When you read this we will have just passed our nation’s quadrennial exercise of voting for the President of the United States. As I write this, I have no idea who will have won the current race, and for all I know, given the perceived closeness of the contest, when you read this it is possible that we still will not know who has been elected. However, I can, with some confidence given the electoral make-up of Texas, write that Texas will likely give its Electoral College votes in 2024 to the Republican candidate.
I can say so confidently because Texas has not sided with the Democratic Party nominee for president since it narrowly gave its votes to Jimmy Carter in 1976, and in most elections since then the Republican candidate has won by a comfortable margin. My colleague Brook Poston and I—Dr. Poston is our Presidential historian in the department—were discussing some election nuggets today and we mused about when was the first time Texas did not give its votes to a Democrat.
It dawned on us that it was earlier than we had thought, since Texas cast its ballots for Republican Herbert Hoover in 1928. At the time, such an outcome was almost unimaginable for anyone who followed Texas politics or lived at the time because Texas was, in 1928, one of the most solid of the “Solid South” Democratic Party states. That is also somewhat difficult for many today to comprehend since Texas has been such a solidly Republican state for so long.
But, yes Virginia, Texas was—for mo.
