Women, young voters won’t save Texas Dems. Why the ‘backlash election’ was total baloney
Turns out Texas women haven’t shown up to vote in big numbers after all.
Neither have young people.
Women and men are voting equally lightly and only 11% of young Texans have voted at all, according to Austin-based Republican consultant Derek Ryan’s early-voting analysis.
The idea of a backlash election turned into nothing but more baloney in a campaign filled with more baloney than any in memory.
Going into final voting Tuesday, we know:
▪ The man who runs Texas with an iron fist is escaping untouched.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick is the most powerful elected official in Texas. He makes every decision about how the state of Texas is run.
But Democrats Beto O’Rourke and Mike Collier left Patrick mostly unchallenged and instead aired attacks against Gov. Greg Abbott, who is more popular but has only tangential power.
Abbott’s leadership is hindered by Patrick’s resolute defiance of any hint at moderation or compromise.
Yet Democrats have barely said one word against him.
▪ Women are not pouring out to vote.
Women have actually fallen behind on the voter rolls in Texas since the June 24 U.S. Supreme Court ruling against abortion rights, according to Democratic analysts from Washington, D.C.-based TargetSmart cited in the Houston Chronicle.
Deeper in a Sept. 8 report with the rosy headline, “Young Democrats are flocking to register to vote,” the Chronicle also reported that more men than women had registered. Only 49% of new voters were women.
According to Ryan’s analysis, through Thursday about 26% of men and 27% of women had voted. Republicans are voting much more heavily than Democrats or independent voters, and independent voters are only about one-fourth of the turnout. In 2018, they were nearly half.
The overall turnout may barely reach half of the 2020 election.
▪ Young people definitely are not pouring out to vote.
Lots of young voters registered. But they haven’t shown up.
The 11% turnout that Ryan reported compares to a 47% turnout rate for voters 70 and older.
The early voting location with the lightest turnout was at Tarrant County College South Campus, enrollment 7,000. It averaged 90 voters a day.
Only 270 voters a day cast ballots at the huge University of Texas at Arlington, compared to 1,500 in deep-red Keller.
(Tarrant County College Southeast Campus did have a turnout of about 500 voters per day.)
▪ Californians are not turning Texas purple.
Newcomers aren’t more liberal than native Texans. They’re more conservative.
The exception might be in Collin County, where new engineering and high-tech workers from California fit the profile of highly educated voters whose voting habits skew more liberal.
But not in Tarrant County, where the north half of the county is now home to tens of thousands of newcomers who came for affordable homes, low taxes, suburban safety and strong faith communities.
The idea of newcomers turning Texas blue was never true.
In 2018 election exit polls, native-born Texans voted for O’Rourke for U.S. Senate, 51%-48%. Voters who had moved to Texas re-elected U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Since 2018, Texas has added nearly 1 million people.
Those are the new voters keeping Texas red.
This story was originally published November 4, 2022 at 9:32 AM.
