![]() ![]() Cruz churned up enough non-urban support to more than compensate for the major losses he took in cities. For comparison, Hillary Clinton won 54.9 percent of the vote in these big counties and outpaced President Trump there by only about 563,000 votes.īut although O’Rourke did well in those urban counties, Cruz did even better everywhere else, and that was the key to his victory. They represent the key to any Democratic hope in this state, and they are only becoming more significant O’Rourke had to win big in these counties to have any shot at victory, and he did, taking 60.6 percent of the vote and putting himself almost 800,000 votes ahead of Cruz. O’Rourke outpaced Clinton in key countiesĪll votes cast in Texas’s five biggest counties and vote shares for Beto O’Rourke in 2018 and Hillary Clinton in 2016Ī whopping 43 percent of all votes cast in Texas in 2018 came from these five urban counties. In future races, Democrats would be thrilled if their candidates can re-create O’Rourke’s margins, but if they regress to Clinton’s margins, it’s hard to see a blue Texas anytime soon. Not only did O’Rourke dominate Cruz in the state’s five most-populous counties, encompassing the urban cores of Houston, Dallas, Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio, he also won a higher percentage of the vote there than Hillary Clinton did, suggesting that O’Rourke was a more effective candidate in these key zones than Clinton was. Even though he won just 32 of the state’s 254 counties, O’Rourke’s margins within the state’s booming metro areas suggest that those parts of the state may be getting even more Democratic. By grabbing 48.3 percent of the vote, O’Rourke performed better than any Democrat had in a statewide race in Texas in a long time. It was a gratifying victory for Cruz and Republicans after Democrats had poured so many resources into the race, but it was also closer than many expected. The rising population of these metro areas combined with record turnout for a midterm, changed the electoral balance of the state in 2018 and may continue to shift it in the next few years.Īlmost all of that new voting power came from in and around the state’s four big cities: Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio.Ĭruz beat O’Rourke by a margin of about 220,000 votes. But this basic map fails to reveal key changes that are shifting the electoral math in Texas.Īs Democrats yearn to make Texas a swing state in 2020, they will be helped by major population growth in and around the state’s cities. The 2018 result took a familiar form, with Democrats winning in the cities and in South Texas, and Republicans winning everywhere else. So what really happened in Texas? Let’s start with the basics: Ted Cruz, which is close enough to put Texas at the center of two of the big post-election questions: Is Texas a swing state? And will O’Rourke run for president? Beto O’Rourke, came within 3 percentage points of defeating Sen. The Democratic Senate candidate in Texas, Rep. Yes, Texas is growing, but as of 2018, it’s still red and still likes Ted.īut let’s back up for a moment. That difference - almost 3.7 million - says a lot about the changing face of the Lone Star State, but Tuesday’s result says more. ![]() It’s an astounding figure, especially considering that about 4.6 million voted in the midterms just four years ago. Over 8.3 million Texans voted in the 2018 midterm elections. ![]()
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