AUSTIN — The big headline for Texas that came out of the 2020 census was that the state continued, and perhaps even accelerated, its decades-long streak of being among the top of the heap in population growth.
But peel that onion just a layer or two and you’ll see that headline does not apply to well over half of Texas’ sprawling land mass. The fact is, of the state’s 254 counties, 143 – all of them rural – saw their populations decline since 2010.
Texas’ population explosion between 2010 and 2020 occurred primarily in comparatively small sections of the state’s geography: The metro areas of the state’s largest cities: Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, San Antonio and Austin. The rest of Texas remained stuck in the muck.
Population declines can devastate a community or region economically: Fewer shoppers in local stores. Which leads to fewer stores to shop in. Which leads to more people leaving town to shop, and perhaps leaving town for good.
More:Big counties get bigger as large metro areas lead population growth in 2020 census
Politically, it means lost clout, both in Austin and in Washington. And we’ll soon see where that lost clout will manifest itself as the Legislature starting Sept. 20 immerses itself in the task of redrawing the boundaries for the Texas House and Senate, U.S. House and the State Board of Education.
Census data crunched by the Texas Demographic Center shows that virtually every state House district outside the urban-suburban centers, and to a less dramatic extent the Rio Grande Valley, has fewer than the 194,000 people needed to make all 150 districts roughly equal in population size.
So say rural Texas now has about half of the House districts. After redistricting, it might have a half-dozen or so fewer districts that will have been gobbled up by the metropolitan areas.
More:2021 legislative session was a warning to Democrats: Learn how to win elections or perish
First blush might suggest bad news for the rural Republicans who’ll be running in those redrawn, but still likely rock-solid Republican districts in the 2022 election cycle. After all, the 2018 and 2020 cycles showed Democrats almost running the table in the fast-growing urban and suburban centers up and down the ballot.
But let’s go back to that onion-peeling exercise. Although urban-suburban Texas grew big time, that growth was not uniform. The demographic center’s data show that six Houston-area Democrats represent districts with fewer than 194,000 people. Conversely, five nearby Republican districts are overpopulated.
That means, the Republicans in the Legislature who control the redistricting process will likely look for ways to carve out some, but certainly not too many, GOP precincts from their own turf and shoe-horn them into the Democrats’ areas. And that might enable the Republicans to flip a district or two. Such a strategy could be replicated in D-FW and Austin-San Antonio, according to the demographic center’s data.
Democrats, who have redistricting map-drawing experts of their own who are prepared for a to-the-death battle to protect their territory, might argue that those suburban Republican districts don’t have any Republican precincts to spare.
Consider that after the redistricting process based on the 2010 census, Republicans emerged with a near bulletproof 95-55 state House majority. Just four election cycles later, Democrats whittled down the GOP strength to 83 by systematically gaining strength in the suburbs.
More:How the COVID-19 delta variant is ruining Gov. Abbott’s best-laid plans for fall
And it wasn’t just because the Democrats had managed to devise a message appealing to what for decades had been a largely white electorate in Texas’ bedroom communities. The census data show that Texas came within 56 people of adding an even 4 million souls to its population over the past 10 years. Of them, 2.6 million identified themselves as Hispanic or Black. Fewer than 190,000 self-identified as non-Hispanic white.
It’s no secret that people of color, while not monolithic in their voting habits, anchor the Democratic base.
The data further show the urban and suburban centers are increasingly diverse while the diversity of rural Texas has remained relatively flat since 2010. Throw all the data into a blender and what comes out is more diverse urban-suburban districts and fewer districts available to Anglo-dominated rural Texas.
Therefore, Republican map drawers will have to be plenty creative to increase their current dominance in the Texas House. Or perhaps even preserve it for the coming decade.
John C. Moritz covers Texas government and politics for the USA Today Network in Austin. Contact him at jmoritz@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @JohnnieMo.
