What went wrong for Democrats on election night? | Texas: The Issue is
On election night, Donald Trump won reelection in convincing fashion, but it wasn't just the presidential election where Democrats fell short.
Democrats struggled across the board.
In Texas, some are saying it's time for Democrats to hit the reset button.
"What Texas Democrats have been doing is not working. It's not just a question of being patient, and we will slowly get there. They've been moving in reverse," said SMU Political Scientist Matthew Wilson.
The 30-year streak of Republicans winning statewide elections continued Tuesday night when Republican Ted Cruz won reelection over Democrat Colin Allred.
In the final weeks and days, polls painted a picture of a close race. Cruz beat Allred by almost 10 points.
Allred only won 18 counties. Beto O'Rourke won 32 in 2018.
"I think the problem was the overwhelming single-minded focus on the abortion issue," said Wilson. "It came to dominate their whole appeal. And virtually every Colin Allred ad that you saw was about abortion was about 'Ted Cruz's abortion ban.' And at some point, that was just not going to move enough voters. Yes, there are voters that care about abortion, but in the polls, it factored in maybe third, fourth among voters' priorities and concerns."
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The Democrats' woes continued in the Texas state house where pro-school voucher candidates backed by Gov. Greg Abbott won enough House seats to ensure the measure passes.
"There was a tidal wave of support for those House candidates that I supported," Abbott said during a news conference Wednesday.
Republicans also won four seats from Democrats in the 5th Court of Appeals in Dallas.
Border counties, once a Democratic stronghold, continued to become more red.
Donald Trump flips Texas border county red for first time in more than 100 years
Starr County had not voted for a Republican in a presidential election since 1896. Hillary Clinton won the county by 60 percentage points in 2016.
Trump and Texas Republicans made significant gains with Latino voters, specifically Hispanic men.
In 2020, President Biden carried multiple border counties by double digits. Tuesday, Trump won those counties by three to six percent.
"We are witnessing an ongoing realignment of the Hispanic electorate. It's been progressing over several cycles, and it has continued this time," Wilson said. "The Latino communities, particularly in the border counties, are opposed to illegal immigration. They see, day by day, the effects in their communities of turmoil at the border. They are morally and socially conservative on a lot of issues."
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Wilson said voters were also looking at the economy this election through the lens of cost and not the rate of inflation.
"Voters are still chaffing at the price increases that they saw in 2021-2022," Wilson said. "Even though the price of inflation has come down. They're still saying look, groceries and insurance and my house note and automobiles and all these other things just cost a lot more then they did a few years ago. That resulted in some dissatisfaction with the Biden-Harris administration. Voters reacted negatively when they kept trying to tell them everything's fine. It's all in your head."
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