The portion of the Democratic base that is registered to vote in Texas is significantly growing since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, according to info shared by political data analyst Tom Bonier.
Unlike dozens of other states, Texas voters don’t indicate a party affiliation when registering, so further analysis of available data is required for understanding partisan trends in the registration process. “However, when you look at modeled partisanship of the new registrants, you see something significant,” Bonier remarked on Twitter amid a discussion of registration trends in Texas. “New registrants this year, prior to Dobbs, were modeled at +5 GOP. Since Dobbs, that has swung to a shocking +10 Dem, a 15 pt margin swing.” (Dobbs is the decision in which the Supreme Court overturned Roe.) Democrats appear to now hold a significant lead among new voters registering in Texas, based on publicly available data. Bonier’s thread doesn’t explain the model used for these calculations, but he evidently has deep professional roots in the world of political data analysis.
Voters under the age of 25 now comprise a significantly higher portion of new voter registrations in Texas than they did before Dobbs, Bonier added. “Voters under the age of 25 accounted for 29% of new registrants this year, pre-Dobbs,” he explained. “Since Dobbs, those youngest voters comprise 37% of new voter registrations.” The Democratic swing is particularly pronounced among these younger voters, according to further analysis that Bonier shared, so it’s not merely correlation. “It’s clear that those younger voters who are registering now (men and women) are far more Democratic. New registrants <25 pre-Dobbs were modeled at +5 Dem,” he said. “Since Dobbs, they are +20 Dem.” That’s another 15-percentage point swing towards the Democrats.
Texas is currently in the midst of high-stakes races, including one pitting incumbent Republican Governor Greg Abbott against Democratic challenger and former Congressman Beto O’Rourke. Under Abbott’s leadership, Texas already implemented draconian restrictions on abortion, including a measure that took effect in recent days making providing an abortion a felony offense punishable by up to life in prison. With Republican abortion bans, rare exceptions exist, but these aren’t enough. If there’s an exception for saving a pregnant person’s life, how close are Republicans willing to let pregnant people get to death before allowing medical action? Abbott leads in major polling of the race against O’Rourke, but there hasn’t been a new major survey for almost a month. In a recent New York Congressional race, Democrats significantly outperformed polls. Every major survey cataloged by FiveThirtyEight pointed to the Republican winning, but Democratic contender Pat Ryan prevailed.
