“You’re welcome in Texas as long as you never forget why you fled a liberal state,” he declared on Twitter. “Texans expect less government, lower taxes & more freedom. Newcomers must keep it that way.”-Gov Greg Abbott, Twitter
Seems like Gov Abbott and his conservafools are a little upset that Texas after 20 plus years of Republican misrule, the Lone Star State is starting to turn purple on its way to becoming blue.
Gov Abbott also has it wrong (as usual). Texas has always been a progressive state, not a conservative one, and GOP control of it is only a recent phenomenon aided by gerrymandering and voter suppression laws.
It's a political flip that has been long predicted to happen since 2009, when the population of non-white Texans began to outnumber white Texans.
The blue tsunami and the movement of mass quantities of liberals to Texas also has them scared they are about to lose control of the state because it is critical to their efforts to elect a GOP POTUS and be relevant in national politics.
Ted Cruz narrowly won reelection over Beto O' Rourke in the closest US Senate race in the Lone Star State since 1978. Texas Republicans also lost 12 Texas House seats to put the Texas Democrats within nine seats of flipping the chamber for the first time since 2002.
And in a development that really has them 'scurred', Tarrant County (Ft Worth), went blue for the first time since the 1970's.
The leftward political shift has also been sped up by the racist Trump misadministration and its 'hate on everybody but conservative white males' policies. Texas Republicans have also contributed to the blue tsunami buildup with their anti-immigration policies, incessant attacks on abortion, their racist rhetoric and failure to expand Medicare. The Texas GOP has also pissed voters off by pushing socially conservative bills that don't have the support of the vast majority of the growing Texas population or our Texas business community.
The conservafools are also distressed about the fact that over 1000 people a day move to the Lone Star State, which solidifies our hold on the number two spot of most populous US states. The Texas population is also not only majority-minority, it is also getting more ethnically diverse, especially in the suburbs.
By 2022, Latinx people will pass whites to become the largest ethnic group in the state, and the increasing anti-Latinx rhetoric is convincing many of them to vote Democratic
Houston, the largest city in Texas, is projected to move up to become the number three most populous city in the nation behind New York and Los Angeles once the 2020 Census is completed.
Houston and Harris County also account for in any statewide race 25% of the vote total, and Harris County flipped blue in the 2018 midterms. San Antonio, the second largest city in Texas, is currently the seventh largest in the nation, and Dallas, the third largest in Texas with the ATX nipping at its heels, is number nine in population. Austin and Fort Worth are 11th and 13th on that national population size list with El Paso at number 21
While some of that growth has been from conservatives leaving deep blue California, it has been offset by many liberal Californians and other people from across the country moving to Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio because of jobs in our growing tech sector, corporate headquarters moves to the Lone Star State and a lower cost of living.
That growth in the big four Texas population cities of Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin and their suburbs has seen those cities get bluer. That blue wave is also starting to extend to the formerly Republican suburban bastion counties like Fort Bend near Houston, Williamson near Austin (and where Dell Computers has its headquarters) and Collin near Dallas, where the city of Plano landed Toyota's North American headquarters.
It's just a matter of time before the number of people in Texas cities outnumbers the entire combined population in Texas' rural areas that remain Republican for now.
So Greg Abbott and his fellow Republicans can whine all they want, but the flip of Texas to Democratic control is underway. That bullet train has already left the station.
BTW, speaking of bullet trains, we're about to start building a bullet train line between Houston and Dallas.
The Texas Republicans may not want you here, but as a fourth generation native Texan, I not only welcome you liberals to the Lone Star State, but I am along with other Texas native and Texas liberal progressive residents eagerly looking forward to working with you to make Texas better by turning it back to its progressive roots.
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