There’s a famous passage in Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” in which the author’s avatar asks a drinking buddy, “How did you go bankrupt?”
“Two ways,” the friend replies. “Gradually, then suddenly.”
The GOP already is in the “gradually” stage of collapse. The “suddenly” phase could arrive as soon as 2020, via what’s being dubbed the “Texodus” of Lone Star State Republicans from Congress. So far six, from both swing districts and safe seats, have announced they won’t seek re-election, and more retirements are expected.
What’s behind it? Beltway reporters bring up the fact that the GOP is in the minority, so members have little to no power, and even that is diluted by the party’s insistence on rotating members off committees, preventing them from accumulating any power on an individual basis.
That’s all true, but it’s not as compelling as what a diarist at Daily Kos who tracks Texas politics laid out: The GOP needs low turnout to win in Texas, and it’s highly unlikely to get it.
It’s long been true that Democrats outnumber Republicans in Texas; the trick has been getting them to vote. The 2014 midterms saw a pathetic 28% turnout. That jumped to 46% in 2018, which has led the state GOP to predict a similar increase from 2016, when 7.4 million of the state’s 17 million registered voters didn’t cast a ballot.
As the diary explains, the surge in turnout didn’t just endanger Republicans in Congress. It also unseated enough state reps and senators to end the GOP’s super-majorities. A bigger surge in turnout next year is expected to further erode those majorities. It could well be that the GOP’s embrace of more open racism and xenophobia has awakened a sleeping giant.
The upshot: Texas could be as competitive as Florida in 2020, and could easily tip Democratic after that. The state currently has 38 votes in the Electoral College. That’s as many as Ohio, Wisconsin and Minnesota combined.
Once Texas tips, the GOP, quite suddenly, will have no viable path to the presidency.