What’s Wrong with Texas? The Lone Star State is not Cooperating with the Left

One of the top priorities of the left today is shifting the national balance of power by turning Texas blue, using tactics it claims were responsible for a similar transition in Colorado.

However, based on the results of the recent Texas primaries, it’s obvious that the people of Texas are not cooperating with the left’s agenda.

Despite the focus on red versus blue, the battle for Texas is at its heart ideological, not partisan. Liberals in both Texas major parties today battle conservatives over spending, while free market supporters joust with the bipartisan business lobby over corporate subsidies.

It is in this context that the progressives’ national assault on Texas began, just over a year ago, when Battleground Texas opened its offices here. Armed with outreach efforts honed by President Obama’s Organizing for Action and tested in states like Colorado, Battleground Texas’ mission is to “turn Texas into a battleground state” in which “elected officials — from Austin to Washington — represent all Texans”— presumably all Texans except those who have made Texas the reddest state in the country.

Just one year into its effort, Battleground Texas can boast of some impressive field work. Its executive director, Jenn Brown, says the group has mobilized nearly 12,000 active volunteers, including 5,700 people deputized to register voters.

The group has also “raised almost $3 million from more than 8,000 donors [and] jointly raised nearly $5 million for the Texas Victory Committee, a joint victory fund with the Wendy Davis for Governor campaign.”

While pouring scarce resources into the reddest of the red states may seem like folly to some, progressives are convinced that their “Colorado Model” can duplicate in Texas what has been called “one of the most stunning reversals of fortune in American political history.”

Heading into the November elections in 2004, Colorado appeared to be a one party state. Republicans held both U.S. Senate seats, a majority of the state’s congressional seats, the governor’s mansion, and both houses of the Legislature. However, only four years later the tables had turned, with Democrats in the exact same position.

The Colorado Model produced this Colorado Miracle, at least in the minds of progressives.

Yet the turnaround was not as dramatic as it appears at first glance. Since 1975, Coloradoans have elected only one Republican as governor. The parties have typically split the state’s U.S. Senate seats, 2004 being an exception only because Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell switched parties after being elected as a Democrat.

Additionally, while the Colorado Legislature had generally been in the hands of Republicans for over a decade at that time, the shift to the left had already started to occur before the Colorado Model was in place when Democrats took control of the Senate for two years in 2001.

In contrast, the redness of Texas after last week’s primaries is much deeper than that of Colorado a decade ago.

Texas has not elected a Democrat to statewide office in two decades—the last viable candidate the Democrats put forth was current Texas A&M Chancellor John Sharp, who nearly beat Rick Perry in the race for lieutenant governor in 1998.

The Texas Senate has been red since 1997, with the House joining in 2003. And Republican’s enjoy substantial majorities in both legislative bodies.

Even factoring in that the House teetered on the brink of turning blue in 2009, there is no purple in Texas like there was in Colorado before it turned blue.

The performance in the Democratic gubernatorial primary last week of state Senator Wendy Davis, who made a national name for herself with her filibuster against legislation increasing restrictions on abortion, did nothing to give comfort to those hoping for the Colorado Model’s success in Texas.

Davis badly underperformed Bill White, her predecessor from 2010. Even more importantly, she lost the vote in most Texas border counties to Ray Madrigal, who raised and spent no money on his campaign.

This badly undermines the strategy of Battleground Texas to rely on Hispanics to take the lead in turning Texas blue.

On top of all this, the Texas Tea Party had great success in producing solidly conservative Republican nominees for the third successive primary. Not only are Democrats failing to make any headway, but Republicans are turning redder every election cycle. Liberals of all stripes are having a rough time in Texas.

To understand why, we should shed the broad partisan perspective and look at Texans themselves.

Shortly before he died at the Alamo, Davy Crockett wrote to his children, “I do believe it is a fortune to any man to come” to Texas. Even though he was on his way to join the small Texian army destined to face the superior forces of Santa Anna, he rejoiced at his fate and had great “hopes of making a fortune for myself and family.”

Just like Crockett, people in Texas today see it as a land of opportunity. And why not?

About a decade ago, Texas accounted for 7.4 percent of the U.S. economy; by 2013 that figure had increased to 8.7 percent. Since 2001, Texas has created more jobs than the rest of the country combined.

Almost singlehandedly Texas is keeping the nation’s economy growing and it workers employed. Because of this, people are flocking here from around the country to work. In fact, since 2006, Texas has been the No. 1 destination for domestic migrants.

As much as anything, it is these new Texans who will doom the efforts of Battleground Texas and Texas liberals of various political persuasions.

Just like the people who tamed the West before them — and the Europeans who first came to America, the new Texans bring with them an appreciation of hard work and a desire for freedom.

Both of these are satisfied in a state with lower taxes, a lower cost of living, fewer regulations on businesses, and less day to day interference in the lives of individuals — such as Texas’ speed limits up to 85 mph that are some of the highest in the world.

The Fraser Institute’s Economic Freedom of North America report quantifies the freedom that Texans experience, ranking it second in economic freedom among the all the states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada.

Whether Texans new and old explicitly understand what they have or they just intuitively feel it in their hearts, the relative freedom found in Texas is building a conservative majority that will last.

While people in many other states used to big government may not notice the oppressive nature of the policies of today’s left, this is not the case in Texas. Texans are becoming more adept at discerning liberalism and selecting leaders who share their appreciation for freedom — and rejecting those who don’t.

Far from being the next state to fall into line with the agenda of the progressive left or even of the moderate middle, Texas will stand tall as a beacon for freedom for years to come.