Trump projected to defeat Biden in Texas and in Fort Worth area

Donald Trump is the projected presidential winner of Texas, despite a slimmer victory margin than in 2016.

The Associated Press called the race after about 10.5 million votes had been counted. Trump was leading Joe Biden by nearly 6 percentage points. He had garnered 5.6 million votes, compared to just under 5 million for Biden.

Trump also led in Tarrant County, although the margin was closer than in the rest of the state. With nearly 800,000 votes tabulated, Trump led by about 5,000 votes, or 0.6 percentage point. Some 67% of registered voters turned out in Tarrant County, the highest share in recent history.

Although Trump still carried Tarrant, it was by nearly 8 percentage points fewer than in 2016. Biden saw similar gains in other urban and suburban counties in Texas. As of midnight on Wednesday morning, he was leading in Dallas, Fort Bend, Travis. Williamson and Bexar counties and had outdone Hillary Clinton’s 2016 total by 4 percentage points or more in each county. He was 9 percentage points better than Clinton in Collin County and 8 percentage points better in Denton County, although he still lost both counties.

It still wasn’t enough to reverse Texas’ longheld political leaning. Trump clung to enough voters in places like Harris County (only slightly bluer compared to 2016) and still dominated the Panhandle and West Texas. He helped make up for incremental suburban losses with gains at the border, where Latino voters, who were long skeptical of Biden, didn’t vote as strongly Democratic as in 2016. As of late Tuesday night, Trump had between 40% and 47% of the vote in Hidalgo, Starr and Cameron counties. In 2016, he didn’t crack higher than 32% in any of them.

As the results shifted to Trump’s advantage (and to the Republicans’ advantage in the U.S. Senate and a great number of down-ballot races), the Texas GOP tweeted, “We KEPT Texas Red!! Thank you, voting Republicans!!”

In a conference call with reporters, before Trump had been declared the projected winner, Texas Democratic politician Julian Castro said, “Win or lose Texas is now the biggest swing state in the nation. It will be going forward.”

That Texas would not be a given for Republicans in the presidential election felt implausible just a few years ago. Mitt Romney defeated Barack Obama in 2012 by 15 percentage points. Hillary Clinton lost to Trump in 2016 by 9 percentage points. It was the closest margin in Texas since 1996 but a victory sound enough that media outlets projected Trump the winner an hour after the polls closed.

But Trump’s election ushered in a new era of engagement in the state and in Tarrant County. By the 2018 election, Texas’ count of registered voters had increased to 15.8 million, from 15.1 million in 2016. It was at 16.9 million by the time early voting started last month. Tarrant County added 30,000 voters between November 2016 and November 2018 and another 100,000 between 2018 and 2020 for a total of 1.2 million.

The upward trajectory in registration was followed by a rapid rise in voting. Roughly 730,000 had voted before election day in Tarrant County, surpassing 2016 total turnout by nearly 40,000. In Texas, the early vote and early mail-in ballot total was 9.7 million. Only 8.9 million votes were cast in Texas in the 2016 presidential race.

Both candidates recognized the importance of Texas in statements and speeches throughout their campaigns. Trump, expressing support for oil, guns and religion, noted in August that Biden would have a tough time winning the state. He tweeted on Oct. 31 “I LOVE TEXAS” after Trump supporters surrounded and collided with a Biden bus in Hays County. In June, Biden addressed the state Democratic Party convention, saying: “Texas is an important battleground state for our campaign in 2020. I think we have a real chance to turn the state blue because of the work all of you have done.”

When Trump reached out to Texas voters, he mostly conveyed a pro-business message, saying he would help improve the state’s economy, particularly regarding oil and gas. Biden, in a March speech in Houston, focused on criticism of Trump, the importance of immigration and climate change.

At the final presidential debate, Trump stressed the importance of the oil industry. Biden replied that he wanted to transition from oil and shift to a greater emphasis on renewable energy. “Will you remember that, Texas?” Trump responded.

Down the stretch run of the election, despite polls indicating the race was a tossup, neither candidate made Texas a priority. Trump last came here in August. Biden hasn’t campaigned in Texas since that March visit. His vice presidential candidate, Kamala Harris, did speak outside First St. John Baptist Church in Fort Worth last week, telling attendees the Biden ticket would be better on health care and protection from COVID-19.

Allen West, chairman of the Texas GOP, said in October he had asked Trump to visit Texas a final time, particularly North Texas. Instead, the Republicans relied on Lieutenant Gov. Dan Patrick to crisscross the state by bus to garner support for Trump, and Gov. Greg Abbott knocked on the doors of potential voters throughout the early voting period.

Beto O’Rourke had even stronger messages for the national Democrats in the weeks ahead of the election, arguing that Biden’s team had a “responsibility” to invest more resources in Texas. The Biden campaign made a $6 million TV ad buy in Texas in October. It was more than Hillary Clinton spent in 2016 and more than the GOP spent on Trump ads, but less compared to Biden ad buys in other battleground states.

“This state is theirs to lose,” O’Rourke said on a conference call before the last presidential debate. “They’ve invested close to zero dollars in the state of Texas and they’re doing this well already. Imagine if they invested some real dollars.”

O’Rourke offered perhaps the first sign that Texas would no longer be a blowout victory for Republicans when he lost by 2.6 percentage points to Ted Cruz in 2018. After he lost that Senate race and a bid for the Democratic presidential election, O’Rourke focused his attention on voter registration and turnout through a new PAC called Powered by People. As the election neared, he went to curry favor for Biden in places where Republicans long expected to dominate, including Arlington, Denton and Plano.

State Republicans said they had registered at least 160,000 new Texas residents since last September. While the Democrats looked to the cities and suburbs for new votes, Republicans like Patrick looked to rural Texas for helping Trump.

And despite Biden siphoning off thousands of voters in the big cities and suburbs it wasn’t enough to break Trump’s grip. Texas and its 38 electoral college votes remained red.