One could almost hear the declarations rise up all over the state on Election Night as the returns piled up and Republican officeholders were losing their seats.
“Texas has turned blue!” came the exclamation. Whoa! Let’s take a breath for a moment.
Yes, the state elected Democrats to many key statewide races. U.S. senator, governor, lieutenant governor, myriad statewide offices down ballot, the Texas House of Reps, the state’s two highest appellate courts all now are occupied by Democrats.
However, I am going to ask: Has the state’s population changed its outlook? Are we now a state populated by progressives? I think Texans remain essentially a fairly conservative bunch. We’re just sick and tired of corruption, of broken promises, of a president who has made an ass of himself and denigrated the high office he has occupied since January 2017.
We might get a clearer look at our voting populace on Election Day in November 2028. We’ll cast our votes for president then. If Democrats play their cards correctly, they well could nominate someone cut from a moderate-to-liberal mold and not a fiery “democratic socialist” intent on rewriting the entire tenor of the nation’s policies.
If Texans manage to hand its Electoral College votes to the Democratic nominee in two years, well, then we might be able to holler with a straight face that “Texas has turned blue!”