Personally being from Austin, Texas, a blue city within a red state, it’s interesting to me to see how this elections votes have progressed within the state of Texas. Although it looks like Texas will still turn out to be a red state, there was a lot of talk about how it’s more blue than it has ever been. In particular, Texas women’s votes for Hillary vs. their votes for Trump could have affected this competitiveness, especially in state like Texas that has a lot of electoral votes. I would like to argue that Donald Trump has deterred Texas women voters, specifically suburban ones, so much that he has caused less of a marginal republican lead than normal in Texas.
NPR states, “Trump will carry Texas, but probably by a lot less than the 16-point margin Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney beat President Obama by in 2012.” It goes on to tell us about how certain Texas Republican women citizens are carrying worry about the typical, and understandable, concerns with Trump: how he talks about women, that he’s not a politician, etc. Just as Dr. Adams told us during lecture, Texas is a big place to focus on during the election night, which is something that was probably not an issue for Romney four years ago. On a bigger scale, Dr. Adams gave several reasons as to why the south (including Texas) is becoming more purple in general, one being immigrants – something that you see a lot of in Texas (and many that have probably chosen to vote for Hillary due to Trump “[going] out of his way to alienate Hispanic voters.”
Texas presidential election votes in 2012. How will this map change in 2016?
It all comes full circle when you look at how the effects of women (and even immigrants in Texas, which are partially women) in Texas have changed the makeup of Texas’ vote statistics. I believe Trump has definitely stirred a change in the Texas women’s votes; many may be choosing to vote for Hillary because of Trump’s questionable actions. When it’s all said and done, it will be interesting to see how different Texas’ voter gender demographics differ from the past, and it’s even more interesting to me that Texas is even a state to focus on during election night in general.
I think this is a perfect example that highlights the correlation between Trump’s rude remarks and his loss of the female vote. Slowly as the election has progressed Trump has continue to isolate potential female voters with his crude comments and as a result has increasingly lost the female vote. Even though his comments and actions toward women have less of an effect on the state of Texas, we know that his inappropriate manner has possibly allowed him to lose the election in swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvanian. With only a few days left, it will be interesting to see how much damage control his campaign will engage in with the hopes of earning back some female votes.
I think certainly helps paint a great picture for how a state like Texas can show a correlation between Trump and the female vote. We’ve been discussing a lot in class on how much the battleground states and even states like Texas can have such a big impact on the outcome on Tuesday. I think it’s equally interested how you pointed out the example of Romney and how he essentially had no issue pulling through with Texas, which has always been a Republican state that is usually out of the discussion. But with Trump’s remarks, it could cause a lot of females in Texas to swing the other way with their vote this year, which in turn, could hurt Trump tremendously. I personally don’t feel like Texas will lose too much of the Republican vote, but it is definitely an intriguing point to look at and see how much correlation there’s been between Trump and the women of Texas.
I think certainly helps paint a great picture for how a state like Texas can show a correlation between Trump and the female vote. We’ve been discussing a lot in class on how much the battleground states and even states like Texas can have such a big impact on the outcome on Tuesday. I think it’s equally interested how you pointed out the example of Romney and how he essentially had no issue pulling through with Texas, which has always been a Republican state that is usually out of the discussion. But with Trump’s remarks, it could cause a lot of females in Texas to swing the other way with their vote this year, which in turn, could hurt Trump tremendously. I personally don’t feel like Texas will lose too much of the Republican vote, but it is definitely an intriguing point to look at and see how much correlation there’s been between Trump and the women of Texas.