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Why not Texas? Commenters ask why Texas (40 EC) isn't included in the Electoral College Equations... [1]

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Date: 2023-06-26

Every once in awhile, someone asks me, basically, “why not Texas?” In this case, DKos commenter glorificus asked:

Ohio has 18 electoral votes. Pennsylvania has 20. Texas will have 40 in 2024. Maybe making an effort in Texas, which would have HUGE PR repercussions also, would be more useful than the same old tug-of-war with OH & PA.

This sparked quite a conversation, largely based upon the different axioms each conversant brought to the question. But since it keeps coming up, i thought i’d try to take a somewhat conventional path to the answer of "Why not Texas?”

As part of the conversation, glorificus speaks about the book, Turning Texas Blue and that seemed to guide a large part of his/her axioms. Since the book was released in early 2016, let’s use that as a starting point. In his analysis of the 2016 elections, Seth Moskowitz takes one attack at the question. Moskowitz developed what he called “the ‘cost’ of an Electoral College vote” where he answers the DKos commenter’s query.

The cost of an electoral vote is how many voters a candidate would have needed to net per Electoral College vote to win a state. It is calculated by dividing a state’s electoral margin by its number of electoral votes. This is one way to evaluate the costs of competing in a state, how competitive the state is, and the size of the reward for winning the state (the size of its electoral delegation). The cheapest electoral votes come from states that have tight margins and lots of electoral votes.

Then he walks through the various scenarios for how Clinton could have beaten Trump (a lot of us would argue that she not only beat Trump but should have won the Electoral College, if things had been fair), and specifically calls the ‘Democratic path through Texas’:

To win Texas, Clinton have needed to net over 800,000 more voters. This is far more than any of the other routes explored above and over 10 times as many as the Rust Belt path in Table 1. And even though it would have brought Clinton exactly to the 270 Electoral College votes she needed, it still is much costlier per Electoral College vote than any of the other paths.

Seth Moskowitz’ ‘cost’ of an Electoral College vote in 2020

In all, for 2016, we had these results:

So the year that Turning Texas Blue was published, the Texas pathway offered the most difficult path to 270, even while it seemed like the most (mathematically) elegant solution.

Seth Moskowitz did the same thing for the last presidential cycle, and let’s include it, if only for completion’s sake. Because the question continues to arise.

Seth Moskowitz’ ‘cost’ of an Electoral College vote in 2024

Obviously, the 2020 results changes the numbers, (and adds Nevada, which wasn’t included in his first analysis), including the lineup of most efficient pathways to 270. But one thing continues to be true, when Texas is included in the equation, it is the least efficient (or, rather, most ‘expensive’) pathway to 270.

But Texas is not just the “most expensive” in terms of this theoretical cost analysis. In terms of real costs, specifically media costs, it is the most expensive “swing state” in terms of total advertising costs, as well. Texas has 12 major media markets (Dallas/Ft Worth is the 5th largest media market while Houston is the 7th largest media market in the United States); Florida comes in lower down the list (Tampa area is 13th and Orlando is 17th, but its smaller media markets are higher on the list than Texas’ are). By comparison, Georgia (the least expensive in terms of ‘cost’ per Electoral College Vote) has Atlanta, which ranks ats 6th in US media markets, but its next market is 87th. None of the four other media markets in Georgia are in the Top 100. In Arizona, the Phoenix media market is ranked 11th, but Tucson is ranked 65th and Yuma isn’t even in the Top 150. Wisconsin is even cheaper. It’s top media market (Milwaukee) is 38th, Green Bay (69th) and Madison (72nd) are in the Top 100.

State Democratic Parties do not focus on winning the presidency, but they do factor into any decision expend time and resources in their state. These are all states in which i have experience working with their state democratic party orgs and i do have impressions about each one of them. It’s really easiest to start at the bottom. Texas and Florida have the weakest Democratic Party organizations, Florida worse than Texas. Both suffer from being really big states where the state party really doesn’t have the resources to do everything they need to do.

