Analysis: A Latino Vote Surge Powered Texas Democrats' Eight Statewide Wins, and the Numbers Reach Into 2028
A New York Post analysis of the midterms credits 6.3 million eligible Latino voters — almost a third of the Texas electorate — for the Democratic sweep, and says Texas's 40 electoral votes can no longer be taken for granted.
AUSTIN — A week after Texas Democrats won eight statewide races in a single day, the analysis of how it happened is converging on one electorate. In a New York Post opinion analysis drawn from The Spectator, the state's Latino voters — whose eligible numbers have doubled since 2000 to 6.3 million and who now make up almost 32 percent of the Texas electorate — are credited with turning their backs on Republicans and voting overwhelmingly for Democrats in the midterms.
The scale of the sweep frames the argument. The analysis notes that Democrats, after 32 years without such wins, took the governorship — Gina Hinojosa's defeat of incumbent Greg Abbott — along with lieutenant governor, attorney general, comptroller and three other offices, and flipped control of the Texas House. James Talarico collected 5.4 million votes, more than any other candidate on the Texas ballot, beating Ken Paxton by 1.2 million votes and 12.3 percentage points, while Hinojosa beat Abbott by about 700,000 votes and 7.4 points, according to the analysis. It calls the $573 million Senate race the most expensive non-presidential contest in U.S. history, and cites exit polls in which 90 percent of voters named corruption a crucial or major issue.
The demographic details are the analysis's core: Latinos account for more than 45 percent of the state's young voters, about two-thirds of eligible Texas Latinos speak Spanish at home and half are bilingual, and the governor-elect herself — the first Latina elected governor of Texas, a University of Texas graduate with a law degree whose mother was born in San Luis Potosí — is presented as embodying that electorate. The column also tallies the money that did not move the result, reporting that Elon Musk contributed $168 million in August and September to political action committees backing Paxton and $445 million to Republicans overall in the midterms, at least $225 million of it in Texas, and it quotes longtime Republican strategist Karl Rove's Thursday analysis placing the blame on President Donald Trump.
The forward claim is about the Electoral College. Texas last backed a Democratic presidential candidate in 1976, and its 40 electoral votes have since been treated as reliably Republican; the analysis argues that is no longer true, and that a Democratic nominee who can count on both California's 54 electoral votes and Texas's 40 would face a far easier path in 2028. That is the column's conclusion, offered as analysis — the certified results, the new officeholders' January arrivals, and the first legislative session under the new alignment are the facts the desk will keep reporting as they land.
