[Both helmed by conservative governors, the two states represent
radically different futures for the country.]
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FLORIDA AND TEXAS, THE FAR-RIGHT AXIS  
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Luisita Lopez Torregrosa
January 4, 2023
Texas Observer
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_ Both helmed by conservative governors, the two states represent
radically different futures for the country. _

,

 

At the crux of the nation’s hyperpartisan political and culture wars
stand Texas and Florida, the far-right Republican axis, whose
right-wing trifectas not only survived the midterms but emerged
stronger, bolder, and bigger. While the widely expected GOP “red
wave” fizzled in much of the nation, Texas added two seats to its
predominantly Republican congressional delegation and Florida, until
recently a purple battleground state, fell fully into Republican
hands.  

Democrats surprised nearly everyone by defeating many candidates
backed by former President Donald Trump, holding onto the majority in
the U.S. Senate and losing fewer seats than expected in the House. But
the Republican victories in Texas and Florida—with large delegations
in Congress, baskets of electoral votes (Texas 40, Florida 30), and
enormous resources—underscore fundamental divisions in the country
and leave little doubt that these second and third megastates, after
California, are playing a definitive role in shaping the political
direction of the country. 

For some time now, population experts and political scientists have
relied on Texas and Florida, the two states with the biggest
population growth in the past few years, to give us a lens into the
country’s economic, political, and demographic trajectory.

“Texas is the future of America,” said Steven Pedigo, director of
the Urban Lab at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B.
Johnson School of Public Affairs. “That’s what the 2020 Census
tells us, along with the last 20 years of economic and demographic
data.’’ 

Giving us a look at what will happen to our politics when the United
States becomes a majority-minority country, Texas, like California,
has already reached that demographic milestone. 

Texas has been a majority-minority state for close to two decades, but
Latinos command far less political and economic influence here than
they do in Florida. Non-Hispanic white Texans make up about 39.4
percent of the state’s 30 million population. Latinos account for
nearly half, around 40.2 percent, with Blacks making up 13.2 percent,
Asian Americans 5.5 percent, and American Indians 1.1 percent. 

Demographic and voting patterns hint at factors that contribute to the
slower political and economic rise of Latinos in Texas, which has seen
a larger influx of new immigrants than Florida.

“Latinos are considerably less likely than Americans overall to be
eligible to vote (53 percent vs. 72 percent). This is partly because
the nation’s Latino population includes a large number of people who
are too young to vote or who are not U.S. citizens,” according to a
recent Pew Research study.

Florida’s 5.8 million Latinos make up about 27 percent of the
state’s 22 million people and 19 percent of registered voters. In
contrast, Texas’s 11.6 million Latinos make up about 40 percent of
the state’s 30 million residents, but only about 23 percent of
voters.

_“TEXAS IS THE FUTURE OF AMERICA. THAT’S WHAT THE 2020 CENSUS
TELLS US, ALONG WITH THE LAST 20 YEARS OF ECONOMIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC
DATA.’’_

With a dominant contingent of conservative Cubans and Venezuelans,
Florida Latinos enjoy more power in their state and in Washington than
Latinos do in Texas. Florida’s 27-member congressional delegation is
26.5 percent Latino. Latinos occupy high-level statewide and county
posts and make up around 20 percent of the state legislature in
Tallahassee. 

By comparison, Latinos are under-represented in Texas. Only 19 percent
of the state’s congressional delegation—the second largest in the
country—are Latino. The state Legislature is 61 percent white,
though the state is only 39.4 percent white. 

There is, to be sure, Latino local political power in many Texas
communities, especially around the Rio Grande Valley, but the state is
run by primarily white Republicans.  

Republicans, once slow to recognize the explosive growth and potential
political influence of the Latino population—60 million nationwide,
the country’s largest minority—are pouring money and deploying
their staffs to conduct outreach and gain their vote. They’ve had
mixed results in Texas but success in Florida, where Latino-backed
Republicans scored victories in the midterms, most surprising in
Miami-Dade, a longtime Democratic stronghold. 

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, with a 19-point reelection landslide,
got about 77 percent of the vote in the ten precincts with the
heaviest Latino populations. The only notable exception came in
central Florida, where Puerto Ricans continue to support Democrats.
The Puerto Rican population in Florida has grown substantially since
Hurricane Maria devastated the island in 2017, and thousands migrated
to Florida. Historically, Puerto Ricans have leaned Democratic, but
that is changing. Even in Florida, according to the _Miami Herald_
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support for Democrats has eroded in the past four years. 

“[Florida and Texas] are different states with different Latino
populations,’’ said Bob Shrum, a veteran political strategist and
the director of the Center for the Political Future at the University
of Southern California. In Florida, Cubans, Venezuelans, and
Colombians skew conservative. Many are middle-to-upper income
professionals and business executives whose families fled socialist
dictatorships. 

But in Texas, Latino immigrants have endured racism, violence, and
economic deprivation. New Census estimates show that Latinos in Texas
are more than twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to live below the
poverty line. Over 19 percent of Latinos live below the poverty level,
compared with 8 percent of white residents. 

