The Rise of the Rosé States

When Ted Cruz was up for reelection in Texas in 2024 (and Trump hadn’t yet been swept back into power), I had a conversation with a political operative who had just gotten back from running a mock debate with him. We talked about Cruz and and what kind of Republican each was, and how they would fare in a world where Trump completed his comeback.I spitballed an idea that had been kicking around in my head for a time: that Texas wasn’t as red as everybody thought, or at least not as uniformly MAGA; that it was still much closer to the state George W. Bush took over from outgoing Governor Ann Richards in 1995; and that election results had largely masked an underlying political disposition that was a quite light shade of red. Given that reality, I said, Cornyn was a better indication of where Texas voters were than Cruz.