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After the GOP Tidal Wave, Texas is Still Trending Blue

Jen Reel
/
Texas Observer

Lost amid the red tidal wave that struck America on Tuesday was one salient data point: According to The Texas Observer,Texas was one of only four states to grow more blue compared with its 2012 vote tally.

With the exception of Fort Worth’s Tarrant County, all of Texas’s urban counties tilted Democratic this year. Texas’ biggest urban area, Houston’s Harris County, is now 70 percent non-white. Clinton won that county by 12 percentage points.

However, Democrats have consistently failed to capitalize on their growing advantage in the Lone Star State. In the 2010 Tea Party landslide, Republicans took more than 100 of 150 seats in the state house--and Dems have had a hard time clawing their way back into the state conversation.

Midterm elections tend to favor the party that’s out of power, and Democrats are now hungrily eyeing 2018.