Shrum said he expected the conservative composition of Texas to change
as the Latino population ages and makes economic headway. The influx
of transplants, Hispanic and not, from liberal California—around
700,000 since 2010—could also contribute to Texas’s changing
makeup. But Shrum said that many of those who left California for
Texas are more likely to be conservative Republicans than typical
California Democrats.

Texas’s growth in the 2010-2020 decade has been explosive. It added
some 4 million residents, according to the 2020 Census, bringing it
closer to 30 million. An astonishing 95 percent of Texas’s growth
has been fueled by minority groups: Hispanic, Black, and Asian,
according to the census. At this rate, the state will have 54.4
million people by mid-century. Already, Houston, Dallas, and San
Antonio are among the top ten largest cities in the country, with
Austin right behind in the eleventh spot. All the large cities vote
Democratic while suburbs and exurbs, smaller cities, towns, and rural
areas are conservative Republican.

Florida is having its own rush of newcomers. In the past two years,
Florida gained approximately 706,579 residents, and the flow of
transplants and high-tech companies from high-tax blue states
doesn’t seem to have slowed down. 

Democrats in both states have pinned their hopes on the newcomers. In
Florida, the GOP was the biggest beneficiary, registering more new
voters than the Democrats did in the runup to the 2020 and 2022
elections. Democrats had long had a voter registration advantage in
the state but that began to change before the 2020 election. 

In 2018, when DeSantis won 49.6 percent to 49.2 percent, Republicans
went from having 263,000 fewer registered voters than Democrats to
having 306,000 more in 2022, overtaking them for the first time in
Florida history. Republicans had 45 percent registration, Democrats 24
percent, and independents 29 percent.

Governor Greg Abbott, like DeSantis in Florida, made the Latino vote a
priority in his campaign for re-election, but received only 40 percent
of their vote, down from 42 percent four years ago, in what was the
party’s first significant play for Latino voters since the election
of George W. Bush in the 2000s. 

In predominantly Latino South Texas, where the GOP had big
expectations, Republicans had middling results: one victory, two
defeats. What happened? “It takes time and hard work, and one
election cycle is simply not enough,” the _Dallas Morning
News_ noted. “Making generic assumptions about the Latino vote in
Texas didn’t help either.” 

Lumping Latinos into a one-size-fits-all bloc has bedeviled both
parties, which seem to have failed to recognize that Latinos are
white, black, and brown, and represent different cultures and
nationalities.

In any case, the political tendencies of the far right in Texas and
Florida are reaching into the core of American principles and
policies. 

In the last few years, Texas and Florida have separately championed
and approved a series of reactionary measures that banned or limited
abortion; constricted the teaching and discussions of race history in
the United States; curbed or banned discussions on sexual and gender
identity in lower grades; overturned protections for LGBTQ+ Americans,
especially transgender Americans; gerrymandered congressional
districts to benefit their party; and hardened immigration measures. 

Abbott and DeSantis each orchestrated the right-wing agenda with an
eye beyond their states. Abbott has done so relatively quietly,
DeSantis visibly and volubly all over the country. 

Both men easily won re-election, but DeSantis’ landslide has more
repercussions. He turned Florida crimson red and polished the
Republican brand, giving himself a springboard to the 2024 GOP
presidential nomination should he decide to defy his former mentor and
now rival, former President Donald Trump.   

“DeSantis has caught a moment where he’s a stark contrast to
Trump’s crazy governing style, and he’s doing it from a MAGA
state,” a Republican strategist, Scott Reed, told _Vanity Fair_. 

For now and the foreseeable future, Abbott and DeSantis will continue
to advance their brand of radical conservatism. 

Professor Pedigo in Austin said he believed that a more diverse Texas
would turn away from the right and move to the center. He sees three
major components of change: the growth and economic upswing of the
Latino population; the influx of high-tech industry from other states,
bringing talent that is better educated and more centrist or liberal;
and urbanization, the growth of the cities and suburbs where people
tend to be more independent of traditional Texas GOP politics. 

Texas is a paradigm for the country, Pedigo said, a microcosm of the
nation. It has the global cities, Dallas and Houston, the high-tech
hub in Austin, the immigration vortex in El Paso. 

Strategist Shrum, too, sees Texas slowly moving slowly to the middle.
“There’s a good chance that Texas will become a purple state—not
right away, but gradually.” 

As for Florida, Shrum says, “If I were the Democrats, I wouldn’t
be wasting my money on Florida.” 

The question remains: Will the nation follow the far-right axis of
Texas and Florida, the likes of DeSantis and Abbott, and if so, how
far? 

LUISITA LOPEZ TORREGROSA, a journalist and author, focuses on
politics, culture, and gender issues. Her work has been featured in
NBC News Opinion, _The New York Times_, Air Mail, _Vogue_, _Vanity
Fair_, _Los Angeles Times_, _Texas Monthly_, and other publications.

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