Deep in the Red of Texas, Republicans Fight the Blues

[question everything]

cross posting from Politics 2013 http://www.democraticunderground.com/1251297814

By NEIL KING JR.

AUSTIN, Texas—Soon after Texas Republicans notched another round of lopsided wins last November, the state GOP sent notice to its local chapters: Please stop holding party meetings in country clubs. Other advice followed. Please consider hosting Republican recruiting tables at naturalization ceremonies. Word spread among state GOP lawmakers to back off on bills targeting illegal immigrants in the legislative session.

(snip)

Republicans have won all of Texas' 29 statewide offices since 1994, the longest streak of single-party dominance in the country. Republican Rick Perry is the state's longest-serving governor... But Republicans here are suddenly looking over their shoulder, worried that demographic shifts and a big push by Democrats to capitalize could soon turn the state into the ultimate battleground between the two parties. One of the most important backroom players in President Obama's 2012 campaign has launched a broad effort to pull the state into the Democratic column.

(snip)

Texas has some of the country's lowest voter-participation rates, especially among groups that typically skew Democratic, That leads some Democrats to compare the state to a vast oil field that has yet to be tapped. The state has 13.6 million registered voters. But Democrats say there are nearly three million eligible but unregistered Hispanics and African Americans, and at least half that many who are registered but don't vote. Mr. Romney won Texas by a margin of 1.2 million votes in November.. Led by former Obama field director Jeremy Bird, the Battleground Texas project plans to marshal much the same manpower and data-mining the Obama campaign used to swing states such as Colorado and Virginia in the past two elections.

(snip)

Democrats point to a little-noted mobilization drive called the 21 Precinct Project that the Travis County Democratic Party ran in the largely Hispanic and African-American neighborhoods of East Austin. In the fall of 2010, the party combed through data to identify 23,452 households where residents were registered, and likely to be Democrats, but rarely voted. A team of 41 volunteers and paid staff then spent five weeks calling and visiting those homes, urging them to vote. The project cost a little over $40,000. The results were startling: a 54% jump in straight-ticket Democratic voting, and a turnout rate nearly 20% higher than the rest of Travis County. The conclusion, according to county Democratic chairman Andy Brown, who ran the drive: "People respond if you ask for their vote. And in Texas, millions of people have never been asked."

(snip)

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324883604578397021579876246.html

(if the link does not open, copy and paste the subject line into google)

[zbdent]

1. " lowest voter-participation rates, especially among groups that typically skew Democratic"

hmm ... and I bet it's because a lot of them don't get a chance to vote, or can't get off work to vote ...

[PDittie]

2. If the spine of the GOP can be broken in Texas

then they won't elect another president for a generation, at minimum.

They key is increasing Latino turnout to California levels. This is what Battleground Texas is focusing on, at the urban county level. That would be Harris, Dallas, Bexar, El Paso Travis exurbs, and to a lesser degree Tarrant which is still fairly red. Minority voters (with the greatest emphasis on Latinos of Mexican descent) must be registered and then must be turned out. Hand-carried back to the polls if necessary.

When it eventually happens -- I have lived here for 53 years and wouldn't guess when it might -- then everything in this country will change. Well, most everything. We'll still have to fight the corporations over our food and our environment, and we still need to get the money out of political system, but this result will be not a sea change but a climate change.

[illegaloperation]

3. Remember that we need to also mobilize non-Hispanic voters too.

We talk so much about Hispanics, but we have to remember that Texas has a lot of African Americans and a few Asian Americans that need to be mobilized too.

2010 US Census for Texas

Hispanic 37.6%
African American 11.8%
Asian American 3.8%
Native American 0.7%

(All of these groups vote overwhelmingly Democratic.)

Non-Hispanic White 45.3%

(The only group to vote Republican)

[illegaloperation]

4. Hispanic and African Americans groups.

Hispanic Population as Percentage of Population by County, 2010 (Source: U.S. Census Bureau)



African Americans as Percent of Population by County, 2010 (Source: U.S. Census Bureau)