Sure it will; you think you were the only one whose ballot only gave Libertarian or Republican options for multiple races? The weird one on mine was the one where the only options were Republican or Green (of course, that was an easy choice, much good it did me or anyone.) On the other hand, there were (IIRC) five races where the ONLY choice was a Republican, and that is despite the ballot clearly stating about a half a dozen Republican candidates were running unopposed and "declared elected." Living in a swing state has its upside.

Back in '04 I wound up voting in the GOP primary (and for the first Republicans in my life) solely because the County Sheriff had (twice) been driven home by city cops in the County Seat when caught drunk and urinating by the road. Needless to say, I wanted a different sheriff, but since all of the 3-4 candidates were Republicans, replacing him meant voting in the GOP primary. The best part was that about a week later some guy from the state Dem committee called my mom asking if she wanted to be a delegate to the state convention. She said she could not do it but suggested me, and I was pretty gung ho (since that is where state platforms and national convention delegates are picked) until I remembered my voter registration card was clearly stamped "voted in Republican primary." Oh, well....


It is demographics, and TX did not use to be nearly as red as it often seemed; it was only in 2000 that Republicans managed to get control of the Lege for the first time since, well, I think EVER and gerrymander the HELL out of the state to make it solidly red. I am not saying it was BAD, but the SCOTUS threw out our first re-districting plan, and when they saw the second one screwed minorities just as hard basically said, "know what? We will just do it FOR you. "

Until then, partly due to a lot of conservative Dems, TX had remained fairly blue at the state level. East Texas has a long and deep Dem history that has more to do with the Depression than the Civil War, and purging those East Texas Dems (the WD-40s as they were called at the time) was the top priority of the gerrymandering in 2000 that got the SCOTUS involved with our redistricting and US House Minority Leader Tom DeLay indicted for money laundering illegal campaign donations. East Texas is still a lot less Republican than most would think.

Dallas' large black population makes it go Dem periodically. The same is true to a lesser degree in Houston, but neither have as many latinos as San Antone. Used to be the closer you got to the Valley and East Texas the bluer the state got, and the former is still true. Looking at that it is easy to see why the keynote speaker at the Democratic National Convention (the aforementioned Castro) said TX will be a swing state by the next census, because 65% of its growth in the last census was latino.

The GOP has about eight years to pull its head out of its butt on immigration or it will be a permanent national minority. That issue is destroying them in the Southwest just as its anti-black anti-woman record is destroying it in more and more of the South and Midwest. I think we may one day look back at the combination of Obama and immigration as producing a historic Realignment Election that pushed Republicans out of the Midwest, Atlantic South and Southwest, leaving them with TN (maybe,) KY, WV, AL, MS, MO, AR, UT and the five people who live between the Red River and Canada. That is, like, 140 electoral votes, and obscurity.

EDIT: Forgot to mention the obvious; West and North Texas are VERY red since they are all ranchers, oilmen and cotton kings. West Texas oil is what gave us Clayton Williams (look him up; anyone from TX knew what would happen when GOP Senate candidates started publicly discussing rape.)