Georgia and Wisconsin have the strongest state Democratic Party organizations, with Michigan very close up there. North Carolina and, then, Pennsylvania come next — although the North Carolina party hasn’t fallen down as hard as the Pennsylvania Democratic Party has (it used to be one of the best in the country). Nevada has had a complete changeover (something that was really promised to me at the end of last year, when i was complaining about the limitations the Nevada Democratic Party had posed), and while that has made things easier we can only say that it remains a work in progress. In my mind, North Carolina has a better party organization than Nevada, something that would deeply pain Harry Reid, but.

Another factor that campaigns and independent orgs have to consider is the ease of voting. States like Texas work very hard to make it very hard to vote. Texas ranks 46th in the “cost of voting” index. Nevada tops the swing state list (as used in this diary) at 7th, North Carolina (22nd), Arizona (26th), Michigan (27th) and Georgia (29th) come in next. Hopefully, Michigan will improve its position before the 2024 election.

Pennsylvania (32nd) and Florida (33rd) are moving in opposite direction, and, hopefully, Pennsylvania will improve its position as well.

Texas (46th) is not last. Wisconsin (47th) holds that position among the states discussed herein.

There are other factors the Biden campaign will consider, and i wasn’t attempting to be thorough here. I merely wanted to show why Texas is a heavy lift.

Which is not to say that we shouldn’t try. The fact is Democrats have room to improve in every single swing state, as well as Florida and Texas. But these aren’t things that can be imposed from outside. Democrats and progressives have largely moved away from building from the ground up, allowing each state’s party orgs and grassroots to lead. We are largely working on a top down model, which is what every single presidential campaign does. When outside orgs and presidential campaigns work a state, they very rarely (in my own personal experience) leave valuable assets behind.

And we are mainly talking about campaigns here, specifically presidential campaigns and the Electoral College. There’s another factor at work here that does not benefit Democrats. Campaigns and Governing do not require the same skills or skillset. Being good at governing, an essential skill for Democratic elected officials and their staff because we place a lot of value in good governance, is not the same thing as being good at campaigning. There are lots of politicians who place a higher value in good politics, but most of them seem to be Republicans at the national level. The Pelosis, McConnells and (Harry) Reids of this world place value in both, and have been proficient at both. But just as few politicians place a high value on both, most Democrats who get involved in campaigns tend to value the governance part of the equation much higher than the campaign side. And winning elections still remains absolutely vital to being able to govern.

This matters in trying to be able to compete in big Electoral College states like Florida and Texas. It matters in small states (like Iowa), too. But we have been focused here on a small number of states, the ones that can swing the Electoral College. Texas has a dearth of Democratic legislators in Austin and it needs more. Competent govern-ors and campaign staff are not equally distributed in Texas and i am all for campaign or government staff to step up to fill those roles. But we need to think in terms of a pipeline. When i started this oh so long ago, my mentors always emphasized this: always be training your replacement. There simply isn’t enough people who have stepped up in a Florida or Texas, for whatever reasons. We need more people to knock on doors, more people to run for office, more people involved. We need more diverse tickets, and, quite frankly, we need to contest every single race on the ballot. When i look at the ballots in a lot of states like Texas i am struck by both an insufficient diversity of those Democrats seeking office and the number of contests therein.

We can look at the math and it looks really simple. And at least people are thinking about it. But Texas is a heavy lift because we need people to step up. We need a hundred Beto’s, not just one. We need tens of thousands Democrats and progressives more committed to turning Texas blue. This president doesn’t have the charisma that an Barack or Beto have, and, yet, we will still prevail. But Texas isn’t ready, for a lot of reasons. I have done my small part but my family lives there, i do not. There are lots of factors holding the state back, and they all need to be addressed — they all need to be addressed at the grassroots level. We can’t impose that from outside the state. Those of us who live outside of Texas need to be supportive, but we have to let Texans lead. And they can. Hell, i think they will. I suspect most of us would like for Texas to be a presidential swing state. But it can’t be until we solve a lot of issues holding Texas back. And i challenge Texan Democrats to do so...

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/6/26/2177679/-Why-not-Texas-Commenters-ask-why-Texas-40-EC-isn-t-included-in-the-Electoral-College-Equations

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