Amarillo, was a Strong center of Republicanism long long before the State of Texas shifted there.
The entire state of Texas was once Democrat controlled. LBJ closed the Air Force base in Amarillo after they voted against him.
The Panhandle of Texas is still staunchly conservative. The schools in the area are too. (I graduated from one of them. long long ago, smile)
This is not a place where ComDems feel at home.
I don’t have the statistics available, but as I recall reading Goldwater also lost the Panhandle area. He got only about 900,000 votes in TX.