Reply #30: Most Democratic district? [View All]

I believe I read that the 28th district voted 53-47 for Shrub over Kerry in '04. There are more Democratic congressional districts in TX.

It's oversimplifying the matter to say that because the DINO won in a Democratic primary that all these other things must be true. For one thing, consider Texas's open primary and the fact that Republicans didn't have any real high-profile races to worry about in their primary, so many across the state voted in the Democratic primary.

Also, consider that it's a misnomer to judge the liberalism of a district simply because they always elect a Democratic Congressperson. As I mentioned earlier, TX-28 voted for Shrub over Kerry. (For another comparison, my home county has only Democrats in all of the local offices as far as I can remember, but gave Shrub 64-percent of the vote in '04.)

Additionally, consider that even generally liberal Democrats in TX-28 may have agreed with some of Cuellar's DINO positions on issues like "free trade" because of the particular circumstances of their hometown, Laredo. I believe this race was more of a competition between voters supporting a Laredo-based politician and voters supporting a San Antonio-based politician, with politics coming in second in consideration. Cuellar got his larger-to-begin-with base to turn out better than Rodriguez did. I don't think very much more can be read into what happened in this race.

And really, I don't see how the actions of voters in one of thirty-two Congressional districts show where the state as a whole is coming from. I think this is an improper way to judge a state's political trends in any state with more than one congressional district.

You'll see no argument from me about whether Texas is currently a "red" state. We definitely have more Republicans and Republican-supporting independents than we have Democrats and Democrat-supporting independents. But even red states sometimes elect Democrats on the state level and no state is permanently locked into being one "color." Texas's long-term trends towards turning "blue" look better than many other states.