If proof were needed of the changing demographics in Texas, then it was on display amid the bowls of Vietnamese noodles at a recent meeting of a Tarrant County Democratic Party group representing Asian Americans.
“This is the fastest-growing community in Tarrant County,” said Aftab Siddiqui, its co-chair, to whoops from the audience packed into the small Vietnamese restaurant. “And also the state.”
The Asian American Pacific Islanders Committee was established a month ago, the latest sign of how Democrats believe a changing population might help them end the Republicans’ 30-year hold on Texas. The state’s Hispanic population is expected to surpass the number of white residents in 2022.
At the same time, an influx of Asian Americans is providing organizers like Siddiqui, who arrived from Pakistan in the 1990s, with hope that a new breed of voter can make a decisive difference. According to 2016 presidential election exit polling, 72% of Asian Americans in Texas voted for Hillary Clinton, compared to 26% who backed Donald Trump.
The Asian population is the fastest-growing group in the state, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, which estimates that it grew 42% between 2010 and 2017.
At about 1.2 million people, it is still a small minority among a total population of a little more than 28 million, but Siddiqui said many were newly energized.
“Because of the rhetoric that has been going against communities of color, this has become a lot more understood that, we have to step forward and fight for our rights in this current atmosphere,” he said, explaining a surge of interest that prompted the new group to serve people in and around Fort Worth.
That has put the state on the cusp of change.
“Texas is at a watershed moment but in politics it is all about turning out the vote,” he said. “If we can do that, we can turn it blue, but it might still go back and forth.”
Recent trends are in their favor. In 2012, Mitt Romney won Texas by 16 points, Donald Trump won by nine, and Ted Cruz, in last year’s senate race, won by just three points.
Trump visited Dallas last week for a barnstorming rally where he reminded his audience that the doom-mongers were wrong last time around.
“Remember the last election? They said — these phonies in the back,” he said, referring to the media, “they said, Texas is in play … And I came here, we had rallies like this. Thousands of people outside that couldn’t get in.”
But Republican strategists know they face a tough battle in Texas in 2020, whether for electoral college votes or at the state level.
“The name of the game used to be, ‘win the primary and you are in as a Republican,’” said one consultant. “The game has changed.”
The most recent polling puts Trump three points behind Joe Biden, according to an average maintained by Real Clear Politics, but ahead of other Democratic contenders.
One of the challenges is broadening the Republican message to fit a diversifying population, said Brendan Steinhauser, a strategist working on Republican messaging. The irony, he said, is that many of the arrivals were attracted by the Republican state’s booming, low regulation economy.
“We are having so much success here economically, there’s so many jobs, there’s so much opportunity, it’s such a great place to live, we’re attracting people from all over the world,” he said.
But that comes with a challenge, he added. “The Hispanic population is growing, the Asian American population is booming. And the older voters who tend to vote Republican are literally leaving this life and heading into the next.”
The state has an extraordinary record attracting businesses from elsewhere in the country, often from Democratic strongholds. According to the Dallas Business Journal, 1800 companies left deep blue California in 2016, of which 299 landed in Texas. They include major employers such as healthcare giant McKesson and convenience store distributor Core-Mack.
The Trump campaign is taking no chances. The president’s Dallas rally was his twelfth visit to the state since taking office. In September, he shared a stage with Narendra Modi, the Indian prime minister, in Houston at an event for Indian Americans.
Doug Deason, Texas co-chair of the Trump Victory Committee, said Hispanic voters should be natural conservatives, given their Christian faith and reputation for working hard in the private sector.
But he said appealing to such a diverse electorate may need tweaking of Trump’s message on immigration in a state where immigrants provide such a significant part of the workforce.
“I never agree with anyone a hundred percent,” he said in his eighth-floor office with a view of the Dallas skyline. “And so some of his rhetoric about limiting legal immigration is not something that people in Texas are particularly excited about, because we’re at full employment.”
Stacy Hock, another co-chair, said recent results suggested more needed to be done, and that the party was seeing an increase in minority candidates coming forward.
“We have long been a welcoming party to all demographics — women, men, young people, older people, urban, suburban, rural — and what may have happened in the last 10 years is a little bit of complacency, a little bit of taking our joint belief in certain ideals for granted,” she said.
