Posted on 02/28/2004 10:12:15 AM PST by Sub-Driver
Republican shift means changing definition of Texas Democrat
02/28/2004
By KELLEY SHANNON / Associated Press
With Republicans holding all statewide elected offices and Texas Democrats struggling to regain their footing, this question persists: Who is today's Texas Democrat?
More answers may emerge in the March 9 primary, when Texans cast ballots for party nominees for president, Congress and a few statewide offices. Another chapter will unfold in the November general election.
There are some 12 million registered voters in Texas. They aren't required to declare membership in either party. They can decide in each primary whether to vote Republican or Democrat. In the general election they can split their ticket, voting for candidates of both parties.
Minorities are a reliable base for Texas Democrats, even though Republicans are working to make inroads with minority communities.
"The state of Texas historically has very high support among African-Americans and Latinos for Democratic candidates," said Henry Flores, a political science professor at St. Mary's University in San Antonio.
Those two minority groups combined make up 43.5 percent of the state's population of 21 million people. Hispanics are growing the fastest of all Texas ethnic groups and represented 32 percent of the population in the 2000 census.
The majority of Texas Hispanics who turned out to vote cast ballots for every Democratic candidate for president and governor in general elections between 1992 and 2002. The lowest level of that majority support went to Democratic gubernatorial candidate Garry Mauro in 1998 against Republican incumbent George W. Bush, Flores said.
Among non-Hispanic Texas voters, including white voters, over that same period the highest level of support went to Bill Clinton. He got 45 percent of the non-Hispanic vote when he ran for president in 1992, Flores said.
Political scientists consider black Texans a cohesive voting bloc, with upward of 90 percent favoring Democrats.
Voter turnout is an obstacle for Texas Democrats.
In 2002, the party fielded a racially diverse slate of statewide candidates in an attempt to attract votes from the growing Hispanic community, as well as from blacks and whites. But turnout wasn't as high as Democrats hoped; Republicans showed up in large enough numbers to prevail.
Some political experts attribute stronger turnout among whites and Republicans to their higher average age and a long-running habit of voting.
Democrats count South Texas, inner-city Houston and Austin's Travis County as strongholds.
Suburban areas around big cities, on the other hand, have supported Republicans. Collin County north of Dallas, Williamson County north of Austin and Montgomery County north of Houston — all among the fastest-growing counties in Texas in the 2000 census — voted heavily Republican in 2002.
West Texas and much of the Dallas-Fort Worth area tend to vote Republican in statewide races. Democrats aren't ceding support in pockets of rural West Texas and East Texas, where some conservative Democratic congressmen and legislators still get elected.
Once, those rural areas and the rest of the state were solidly Democrat. Though voters have increasingly turned to Republicans in statewide races, they're not opposed to considering Democrats again, said Texas Democratic Party spokesman Mike Lavigne.
The 2004 congressional elections will be conducted under newly drawn Republican-leaning districts and will test the power of conservative Democratic congressmen.
Conservative Texas Democrats often hold conservative or moderate views on fiscal issues.
U.S. Rep. Max Sandlin, D-Marshall, will face one of six Republicans in November in the newly configured District 1 in northeast Texas. The region is slightly more Republican than it was under its previous majority-Republican formation.
It's a similar scenario for Democratic U.S. Reps. Charles Stenholm of Abilene and Chet Edwards of Waco, who are running in District 19 and District 17, respectively. Both districts are slightly more Republican than the old districts where the two incumbents won. And formidable Republican opponents await in November.
Independent, or "swing," voters, are coveted by both parties. Texas Democrats are banking on the notion that those voters will eventually reject the GOP over issues such as health care and education, Lavigne said.
Then, there's the Bush factor.
Republicans began winning more statewide offices in the 1990s. By 1998, with Bush atop the Texas ticket seeking re-election as governor, Republicans won all statewide offices. They repeated that feat in 2002, even though Bush had moved to the White House.
Once the popular Texas Republican is no longer at the helm of government and GOP fund-raising, the state's independent voters may be less easily persuaded to cast a ballot for Republicans. At least that's what Democrats hope.
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On the Net:
Texas Secretary of State's Office: www.sos.state.tx.us
Course I would like to vote for Al Sharpton just for grins.
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