> Latinos could turn Texas blue in 2020 if enthusiasm holds, some say

The blue wave lapped at the shores of Texas this year — and it was powered by Latino voters.

Though Republicans held on against the current in statewide races, Latinos helped send El Paso’s Veronica Escobar and Houston’s Sylvia Garcia of Houston to Washington, D.C. They’ll be the state’s first two Latinas in Congress.

Democrats won 12 Texas House seats, including five in Dallas, and unseated two North Texas Republican state senators.

And the surge of Latino voters across the state almost made the difference in the nationally watched Senate race between Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz.

That has Latino voter mobilization groups and political experts confident that enthusiasm around the 2018 race, paired with natural population growth, is likely to make Texas a truly competitive state by 2020 and maybe even a shade of blue.



Bernard Fraga, an assistant political science professor at Indiana University, said the Texas population is already that of a purple state and the only reason it isn’t a swing state is that many  residents don’t vote. But he said that may have changed this year thanks to Latinos.

Fraga analyzed early voter turnout in some of Texas’ largest, most diverse counties and found that Latino turnout matched that of the 2016 presidential election, when turnout is generally higher.

“What we’re seeing is that it can be done as long as Democrats employ a strategy for reaching Latinos who aren’t registered and don’t usually vote,” Fraga said. “I don’t think it’s guaranteed, but a continued, all-hands-on-deck effort to reach young, Latino voters could make Texas fully competitive.”

In Dallas County, where about 40 percent of the population is Hispanic, 300,000 more people voted in this election than in 2014. The heavier turnout helped lift several Latinos to political victories.

Figures for the 2018 midterm are not yet available, but an early analysis from Latino Decisions, a national polling group, found that overall turnout surged in Texas from 2014 to 2018 in heavily Latino counties, especially those along the border:

    Dallas County — 86 percent increase

    Hidalgo — 105 percent increase

    Cameron County — 115 percent increase

    El Paso County, O’Rourke’s home county — 168 percent increase

National Latino voter turnout has been on the rise steadily, according to the Pew Research Center. About 12.7 million Latinos voted in 2016; 11.2 million voted in 2014; and 9.7 million voted in 2008.

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