What Does a Blue Texas Mean for America?

SPEAKER_1 (0:02)

The New Yorker Radio Hour is a co-production of WNYC and The New Yorker.

David Remnick (0:11)

This is The New Yorker Radio Hour. I'm David Remnick. The midterm elections were full of historic results. The first black woman governor, the first Muslim US senator, the first openly gay man in the Senate. Red state after red state after red state elected their first Democrat in decades. But maybe the most momentous finishes might have been in Texas. James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa became the first Democrats to win the Senate seat and the governorship in over 30 years. Remember an important thing, Texas is the second largest state in the Union with four of the 10 largest cities. If Texas voting blue is a trend and not a blip, that really represents a sea change in American politics. So how did it happen? Republicans had a large registration advantage and way, way more money behind them in Texas, more than $200 million from Elon Musk alone.

Staff writer, Jesús Rodríguez covered James Talarico's race for the New Yorker.

In the past, we all remember the Beto O'Rourke, kind of Lucy and Charlie Brown with the football experience when we thought that Texas at long last after so many years was going to go at least purple in some way politically. That didn't happen. So what was different about this time? Was it in fact the candidates on the ground or was it about the guy in the White House?

Jesús Rodríguez (1:37)

I mean, I think you need a combination of both things. I think one doesn't happen without the other. I don't think Texas could have gone blue statewide without the candidates that they had, both in Talarico and Inajosa. Also, they massively benefited from just the outright anger and frustration that people had at Trump, both for they blamed them for the economy and for gas prices, but also for a lot of the activity that they were seeing in the area. Whether that was in the border, whether that was in cities like San Antonio, is just what I heard time and time again. You mentioned Beto.

People told me, you know, Taladrid doesn't happen without Beto in 2018

David Remnick (2:20)

Is this going to be a blip or is it a real sea change?

Jesús Rodríguez (2:23)

Probably for the past 40 or 50 years, you've seen a realignment taking place in Texas politics. Part of that was driven by the Democratic Party moving from the ideological center that it had in Texas. I heard from a lot of people who, even if they weren't voters at that time, I remember when their families were Yellow Dog Democrats, as they call them.

There's still that memory of how strong the Democratic Party used to be. In reporting a story I did for The New Yorker this summer, I was speaking with Karl Rove. One of the things that Rove mentioned to me was that around the 80s and the 90s when George Bush started becoming ascendant, they really wanted to focus on the rural counties and on suburban counties. And that is what helped the consolidation of the Republican stronghold in Texas.

David Remnick (3:17)

Did the Republican attacks really end up working against them? You had the whole Talafrico thing, you had Donald Trump calling the candidate a vegan, which is not true, God forbid he should be a vegan.

You had Ken Paxton questioning his masculinity. JD. Vance even implied he was engaged in some sort of deviant behavior. Did that work against Paxton's candidacy in the end?

Jesús Rodríguez (3:44)

I mean, once the Talafrico thing came out, he immediately came out with Talafrico shirts. And if you went to a Talarico rally, you saw just a sea of shirts that said, I'm a Talafrico.

In terms of the actual substance of the attacks, the right attacked him on saying that God was non-binary, things like that. I mean, I ran into people who said to me, okay, well, even if he didn't mean it, and even if he does really believe it, I don't really care about that and I'm willing to vote for him because I care about other things such as depressive groceries, depressive gas, education, immigration.

David Remnick (4:17)

Now, I think it was pretty common wisdom that Donald Trump made a big mistake and that he anointed Ken Paxton his candidate because he was so angry at John Cornyn for not being straight down the line MAGA. But it also gave you the feeling that Gina Hinojosa is running for governor, had a more formidable opponent in Greg Abbott. They both won big and it can't just be because Hinojosa was interviewed on The New Yorker Radio Hour, although I'm sure that was a very decisive factor.