President Trump has secured Texas, scooping up 38 Electoral College votes as he attempts to claim the White House.
Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden embarked on his 2020 bid boasting that his brand of centrist politics would put Texas in play despite the state dodging the blue ledger since 1976. But heading into Election Day, Trump was polling ahead by an average of 4 percentage points.
Trump seized the electoral prize in 2016 over then-Democratic standard-bearer Hillary Clinton by almost double digits, 52% to 43%.
Democrats hoped to build on Clinton’s momentum from the previous cycle, with the former secretary of state, New York senator, and first lady losing Texas by a Democratic candidate’s smallest margin since 1996.
Yet, Clinton’s success was also arguably relative to Trump’s tepid victory, underperforming 2012 Republican nominee Mitt Romney. Romney beat President Barack Obama in the state by 16 points.
It was Trump’s immigration policies that hurt him in Texas during his inaugural campaign, particularly with the state’s growing Hispanic and Latino community, as well as with college-educated voters. That anti-Trump sentiment still existed, but it was the president’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and roiled race relations that politically damaged him most in the state this time around.
About 17 million Texans registered to vote in 2020, 1.2 million more than for the midterm elections two years ago. More than 1 million ballots were cast in Texas on the state’s first day of early in-person voting.
