Seven Years Ago, It Was a Fantasy Only a Gay Romance Novel Could Dream Of. After Tuesday Night, It’s a Reality.

Books The Gay Romance Novelist Who Saw Blexas Coming An interview with Red, White & Royal Blue author Casey McQuiston about penning a blue Texas plot seven years ago. Alex Claremont-Diaz, you did it. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Graficriver/Adobe Stock and Prime Video. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Did you see blue Texas coming? Maybe you had considered that state legislator–cum–seminary student James Talarico could eke out a win against the scandal-ridden Ken Paxton for a U.S. Senate seat, but there was no way the Democrats could also take the governor’s mansion. The mood heading into Tuesday night was one of hope heavily tinted by fear, even if many of us had an inkling that, as Slate writer Jim Newell wrote in September, this time in the Lone Star State might actually be different. But one person who did see the potential for Blexas on the horizon was Casey McQuiston, the bestselling author of queer romance novels. Their 2019 debut Red, White & Royal Blue (later turned into a Prime Video movie starring Taylor Zakhar Perez and Nicholas Galitzine) features an enemies-to-lovers dalliance between Alex Claremont-Diaz, the son of a female American president, and Prince Henry, the third in line for the British monarchy. Spoilers ahead: These two crazy kids find a way to be together—while Alex also hatches an elaborate political strategy to, against all odds, flip Texas blue for his mom’s reelection, a plot point that was viewed with some amount of lighthearted disbelief at the time. Well, turns out McQuiston was right. When real-life Texas’ returns came in on Tuesday night, my feed became flooded with memes about this unexpectedly prescient seven-year-old novel, its 2023 film adaptation, and the all-important role this story might play in America during so-called “Woke 2.0” (or even 3.0, depending on who you’re asking). I called up McQuiston the day after the historic blue tsunami to get their read on this monumental night, and to ask if any of their other characters—who will appear again in the sequel to Red, White & Royal Blue, an epistolary novella called The Private Correspondence coming in December—have some political predictions they’d like to share. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Slate: How have your past 20 or so hours been, Casey? Casey McQuiston: It’s so funny. I’ve been burned so many times by watching returns that I was not letting myself really lock in too much. I was literally sitting right there at my sewing machine working on Christmas presents, and I had Steve Kornacki on YouTube going. And then around the time they started calling Harris County in Texas—which I know is Houston, ’cause I’m a Houston bitch—I was like, OK, let’s put this aside for a minute. And so I swapped to my TV and started actually really watching. I pretty immediately started getting a lot of texts from friends and a lot of people being like, “Oh my God, I’m thinking of you right now.” Do you feel vindicated? You know, I do! But at the same time, I wasn’t really surprised until [Texas Gov. Greg] Abbott conceded. Honestly, even with how much I’ve been burned, I was really confident Talarico was going to win. And so I was just like, “OK, let’s have a cute little night and let’s see what happens.” But when Abbott conceded, I literally screamed “WHAT” out loud. Reactions from the author as election results rolled in. @casey.mcquiston/Instagram I’m speaking with you, a romance novelist, the day after the midterm elections because your first novel prominently features Texas going blue, aka Blexas. So how long have you been a Blexas believer, Casey? Thank you so much for asking! I’ve always been a Texas lover, and a Blexas lover specifically. I think it was back in 2013 when Wendy Davis did her big filibuster and I remember watching that and feeling the way one could only feel in 2013, just so invigorated and energized and being like, “Wow, there are really amazing progressive leaders and politicians in Texas.” And then I was volunteering for Beto O’Rourke’s campaign back during his first run, when he was running for Congress. So you lived in Texas at the time? No, no, I was living in Louisiana. I was phone-banking for Beto from Louisiana. I’m sure people were getting calls from my Louisiana area code being like, “Please leave me alone!” Your novel has a fantasy element to it because in the book, obviously, a woman president is running for reelection in the United States. And the way Blexas figures in is in that election, and not a midterms race like we just had. But, for those who haven’t read the book, can you explain why this denouement is so important to the story? In my book, the president of the United States is a woman from small-town Texas, and she’s a Democratic president. She is, obviously, I’m sure you can guess from what I just said, very heavily inspired by Wendy Davis. The son of the president is our main character. His name is Alex Claremont-Diaz. He’s from Austin, Texas. He’s Mexican American and a sort of political wunderkind. He’s 22 and gets involved in his mom’s presidential campaign by really trying to push the campaign to take Texas seriously as a state they could flip, and to actually campaign there and invest there. The climax of the book is election night, and Texas flips blue. And it is the thing that puts them over to the point of no return of 270 electoral votes. Alex is so vindicated! Alex Claremont-Diaz is the most vindicated person on earth today! He should