When Texas Falls to the Dems, That’s the End of Modern Conservatism

Long ago, I predicted this day would come in 2028, but it could come two years early.

I’ve mentioned this before, but sometime around 2008 I did a little research on the Texas electorate to project when the state might turn blue, meaning that it would flip from supporting Republicans in presidential elections to supporting Democrats.

The data I looked at was demographic. I began by looking at the racial makeup of the state and how different racial groups were voting in the present. Then I looked at estimates of racial growth over time, with Latinos obviously projected to become a greater share of the electorate in each new four-year presidential cycle. Finally, I looked at turnout differential among racial groups. Latinos turned out at much lower rates than other races. This was a variable I could tinker with to see how much Latino growth would need to grow to accelerate the flip.

I long ago lost track of this research, but I remember the conclusion. I projected Texas would turn blue in 2028, with 2024 being possible if Latino turnout began to match that of whites.

I remember my motivation for doing the study. I wanted an absolute end date for the conservative takeover of the Republican Party. In my mind at the time, despite the so-called “browning of America,” the GOP would continue to move to the right for as long as it could. It would even keep on that trajectory through multiple presidential election defeats in a row. Initially, their response to defeat would be to racially polarize the electorate as much as possible to maximize their share of the white vote. This might or might not work, but they’d keep it up until it no longer had any Electoral College viability.

The end of its viability as a strategy would be undeniable when Texas fell to the Democrats. At that point, the GOP would have to begin a process of reinventing itself by moving away from modern conservatism.

The 2028 projection was solid but it was dependent on the Democrats maintaining the same level of support in the Texas Latino community that they were getting in the first decade of this century. I figured this was a safe bet if the GOP was focused less on asking for their support than demonizing them to increase their share of the white vote. I turned out to be wrong about that, and Donald Trump made major inroads with Latinos in Texas in his 2024 reelection bid. As a result, he romped to victory in the state by a 56 percent to 42 percent margin over Kamala Harris.

If Texas Latino voting preference doesn’t snap back toward the historical norm, based on that variable alone, the Democrats won’t meet my 2028 projection. In that case, to win, the Democrats would need a much higher share of the white vote. However, everything now predicts that this voting preference has already snapped back.

In any case, as we approach the 2026 midterms, we’re right in the sweet spot I identified for a political red/blue flip. I don’t know how well differential population growth matched what I projected, and I assume it turned out at least somewhat different than expected. But I am not surprised that we’ve entered the zone where a statewide election in the Lone Star State is a considered a toss-up. I thought it would happen in 2028 but could happen as early as 2026.

I wasn’t considering midterms when I did this analysis because I didn’t think the GOP would abandon modern conservatism based simply on losing control of Congress. But, truth be told, I did see control of Texas as the tipping point.

There are obvious limits to this kind of long-term projection. Elections are not decided solely through some kind of racial determinism. Candidate quality, economic conditions, technological change, the state of the world and other unknowns are factors that can change racial voting patterns. But as a blunt instrument, I think I did okay using this method to predict the future.

I certainly nailed that the GOP would not respond to an ever-increasing growth in minority populations by making concessions to racial pluralism, but instead would focus on increasing their share of the white vote by encouraging whites to behave as an identity group that aligns with them. In this sense, I predicted the MAGA movement before it ever occurred to me that Trump might become a serious politician.

What I couldn’t quite see is that the party would have to contort itself to pursue this strategy, such that it has already drifted away from a lot of traditional modern conservatism. It become more economically populist, lost interest in reforming entitlements or limiting debt and deficits, and (until the Iran intervention) began to pursue a more isolationist foreign policy.

Some of this actually helped it gain a greater share of the minority vote and extended (if only temporarily) the life of conservatism even as they attacked diversity with more fervor.

But here we are. Nate Silver is discussing whether Texas could turn blue in 2026. In the U.S. Senate matchup between Democratic state Rep. James Talarico and Attorney General Ken Paxton, Silver’s model gives Talarico a roughly 60 percent chance of victory.

Depending on the day, our midterms model, FLIPR, characterizes the Texas Senate race this year either as “toss-up” or as “leans Democratic”. We employ these buckets because some of our readers seem more comfortable with them than with percentages, but they are defined mathematically. We describe a race as a “toss-up” when neither party has greater than a 60 percent chance of winning. Texas has been teetering right around that threshold, with Talarico bouncing around within the 59 to 61 percent range since model launch.

His model combines polling data, fundamental economic and political indicators, and qualitative expert ratings. It certainly matters that Paxton is a flawed candidate and Trump has abysmal approval ratings. It matters that gas and food prices are high and we’re in an unpopular war with Iran. It matters that Talarico is a telegenic and likable personality who doesn’t shy away from his strong Christian faith and has raised an ungodly amount of money. It matters that we’re in the midst of an artificial intelligence technological revolution that is of great concern to the electorate. These are factors specific to this time or this contest that could not have been predicted nearly 20 years ago.

I don’t know when Texas will turn blue but it’s already purple. It may fall to the Democrats in 2026 or it may take a little longer. It may flip back and forth through a couple cycles. But when Texas finally leaves the red column for good, it won’t come back. It will be like Virginia. Not un-winnable for the GOP in a perfect storm kind of year, but generally safer and safer for the Democrats with each passing cycle until the GOP stops its white identity project and pivots into a party that accepts diversity as a fait accompli.

And when this happens, it will happen for the whole party nationally, because there is no version of the Electoral College map that works for the Republicans if Texas is not red. This is the day that I began pining for back around 2008, and I just hope to live to see the day that what began with Barry Goldwater and broke through with Ronald Reagan can finally reach its end point and maybe we can stop suffering as a country.