme than deliver to these urban areas."

With their decision to frame cities as a threat to their rural and small-town base, the Texas GOP leaders are closely following Trump's tracks.

But it's not difficult to forecast that the party's prospects will steadily dim through the 2020s if it cannot reverse its erosion in the diverse urban and inner suburban counties growing inexorably in both economic clout and voting numbers.