be doing the interviews! Do you remember how readers reacted when the book came out in 2019? Do you have any stories of people reaching out to you about the Blexas plotline? I remember touring in Austin on my first book tour and just being so warmly received, and everyone being so proud to see Texas written in a way that was helpful and positive. I also remember speaking to a lot of people in politics, everyone from aides in D.C. to actual elected officials. I got a DM from [New York City Council Member] Tiffany Cabán here in Queens today, to just be like, “Congrats on Blexas!” As soon as I saw Steve Kornacki gagged by some of these early results, I was seeing memes about Red, White & Royal Blue. Can you tell me about some of the memes that came across your feed? Oh my God, so many! Of course I have everybody I know sending me stuff. I think the one I got sent most, by at least six or seven different friends, was the tweet that’s like, If Texas turns blue, they’re going to be teaching Red, White & Royal Blue in schools. The concept of that being required reading really made me laugh, especially considering how many states it’s under investigation for obscenity in. In the rush of celebration on Tuesday night, there were also nonstop memes about “woke” being back: We gotta get the pronouns back in the bio, we gotta give PPP loans to the COVID-conscious lesbian bar. But with woke being back in the mainstream—I mean, it never left for lots of us—what do you most want to see? This is my thing that I would love to see earnestly from what we are lovingly and facetiously and hysterically calling Woke 3.0: I would like to see the return of sincerity. There have been so many times over the last years where it’s been so hard to connect with anything I felt when I was writing that book. The hope, you mean? Yeah, the hope. It’s been so hard to connect with even just the faith that people who go into electoral politics are going to help us. The hope that people that are elected officials are going to try. I understand the appeal of cynicism. Cynicism is so easy. Cynicism is almost a relief when everything is bad. And it’s like, “Well, I could take refuge in making mean jokes and rolling my eyes and being ironic about everything.” Because what’s so much harder and so much scarier and costs so much more is hoping that something could be different or caring if it is. I really want it to be cool to care again. I want it to be cool for things to matter to us. I want us to put our whole hearts into things again. I don’t want it to be cringe to care anymore. I even saw some posts yesterday that said, “If Texas goes blue, this Red, White & Royal Blue film is no longer cringe.” Yeah! This film “loses its cringe status”! And I was laughing at that, too. I was like, “Just you wait, baby, just you WAIT! It’s coming!” But the thing is, I never doubted. I didn’t just invent Blexas. And people who were always so skeptical and so dismissive of this fantasy of Blexas, to me, I was like, “Oh, so you’ve never been to Texas? So you don’t love anyone from Texas. You probably haven’t spent time in this place.” I grew up in Louisiana, but I spent a lot of my summers in Texas. I have a lot of friends and family in Texas. Texas is very, very close to my heart. You’re a Southerner, you’re very proud of that. Your protagonist in Red, White & Royal Blue is proudly Texan. You have another romance novel set in Alabama. I want to know what it is for you that makes you want to write queer love stories that take place in the American South. I’ve said this before, and I think it probably sounds corny, but today is a day for being corny! My favorite sound in the world is progressive things being said in a deep Southern drawl. There’s something to me that’s so true to the spirit of being Southern: to protect your neighbor, to give someone the shirt off your back, to stand up for the vulnerable, to make somebody a huge plate of food. I really romanticize all those traits of being Southern; I think they’re the best parts of me. And you know, obviously there’s also that defiant streak in me that’s like, I’m going to put my gay little hands all over the southern aesthetics! You’re set to release a novella sequel, Red, White & Royal Blue: The Private Correspondence, next month. Do your characters have any guesses for other Republican strongholds that will be swinging left? Ted Cruz, your days are numbered! I’m not sure there is a less charismatic person in politics than Ted Cruz, and if we can keep this momentum up, you think of how good it felt to get Greg Abbott out of office, how good is it going to feel to get that fucking ghoul Ted Cruz out of office? And if you’re asking me, I think Wendy [Davis] should give it another shot. Slate receives a commission when you purchase items using the links on this page. Thank you for your support. Thanks so much for talking with me, Casey. Thank you for having me. And I do want to plug one thing that’s not my book. People might not know about this, but about a week before the election, there was an organization called Trans Education Network of Texas, and some kind of shady LLC sent out a bunch of flyers and texts impersonating them, acting as if they were targeting young people in Texas to, like, “teach them how to trans their gender.” And TENT is now, of course, going after this in court to uncover who’s done this. So I just want to plug to everybody, if they feel inclined and have money to spare, donate to TENT, because they have a legal fight ahead of them and what’s happened to them is nuts. Books Elections Politics Texas Romance LGBTQ+ 2026 Midterms