Ron Brownstein: “Some local analysts believe that with turnout cresting, and a recoil from Trump swelling Democratic support, Joe Biden could win the counties centered on those five big cities by more than a million votes combined — roughly double Hillary Clinton’s margin in them in 2016 and possibly 10 times Barack Obama’s advantage across the same places in 2012.”
“Whether or not Biden wins the state, or even precisely meets that prediction, a shift of anything approaching that magnitude would provide Democrats a formidable foundation from which to challenge the Republican hegemony over Texas — a foundation that will only grow stronger through the 2020s as these urban and inner suburban counties across what’s known as the ‘Texas triangle’ drive the vast majority of the state’s population and economic expansion. ‘If the explosive growth in the urban centers and suburbs continues [for Democrats] that will be the whole ballgame,’ says Richard Murray, a longtime political scientist at the University of Houston who has forecast the 1 million vote metro advantage for Biden. While Trump and other Republicans are consolidating crushing advantages in small-town and rural communities, Murray says, the stagnant or shrinking population in those places means Republicans ‘just can’t keep pace with this big [metro] vote.'”