Texas voters went for Donald Trump on Tuesday, according to The Associated Press, giving the Republican nominee the state’s 40 electoral votes and continuing its streak of going red in every presidential election since it went for Jimmy Carter in 1976.
Neither candidate has yet reached the 270 electoral votes necessary to clinch the race.
Gov. Greg Abbott celebrated Trump's victory.
"Congratulations to President Donald Trump on his overwhelming victory in Texas," Abbott said in a statement. "Texans know who will slash inflation, secure our southern border, unleash American energy and crack down on violent crime -- and that's Donald Trump. Texans rejected Kamala Harris' leftist agenda and voted to restore freedom, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans."
Texas was never seriously considered a swing state this election cycle, despite a handful of visits from both nominees in recent months. But Democrats have held out hopes for years that the state is trending bluer.
In recent years, Democrats claimed they were chipping away at the GOP’s electoral advantage both through engaging a younger generation of voters that is more racially diverse and by winning over moderate Republicans and independent voters who had tired of the dominant party’s rightward lurch.
In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney won the state over former President Barack Obama, a Democrat, by 16 percentage points. In 2016, Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 9 percentage points. And in 2020, Trump won the state against Biden by 5.6 percentage points. That was the closest presidential race in Texas since 1996 when GOP nominee Bob Dole beat former President Bill Clinton by 5 points.
Republicans have downplayed progress made by the minority party and pointed to multiple false starts by Democrats including the 20-point drubbing of former state Sen. Wendy Davis by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2014 and the 11-point defeat of Democrat superstar Beto O’Rourke by Abbott two years ago. Both Democratic candidates had raised large sums of cash for their bids against Abbott.
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