Donald Trump, candidate of the Republican Party, and Kamala Harris, candidate of the Democratic Party. Texas grants 40 delegates.
Texas It is one of the fifty states members of the United States of America. It is located in the south-central area of the country, so it borders Mexico and the states of Louisiana (to the east), Oklahoma (to the northeast), Arkansas (to the north) and New Mexico (to the west). A large part of its southeastern border is bathed by the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
Texas covers a total area of 695,660 square kilometers – making it the second largest state, after Alaska – and has a population of more than 30 million inhabitants, only behind California. Its GDP, of almost 2.7 trillion dollarsis greater than that of Canada, South Korea, Russia and Australia and, within the country, it is only surpassed by California. In addition, it is the state with the highest export income. If it were independent, it would be the eighth world economic power.
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The capital of Texas is the city of Austin, which is the fourth most populous in the state, preceded by Houston, San Antonio and Dallas. Together with Fort Worth, located a few kilometers from Dallas, all of them make up the well-known like Texas Trianglean urban megaregion in which two out of every three of its inhabitants reside.
Texas is also known as the Lone Star State, in reference to the symbol present on its flagone of the most revered state insignia and with the greatest roots among its own population. That white star on a blue background that occupies the left margin of the flag – composed on its right margin of two horizontal stripes, white above and red below – symbolizes Texas’ past as an independent republic. Its flag, along with that of Hawaii, is the only one that, before serving as a symbol of a federated state, also represented a sovereign country.
Texas history
The territory that Texas occupies today was initially colonized by Spain, which included it among its overseas possessions until, in 1821, with the Spanish American wars of independence, it became part of Mexico. At that time, Texas was practically unpopulated and suffered constant raids by the Comanche Indians.
In order to stop them, the new Mexican government decided to liberalize its immigration laws to attract new settlers. Attracted by the low price of land, numerous American citizens of Anglo-Saxon origin settled in the territory, where they were awarded large tracts of land that they dedicated to working thanks to the use of Slavic labor, which was authorized there on a regular basis. exceptional. If in 1825 the state had barely 3,500 inhabitants, almost all of Spanish-Mexican descent, In 1834 it had already grown to 37,800of which only 7,800 were of Spanish origin.
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The truth is that many Anglo-Americans considered this territory a legitimate part of the United States, well, with the Louisiana Purchase to France in 1803, the American authorities had also sought to acquire Texas. The blurred borders of those times generated conflicts like this one, which were difficult to resolve.
On the other hand, tensions between the supporters of the centralist Mexican Government and the federalist factions, with which the Texans aligned themselves, resulted in the proclamation of the Republic of Texas as an independent State in 1836. Mexico never stopped considered it a rebellious province and maintained control over a good part of its territory until 1845, when the United States annexed it. Texas then joined the Union as the 28th state.
Over the next few years, the state continued its economic and demographic growth thanks to the maintenance of slavery and the prosperity of its cotton plantations. In 1861, it was one of the eleven Confederate states that declared independence from the Union, beginning the American Civil War, in which Texas was defeated.
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Until the mid-20th century, the Texas economy was based on four major industries: livestock – from which hides and skins were obtained, especially from bison -, cotton, lumber and oil. He discovery of large deposits of black gold At the beginning of the century it unleashed a boom which became the engine of its economy and completely transformed the United States, which began to use it massively as a fossil fuel.
During the decades after World War II, there was a diversification of the Texas economy, which today is a leader in numerous sectors, such as computing, electronics, aerospace and biomedicine.
The importance in elections
The population of Texas has grown dramatically over the last few decades, which has allowed it to add electoral votes in each census held since 1980. Currently, it has a delegation of 38 members in the House of Representatives and , for the 2024 presidential elections, will have 40 delegates in the Electoral College, surpassed only by California’s 54.
After the end of the Civil War (1861-1865) and the subsequent period of Reconstruction, Texas has participated in every presidential election held since 1872. For almost a century, it was considered a Democratic stronghold, part of the block called Solido Sur. This block was made up of the states that had been part of the Confederation, in which the policy of segregation carried out against the black population ensured the preservation of the hegemony of the Democratic Party, which held practically all of the elected public offices. local, state and federal level.
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From 1872 to 1952, the Republicans only managed to prevail in the 1928 presidential elections, when the Texan electorate – mostly Protestant – preferred to support Herbert Hoover rather than the Democratic candidate, Al Smith, a devout Catholic. Anti-Catholicism was surely a fundamental factor in those elections, which led many other southern states – Florida, Virginia and North Carolina – to vote Republican for the first time since Reconstruction. Later, Democratic dominance began to come to an end with Eisenhower’s victories in 1952 and 1956 and Nixon’s in 1972.
The weakening of Democratic hegemony in Texas and the other southern states coincided with the rise of the civil rights movement, which, with the support of Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, ended racial segregation in the south of the country.
In response to the ideological transition of the Democratic Party – which abandoned many of its conservative postulates to embrace social liberalism – and the increase in racial tensions, the Republican Party launched what is known as the “southern strategy”, which, moving to the rightwon the vote of many white and traditionally Democratic conservative citizens.
In 1980, Reagan won the state by a margin of 14 percentage points; Republican candidates have been victorious in every presidential election since then.
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Despite this, in recent years, the GOP’s majorities have been decreasing. In 2020, Donald Trump obtained an advantage of just over 5 points over Biden, the narrowest margin since 1996 – the year in which Ross Perot and his Reform Party captured a very significant percentage of Republican votes. In this way, many analysts predict that Texas will soon cease to be a red state and become a swing statehighly competitive, for the 2028 elections.
He survey average conducted during the 2024 campaign gives Trump an advantage of about 6 points over Harris, but, for the first time in almost three decades, it is expected that the Republican candidate will not reach 52% of the votes and that his result will fluctuate rather around exactly half of the votes cast.
The possible transformation of Texas into a purple state It is a result of the numerous demographic changes suffered in recent years. Since the beginning of the 21st century, the state has increased its population by 8.3 million people, of which 7.6 belong to ethnic minorities. According to him 2020 censuswhites represent 39.75% of its inhabitants, almost tied with Latinos, who already make up 39.26%.
The percentage of Asians has grown to 5.36%, while the black population has stagnated for two decades at 11%-12%. And, although Republicans have made some progress among minorities and have become dominant among uneducated whites, demographic trends indicate that such progress may not be enough to avoid the loss of the state in the medium term.
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Aware of the threat, Republicans have redrawn electoral districts for elections to Congress and the state assembly, so that whites are the majority in almost all of them. Through this practice, known as gerrymanderingthe aim is to reduce the voting power of minorities and guarantee the continuity of republican dominance.
However, the presidential elections are decided by the old method the-winner-takes-it-all and, although it does not seem that Trump should be worried for now, everything indicates that Texas – the second state with the most electoral votes in the country – will become the scene of one of the great battles between Republicans and Democrats starting in the next elections. .
