Texas Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo, right, shakes hands with Texas Gov. Rick Perry. Carrillo, the only Hispanic GOP officeholder statewide, lost to a political unknown in the March primary.
The Texas Republican Party today finds itself in the uncomfortable position of possessing limited electoral support among Hispanic voters, generating scant enthusiasm among Hispanics to participate in its primary elections, having virtually no statewide (non-judicial) or legislative officeholders who are Hispanic, and running a miniscule number of Hispanic candidates for statewide and legislative office.
At present, Hispanics account for 38 percent of the Texas population. By 2040, an absolute majority of all Texans will be Hispanics, and by 2060 an absolute majority of Texas voters will be Hispanics. Yet, not a single one of the 95 Republican members of the Texas House and Senate or any of the 22 members of the Texas delegation in the U.S. Congress is Hispanic. These numbers contrast markedly with the Texas Democratic Party, where 34 of the 84 Democratic members of the Texas House and Senate are Hispanic, as are six of the party’s 12 U.S. House members.
Statewide, only one of the nine Republican officeholders (Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo) is Hispanic, and Carrillo will be leaving office next year after losing to political unknown David Porter in the March primary. Carrillo’s defeat is largely attributable to the combination a lack of voter information about the two candidates and the tendency of Texas Republican primary voters in situations of limited information to cast a vote for candidates with Anglo surnames.
In the 2008 presidential election, two-thirds of Texas Hispanics voted for Democrat Barack Obama, while only one-third supported Republican John McCain. More recently, in the 2010 Republican gubernatorial primary, only approximately 15 percent of the voters were Hispanic. Even in heavily (90 percent) Hispanic Hidalgo County, just 38 percent of early voters in the Republican primary were Hispanic.
The presence of Hispanics among the ranks of Republican state officeholders will not improve following the November 2010 general election. Only seven of the 128 Republican candidates for the Texas House and Senate are Hispanic, and only one has a realistic chance of victory. In addition, none of the seven non-judicial statewide candidates are Hispanic. The situation is only modestly better at the congressional level, where four of the party’s 32 U.S. House candidates are Hispanic. All are running against favored Democratic incumbents, and, realistically, the best the Republican Party can hope for is the election of one Hispanic congressman in November.
Lastly, the highly charged statements made over the past few years by many Texas legislators in Austin and Washington, D.C., regarding undocumented immigrants has contributed to a negative view of the Republican Party by many Hispanics, especially younger Hispanics who are at the most influential point in their life in regard to the development of partisan identification. These statements, which are viewed as anti-Hispanic by many Hispanics, combined with a virtual absence of Hispanic officeholders and candidates, have created an impression among many Texas Hispanics that the Republican Party is not a welcoming place for them as well as not a strong advocate for their interests.
In the short term, the Republican Party’s majority status in Texas should remain unthreatened. But the Texas Republican Party is likely to find itself returned to its former minority party status in 10 to 20 years, unless the party improves its support among Hispanic voters via actions such as the adoption of a more moderate and realistic position on immigration policy and the recruitment of, and provision of effective support for, Hispanic candidates.
Mark P. Jones is a Baker Institute Rice scholar and professor and chair of the Department of Political Science at Rice University.