Texas voters went for Donald Trump on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, giving the Republican nominee the state’s 40 electoral votes and continuing its streak of going red in every presidential election since it went for Jimmy Carter in 1976.
As of 10 p.m. , neither candidate has yet reached the 270 electoral votes necessary to clinch the race.
Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated Trump's victory.
"Congratulations to President Donald Trump on his overwhelming victory in Texas," Abbott said in a statement. "Texans know who will slash inflation, secure our southern border, unleash American energy and crack down on violent crime -- and that's Donald Trump. Texans rejected Kamala Harris' leftist agenda and voted to restore freedom, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans."
Texas was never seriously considered a swing state this election cycle, despite a handful of visits from both nominees in recent months. But Democrats have held out hopes for years that the state is trending bluer.
Tuesday night's results appeared to bash those dreams early in the night as both Trump and Cruz seemed on track to run up their victory margins from their last elections in 2020 and 2018, respectively. Trump and Cruz were up by double digits by 11 p.m. Central Time, according to the AP.
Republicans across the state celebrated voters' decision to "keep Texas, Texas."
Dave Carney, Abbott's top political adviser, taunted Texas Democrats on social media after their latest defeat.
"So do you think national Democratic donors will ever believe these Texas Democrat grifters again?" he wrote on social media. "Over $200m progressive money added to the Texas bonfire."
In recent years, Democrats claimed they were chipping away at the GOP’s electoral advantage both through engaging a younger generation of voters that is more racially diverse and by winning over moderate Republicans and independent voters who had tired of the dominant party’s rightward lurch.
In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney won the state over former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, by 16 percentage points. In 2016, Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 9 percentage points. And in 2020, Trump won the state against Biden by 5.6 percentage points. That was the closest presidential race in Texas since 1996 when GOP nominee Bob Dole beat former President Bill Clinton by 5 points.
That trend came to a screeching halt on Tuesday.
Republicans have downplayed progress made by the minority party and pointed to multiple false starts by Democrats including the 20-point drubbing of former state Sen. Wendy Davis by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2014 and the 11-point defeat of Democrat superstar Beto O’Rourke by Abbott two years ago. Both Democratic candidates had raised large sums of cash for their bids against Abbott.
In 2020, Democrats were so high on their chances that the party’s leadership promised to win the Texas House. In the end, despite the expectation of a boost of Democratic voter enthusiasm from Trump being at the top of the ticket, the two parties essentially held on to the same partisan split that existed before the election, with Republicans maintaining comfortable control of the chamber.
This year, Democrats were not expected to be competitive in the state's presidential race.
As late as August, national Democrats were tamping down the idea that Texas was truly competitive. Harris’ campaign manager, who had run O’Rourke’s presidential race in 2019, said the vice president’s team would focus on true swing states, not Texas.
“At the end of the day, our responsibility as a presidential campaign is to ensure we get to 270 [electoral votes],” Jen O’Malley Dillon told reporters at the Democratic National Convention. “I would love to get to a bigger number than that, but that is all we care about."
But after the Democratic National Convention, Democrats believed they had momentum. Members of the party were energized and believed independents looked open to voting for Harris.
Harris visited the state 11 days before the election to boost the candidacy of Dallas Congressman Colin Allred who was in an uphill race to unseat Republican incumbent Ted Cruz. Music star and native Texan, Beyoncé, joined Harris at the campaign stop. Meanwhile, Trump also stopped in Texas to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience, a podcast with 14.5 million followers which reaches a crucial part of the electorate for his campaign, men under 45.
On election night, Trump built up early leads in crucial battleground counties like Tarrant and Williamson which he had lost to Biden four years ago. He also had unexpected early leads in border counties, like Cameron and Starr, where Republicans have focused on making gains largely focused on the issue of immigration. He also made tremendous gains in counties like Webb, home of Laredo, where he was separated from Harris by less than a percentage point near 11 p.m.
