Texas Demographics and Electoral Colleges

Zainil Momin

Sanchez

POL 1133

Texas Demographics and Electoral Colleges

        The current population accounts for a little more than a half in Texas consisting of whites only.  Different ethnicities have slowly started moving into different parts of Texas, bringing their own wants, ideas, and beliefs which has resulted in a change-up in the tradition Texas politics system.  Over the course of the years, Texas has slowly started their lean toward urbanization in cities such as Houston, San Antonio and even Austin. The change from rural and urban plays a big role for politics in Texas.  The change causes different wants and need for the state and the transition causes the state to slowly fade away from the tradition lifestyle to more of a modern day lifestyle. By the minority population growth and the transition to an urban state has caused electoral politics in Texas to transform.

        According to the US Census Bureau in 2012, thirty-eight point two percent of the population consisted for Hispanics and Latinos.  The percentage is thought to increase over the upcoming years due to more job opportunities and better living conditions in Texas.  With the increase of Latinos and Hispanics voters, and their active support of the Democratic Party, a change-up has been triggered in the State government. Politicians are realizing that more and more Hispanics and Latinos are starting to vote. So to appeal to this minority group, different ideas and plans are being proposed. If the population of Hispanics and Latinos and other minority groups does increase more Democratic ideas and action will overpower the current political party in Texas.

        Before the Industrial Revolution, Texas has been viewed as a rural state due to most of the lifestyle consisting of farming and agriculture. But with big commercial businesses owning most of the farms, private farming has started to decrease over the years.  With the start of the industrial revolution more and more people have started to shift toward the urban lifestyle.  The urban lifestyle requires different wants and needs than the rural lifestyle requires. According to a graph presented by Susan Combs, there is a huge trend of a ten percent increase in urban cities such as Austin, Houston and San Antonio, so urbanization is definitely taking part in Texas. Based on the Republican and Democratic States Map in 2013, urban states such as New York, California, Illinois seem to favor Democratic more. With more urbanization going on in Texas we can expect to adopt ideas and lifestyle changes such as bigger urban cities. Even though the entire election is not based primarily on the state being rural or urban, it does play an important factor in it.