ABC-7 Analysis: O’Rourke’s fate will be decided in these 12 counties

Republicans have had a lock on all statewide offices in Texas since 1998, running up huge margins in suburban and rural areas while splitting the vote with Democrats in the state’s largest cities. That formula for success is changing, giving Democrats hope they can become more competitive for state offices.

Beto O’Rourke of El Paso, the Democrats’ Senate nominee against Republican incumbent Ted Cruz, talks frequently about how he has visited all 254 counties in Texas. In truth, his performance in 12 of those counties will determine whether he can be competitive with Cruz.

Those counties contain Texas’ largest cities and their populous suburbs. While Republicans continue to dominate in Texas’ rural areas and small cities, Democrats have been piling up larger margins in the biggest cities and cutting into the longstanding GOP edge in suburbs.

Texas’ 12 largest counties produce about 60 percent of its total votes, and that percentage will probably grow. For O’Rourke – or any Democrat – to win a statewide race requires them to pile up huge margins in the seven counties with state’s largest cities.

That would be Harris County (Houston), Dallas County, Bexar County (San Antonio), Travis County (Austin), Tarrant County (Fort Worth), El Paso County and Hidalgo County (McAllen.)

Even big margins in the big cities wouldn’t be enough. A Democrat also has to become competitive in traditional Republicans strongholds in suburban counties around Houston (Fort Bend and Montgomery), Dallas-Fort Worth (Collin and Denton) and Austin (Williamson.)

The 2016 presidential election results showed Democrats greatly expanding their strength in big Texas cities. President Obama carried Harris County by fewer than 1,000 votes in 2012; Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump by more than 160,000 in the 2016 election. Clinton won by landslides in every big city except Fort Worth. Trump’s margin in that city was much smaller than Republican Mitt Romney’s performance in 2012.

Trump easily carried all of the big suburban counties, except Fort Bend, in 2016, but his margins were much smaller than what Romney received in 2012. As a result, Trump carried Texas by nine percentage points, down from Romney’s 16-point margin.

This year’s election is a major test of whether favorable Democratic trends that Texas experienced in 2016 will continue. The big test subject is O’Rourke.

Turnout in Texas elections is never strong, but turnout in midterm elections is even worse. Only about a third of registered Texas voters cast ballots in the 2014 midterm.

O’Rourke’s campaign has focused increasingly in recent weeks on those 12 large counties. The campaign has particularly targeted Blacks, Hispanics and college students from those areas. History tells us those are the types of voters who are most difficult to motivate in midterm elections, when we’re not electing a president.

In the last Texas midterm, Republican Sen. John Cornyn easily won re-election over Democrat David Alameel. Cornyn swamped Alameel in the big cities, suburbs and rural areas of Texas.

O’Rourke will certainly do better than Alameel in the big cities and suburbs. But the key question is whether he can turn out enough younger voters and people of color in those areas. Cornyn carried Harris County, Texas’ most populous, by more than 80,000 votes in 2014. O’Rourke will have to win Harris County by at least that much, and win by landslide margins in most of the other big urban areas, if he’s going to defeat Cruz. He’ll have to win Fort Bend County outside Houston and Williamson County outside Austin, and reduce traditional Republican margins in Collin and Denton counties in the Metroplex.

That path isn’t impossible, but it’s very, very difficult.