2012: Texas

Senate: Hutchinson (R)
Legislature: Republicans +22 (+29%)
State Senate: No change
House: Democrats 9 Republicans 23
Redistricting: Republicans

Texas gains four electoral votes in 2012, so that’s four more electoral votes for the Republican candidate. Democrats have no chance of taking this state.

Texas will gain four congressional districts in 2012 and that’ll be a huge Republican advantage. Democrats have a fantasy that the influx of Hispanics into Texas will eventually turn the state blue, or at least a little less red. Once again the future will belong to the Democrats. The way things have changed every two years this decade I don’t see how anybody knows how things will be in 10 years.

There are some problems with this idea. While Hispanics are 36% of the Texas population, they were only 20% and 17% of the electorate in 2008 and 2010. Many Hispanics aren’t eligible to vote and those that are vote at a much lower rate than other groups. This isn’t California. While Republicans don’t do well with Mexican-Americans elsewhere they do okay here. This is George W. Bush’s home state and he pulled 45% of the Hispanic vote in 2004.

That’s not to say Hispanics don’t matter. There are currently 11 Congressional districts in Texas that are majority minority or nearly so. The Democrats hold 9 of them and lost the 2 others by narrow margins this year. There should be 13 or 14 majority minority districts in 2012 and the Democrats should be heavy favorites in 11 of them.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that Republicans know how to gerrymander in Texas. They can likely turn the majority minority seats that Canseco and Farenthold have into safe seats, while still retaining a minority majority.

Like the rest of the south, Democrats get clobbered with White voters. White voters will be in the majority in 22 or 23 congressional districts. The GOP should easily be able to end up at least with a 24-12 advantage.

The senate race should be interesting, but not because Democrats have a good shot at winning it. Kay Bailey Hutchinson was retiring then kinda retiring and now we don’t know. She isn’t terribly popular with conservatives and will get a tea party challenge if she runs for re-election. Well, I expect every sitting Republican senator to get a tea party challenge, simply because any challenger will declare him or herself to be a tea party candidate. Maybe John Barrasso can dismiss the possibility but the other nine Republican incumbents better take it seriously.