Democrats make rural Texas gains in historic statewide losses

Texas Republicans lost considerable ground in rural areas on Tuesday, contributing to what analysts described as a historic wipeout for the party. Voters in many of the state’s most reliable Republican counties stayed home or supported Democratic candidates, according to a Texas Tribune analysis.

Roughly 90 percent of counties with decreased voter turnout were rural. State Representative James Talarico became the first Democrat to win a Texas U.S. Senate seat since 1988. He narrowed the gap with Republican voters in rural counties by about 10 percentage points since 2018.

“This tells us that you can’t take rural Texas for granted.”

Talarico also outperformed Beto O’Rourke’s 2018 margin in exurban counties by roughly 15 percentage points. Drew Landry, a political science professor at South Plains College in Levelland, said the results should warn Republicans not to take rural Texas for granted.

Clayton Tucker will become the first Democrat to lead the state’s agricultural department since 1990. He formed a quasi-alliance with outgoing commissioner Sid Miller, who lost the Republican primary in March and had suggested a doomsday scenario for Republicans for months.

Democrats remain far from winning the rural Texas vote outright. The party, long out of power in Texas, made monumental inroads that propelled several candidates to the top, but the question remains how to sustain that momentum.

Guessippina Bonner, a former Lufkin City Council member, said residents want officials to visit periodically and check whether people are doing alright. She added that people would respond to that kind of engagement.