Texas is the only large state not in the Democrats’ lock on recent presidential elections. The state is the anchor of a six-state seam of Republican states that divide the country down the middle, starting with North Dakota on the Canadian border and touching the gulf in Texas.
With 38 electoral votes, Texas is the biggest haul that has eluded the Democrats in their building national electoral coalition that equals 242 electoral votes that have voted Democrat since 1992 and Clinton’s first election. Dependable Democratic states are: California (55), Illinois (20), Michigan (16), New Jersey (14), New York (29) and Pennsylvania (20). The remaining big states are battlegrounds: Florida (29 electoral votes), Georgia (16), Ohio (18), North Carolina (15) and Virginia (13). Democrats and especially Obama have been more competitive in these battleground states than Republicans.
Texas is a key state that Obama is targeting. His latest trip was to Austin (Travis Co.), which he won by 92,000 votes in 2012, while losing Texas 57 percent to Romney. Democrats tend to carry population centers. Obama carried Houston (Harris Co.) by less than 1,000 votes, Dallas by 109,000 votes and San Antonio by 23,000. The only big Texas city he lost was Fort Worth (Tarrant Co.) (95,000).
Texas can expect to see a lot of Obama and Democratic attention from now to 2016.
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