Let's talk about Texas, Latinos, and the Gerrymander.... - Belle of the Ranch

[TexasTowelie]

Well, howdy there Internet people. It's Belle again. So, today we're going to talk about Texas, Latinos, and the Gerrymander.

After the results of the state senate race in Texas, where the Democratic candidate won a ruby red district by 14 points, Republicans are concerned. I've seen headlines describing them as freaking out over the results. I mean, I don't know if freaking out is the right term, but they're definitely in panic mode, but it's not really over the results. It's over the maps.

Here's a question. Belle, I'm from Austin and watched you say pretty confidently that you think Republicans messed up the gerrymander by relying on Latino voters. living here, I thought you were crazy. Or maybe you were wish casting, but after the spanking Republicans just got, I wish I had paid more attention months ago, and now I can't find the videos. Lucky for you, it's definitely time to talk about it again. There's really just three simple parts to the equation.

Let's start with this. Trump saw a pretty big uptick in support from Latino voters during the last election. Republicans believed this swing was permanent. So when they gerrymandered Texas and redrew the maps, they counted heavily on Latino areas as friendly ground and based the maps around maintaining Trump's gains, but then Trump enacted his policies. The landslide victory Democrats just got in Texas was definitely influenced by a massive swing in Latino voters.

So, what we have is a situation where Republicans redrew maps based on the 2024 voting habits of a demographic. Now, they're finding out that the voting habits aren't the same in 2026. This has all the makings of a classic dummymander. See, they counted on the rural Latino vote heavily in those maps. They counted on that demographic to hold certain districts and because they thought they would hold them, they could shuffle other demographics into districts that leaned blue in an attempt to drown out people's voices by picking the voters.

The actual effect of this process may have been to make both the blue-leaning district and the district they pulled Republican leaning demographics from more competitive.

Texas GOP consultant Brendan Steinhauser said, "The imagery coming out of Minnesota in the last few days has had a huge impact on not only Hispanic voters, but swing voters, independents in Texas, and around the country. What's transpired there has definitely led to a bit of a political backlash.

If you want to know how impactful this has been, Governor Abbott, an immigration hardliner who bussed undocumented people to Democratic areas, knows that respect for ICE has fallen. He said, "The White House need to recalibrate on what needs to be done to make sure that respect is going to be reinstilled." When you have Abbott saying you need to adjust tactics, you've lost large portions of the country. We aren't going to know for sure until much closer to the election. But for those who suspected Texas Republicans dummymandered by being overconfident, those election results were promising.

Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.

[Warpy]

1. I know Latinos who supported the mass deportation of undocumented workers

First, they competed for jobs and suppressed any attempts at unionizing those jobs. Second, Second, US born Latinos felt they'd long been unfairly labeled as less American than northern Europeans because of the "wetback" stigma*. Third, a lot of first and second generation Latinos who had come here legally simply resented the hell out of anyone who hadn't bothered to jump through the same legal and financial hoops to get here.

Then ICE was turned into Fatso's private Gestapo. No one but the most vicious haters out there supports what has been happening in this country.

Gerrymandering has worked well for the GOP for decades, but it's only going to work if they get people out to vote. That's what doesn't seem to be happening, Republicans turned off by ICE's tactics and worn out by fake scandal after fake scandal. They won't vote Democratic while the preachers tell them if they do, little Johnny will start wearing a dress, but they will stay home instead of going to the polls.