The Winds May Be Changing in Texas—but It’s Not Because the Oil Patch Went Woke

By LONNIE KING

Something interesting may be happening in Texas politics.

I emphasize may because I’ve lived in this state long enough to know better than to declare a political revolution based on one poll in August.

But the latest Texas Pulse poll from the Texas A&M Bush School and ReconMR certainly got my attention.

Democrat Vikki Goodwin leads incumbent Republican Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick 46-44 among likely voters. Democrat Gina Hinojosa is essentially even with Gov. Greg Abbott, trailing 46-45. Both races are within the poll’s margin of error, so nobody should start picking out new drapes for offices in the Capitol just yet.

Still, this is Texas. Republicans have won every statewide election here since 1994.

So when two of the most powerful Republican politicians in Texas are suddenly running neck-and-neck with Democrats, I think we’re allowed to raise an eyebrow. And I have a theory about what might be happening.

It isn’t because the oil patch suddenly went woke.

Maybe Texans Haven’t Changed as Much as Their Politicians Have

Whenever Texas appears to move even slightly toward Democrats, the temptation is to frame it as some great ideological transformation.

Maybe Texas is finally turning blue! But then again, maybe not…

I’m not convinced. I suspect something less dramatic and potentially more consequential is happening.

Maybe Texans aren’t becoming dramatically more liberal. Maybe some of the politicians running Texas have simply become increasingly disconnected from the things Texans actually worry about—and from the political culture that once made Republican dominance in this state so durable in the first place.

For most of modern Texas political history, Republican strength wasn’t just about partisanship. It was about a cultural fit.

Texans—across party lines—have long leaned individualistic. There’s a deep skepticism here of centralized authority, a preference for local control, and a general belief that government should stay out of your business unless absolutely necessary.

That aligned neatly with the Republican governing philosophy of the late 20th and early 21st century: lower taxes, lighter regulation, and the idea that less government intervention is usually better than more.

That combination worked.

It wasn’t just ideology—it was temperament meeting message.

But something feels different now and the Texas Pulse poll offers an interesting clue.

When voters were asked about the issues facing the state, cost of living ranked first, followed by water supply and border security. Voters also expressed significant dissatisfaction with the handling of affordability.

That sounds remarkably like the Texas I know.

People are worried about groceries. They’re worried about property taxes. They’re worried about homeowners insurance. They’re worried about electricity. They’re worried about whether they can afford a house. They’re worried about whether our rapidly growing state will have enough water and infrastructure to sustain that growth.

Meanwhile, turn on a television during campaign season and Gov. Greg Abbott is promising to keep “boys out of girls’ sports” and warning us about Democratic socialists.

At the same time, Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick has devoted an extraordinary amount of political energy to intoxicating hemp products.

Which raises a question: are these really the things keeping most Texans awake at night?

An Issue Can Be Legitimate Without Being Our Biggest Problem

Take transgender participation in women’s sports. I actually have some reservations about it.

I consider myself an ally of the trans community, but I also think there are legitimate questions involving competitive fairness, biological differences and how we balance the interests of transgender athletes with those of female athletes.

But I also think it’s considerably more complicated than reducing it to “boys in girls’ sports.”

Age matters. Puberty matters. The particular sport matters. The level of competition matters. A middle-school recreational soccer league and an elite collegiate track competition aren’t necessarily the same policy question.

Those distinctions aren’t particularly useful on a campaign sign. So, nuance disappears and something affecting a minuscule percentage of the Texas population becomes a defining political battle.

That’s what bothers me.

It’s not that elected officials are discussing the issue. It’s that they seem determined to convince us it represents some enormous threat from which they must protect us. Meanwhile, my insurance bill didn’t get the memo.

The Same Thing Is Happening With THC

Dan Patrick seems similarly determined to save Texas from THC.

Patrick made banning intoxicating hemp-derived THC products one of his signature legislative priorities, pushing for sweeping restrictions on products that became legal through the state’s hemp laws. And again, I find myself asking:

Of all the problems facing the fourth-largest economy in America, why is this consuming so much political oxygen?

Maybe They’re Listening to the Wrong Texans

I don’t think Abbott and Patrick are stupid politicians. Quite the opposite. They’ve been extraordinarily successful politicians. And that may actually be part of the problem.

When one political party dominates a state for more than three decades, the most dangerous election for many of its politicians stops being the November general election. It becomes the Republican primary.

That changes the audience.

Politicians become increasingly responsive to primary voters, activists, donors and partisan media. The issues exciting those constituencies inevitably become the issues politicians talk about. Win often enough and I imagine it becomes remarkably easy to assume that the people you’re hearing from are representative of everybody else.

Eventually you can become extremely good at answering questions millions of people weren’t asking.

Fear Is Easier to Sell Than a Solution

Culture-war politics has another enormous advantage—it is simple and intended for simple people to react to.

First, find a small or unfamiliar group and identify something about that group that makes people uncomfortable. Then, present that discomfort as a threat and promise to protect everyone from it.

Transgendered Texans and THC proponents aren’t the only targets there.  Just ask those Texans who find themselves in the crosshairs of the ‘Shariafication’ of Texas debate.

Water infrastructure isn’t nearly as exciting. Neither is insurance regulation. Neither is figuring out why a family earning what once would have been a comfortable middle-class income increasingly feels like it is treading water.

Those problems require complicated solutions. They require compromise. They require numbers. They require admitting that sometimes government can’t fix something with a slogan.

“NO BOYS IN GIRLS’ SPORTS” fits nicely on a bumper sticker. “Here’s our comprehensive 20-year plan for securing Texas’s water supply” does not. But only one of those questions will affect virtually every Texan.

What Are We Actually Worried About?

That’s why this latest polling interests me. I’m not ready to proclaim a Democratic revolution in Texas. Believe me, I’d love to. But, another recent poll showed Abbott and Patrick with more comfortable leads. Polls are snapshots, not prophecies. And Texas remains a Republican state until voters demonstrate otherwise.

But political winds don’t always change because voters undergo some enormous ideological conversion. Sometimes people simply get tired.

Tired of being frightened. Tired of being told which neighbor poses the greatest threat. Tired of politicians fighting symbolic battles while the problems sitting at their kitchen tables become harder to ignore.

Maybe the Texas electorate isn’t moving dramatically left. Maybe it is becoming more practical.

Maybe some Republican voters still have conservative views about immigration, transgender athletes, marijuana, taxes and any number of other subjects but are beginning to wonder why those issues seem to receive considerably more attention than the problems affecting their families every single day.

And maybe that explains why a Democrat can suddenly poll within a point of Greg Abbott and another can poll two points ahead of Dan Patrick.

We’ll find out in November.

But if the political winds really are beginning to shift in Texas, I wouldn’t automatically conclude that the oil fields went woke. I’d consider another possibility.

Maybe the people running Texas have spent so much time telling Texans what they should fear that they forgot to ask them what they’re actually worried about and it’s time to remind them what’s really important to us.

One of the easiest ways to tell when politicians have lost touch with ordinary people is when they spend more time telling us what we should be afraid of than asking us what we’re worried about.