Part 1 – Counties around Harris
Dallas and Tarrant Counties are two big squares right next to each other, so I’m combining them into one post.
County Romney Obama Trump Clinton Trump Biden Shift
=========================================================================
Collin 196,888 101,415 201,014 140,624 250,194 227,868 73,147
Denton 157,579 80,978 170,603 110,890 221,829 188,023 42,795
Ellis 39,574 13,881 44,941 16,253 56,651 27,513 -3,445
Johnson 37,661 10,496 44,382 10,988 54,523 16,418 -10,940
Kaufman 24,846 9,472 29,587 10,278 37,474 18,290 -3,810
Parker 39,243 7,853 46,473 8,344 61,584 12,789 -17,405
Rockwall 27,113 8,120 28,451 9,655 38,842 18,149 -1,700
Wise 17,207 3,221 20,670 3,412 26,986 4,953 -8,047
Most of the attention goes to Collin and Denton counties, for good reason. Even as they stayed red this year, they have shifted tremendously in a blue direction. Basically, a whole lot of Dallas has spilled over the county lines, and the result is what you’d expect. There’s not a whole lot to say here – demography, time, and continued organizing should do the trick.
But once you get past those two counties, it’s a whole lot of red. The Republicans have netted more total votes since 2012 from the other six counties than the Dems have from Denton. Parker County, west of Tarrant, home of Weatherford, ninety percent white and over eighty percent Republican, more than twice as populous now as it was in 1990, is A Problem. Johnson County, south of Tarrant and with nearly identical demographics as Parker while also growing rapidly, is right behind it.
I don’t know that there’s much to be done about those two. There does appear to be more promise in Ellis (south of Dallas, home of Waxahachie), Kaufman (southeast of Dallas), and Rockwall counties. The first two are slightly less white than Parker and Johnson, and all three saw enough growth in Democratic voters in 2020 (at least at the Presidential level; we’ll need to check back on other races) to mostly offset the growth in Republican voting. It’s almost certainly the case that proximity to Dallas County is better for Democratic prospects than proximity to Tarrant. Again, that doesn’t address a big part of the problem, but it at least provides a place to start.
I don’t have a whole lot more to offer, so I’m interested in hearing what my readers from this part of the state have to say. I’ll be honest, I had not given any thought to the geography of this before I started writing these posts. Hell, in most cases I had to do some research to know which counties to look up. I hope that by doing so I’ve helped you think about this.