Since we’ve been on the topic, let’s go back to Texas for a hot second. I weighed in earlier saying that Nevada is, um, not lookin’ good for Dems. Unlike Nevada, Texas has been trending in Democrats’ direction, but it looks like the movement away from the party in the Rio Grande Valley, in particular, has stopped that trend in its tracks.
In fact, when Republicans drew up new state maps for the coming decade, they seemed to think that the state might continue to shift left, and instead of trying to draw themselves as many seats as possible they tried to shore up their current seats. But in the time since, it’s become clear that, at least for now, Republicans can be more ambitious in the state. Republicans had kind of maxed out their gain with non-college-educated white voters and were starting to lose ground with college-educated voters in the cities and suburbs. Now they are making quick gains with Latino voters and those suburbs might be more swingy than they appeared. Prediction(!) alert: We aren’t gonna be talking about Texas going blue for the next couple cycles.