Not long ago, Steve Bannon laid out his perspective on North Texas on his podcast. "As Tarrant County goes, so goes Texas," he said. "And as Texas goes, so goes the world."
For nearly 30 years, Tarrant County was celebrated as the ultimate conservative stronghold in Texas, a bedrock the Republican party banked on without question. Today, that bedrock is cracking, proving that even the most entrenched political strongholds can shift when voters make their voices heard.
Look at where the energy is being spent right now. In Tarrant County, local officials are attempting to slash early voting locations in a district where Democrat Taylor Rehmet flipped a state Senate seat earlier this year. They are scrambling because County Commissioner Alisa Simmons
is running to flip the Tarrant County Judge seat blue. When a party shifts from comfort to making it harder to cast a ballot, it is a sign of panic.
This anxiety reaches all the way to the top. The Republican National Committee is holding a mid-cycle national convention in Dallas this September, their first non-presidential year convention in 150 years. You do not spend millions of dollars to rally the base in territory you consider safe. You do it when you realize you are losing ground.
The fight is centered in the Metroplex, but the solution absolutely involves West Texas.
For decades, Lubbock County has been viewed much like Tarrant County once was, as an unbreakable red fortress. But Tarrant County proved that no political reality is permanent. While state leaders obsess over the Metroplex, we must focus on what is happening right here in our own formerly blue backyard.
In recent major statewide elections, roughly one in three active voters in Lubbock cast a Democratic ballot. Census and turnout data show a clear pattern among those sitting on the sidelines. They are young people, college students, and working-class families facing shift work or childcare hurdles. These are voters whose priorities on healthcare, protection of personal liberties, and wages align far more with a progressive agenda than the status quo.
In Lubbock County alone, an estimated 55,000 to 60,000 voting-age adults are not even registered. Combine them with the 80,000 registered local voters who sit out midterm elections, and our untapped electorate is more than 135,000 strong. If just six out of ten of those voters show up and lean blue, it completely erases the local deficit and flips the county.
Statewide races in Texas are decided by raw vote totals, and this outcome is not pre-decided.
If Tarrant County can rewrite its political story, so can Lubbock County. We have the power of real change right here in our community. If we all register and we all show up, we can push Democrats across the finish line locally and statewide.
Make sure your voter registration is current, get your neighbors to the polls, and let's find out who the voters in West Texas really are.
(Kimberleigh Gonzalez is with the Texas State Democratic Executive Committee for Congressional District 19.)
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Gonzalez argues panic in the Metroplex proves Texas broadly in play
