(The Center Square) – A red wave swept through south Texas on Tuesday, with nearly all border counties voting for President-elect Donald Trump.
The region has been a Democratic stronghold since Texas became a state in 1836. The majority of residents and voters in south Texas are Hispanic.
But Republicans in border counties gained historic margins this election after first making history in 2016 and 2020 with Hispanic and historically Democratic voters supporting Trump. In the past four years, local races flipped, and many Democrats switched to become Republicans, elected as mayors, county and city officials and state legislators for the first time in Texas history. Two years ago, two congressional districts at the border elected the first Republicans there in state history, both Mexican-American women. One won reelection this year, U.S. Rep. Monica De La Cruz; Mayra Flores lost her race by 2.6%.
The biggest shift on Nov. 5 was in border counties in the Rio Grande Valley that were inundated by illegal border crossings and crime stemming from Biden-Harris border policies. Texas bore the brunt of border crime over the past four years, prompting Gov. Greg Abbott to implement his border security mission, Operation Lone Star, in border counties and statewide. Many Democratic-controlled border counties issued disaster declarations in 2021, citing the border crisis. They are still in effect.
Trump won most of the border counties stretching from Cameron County in the Rio Grande Valley at the southernmost part of the state, all the way northwest to Hudspeth County. Overall, the majority of Texas’ 254 counties shifted more Republican, according to Texas Secretary of State data.
Nationally, the majority of counties in the U.S., more than 90%, shifted in favor of Trump compared to the 2020 election presidential vote margin, according to election data compiled by the New York Times. “Mr. Trump improved on his 2020 margin in 2,367 counties. His margin decreased in only 240 counties,” the Times states. The analysis excludes 536 counties where voting data is incomplete.
In Texas border counties, the greatest Republican shift was 29% in Maverick County, followed by 25% in Webb, 21% in DiMitt and 20% in El Paso, according to the data.
Notably, Cameron County’s 19% Republican shift occurred where SpaceX is located and where billionaire Elon Musk voted after endorsing and campaigning for Trump.
Democratic strongholds of Webb, Uvalde and Val Verde counties reported Republican gains after being pummeled by illegal border crossers and cartel and gang crime.
In Webb County, Democratic officials in the county seat of Laredo in 2021 sued the Biden administration for releasing hundreds of illegal border crossers into the community who tested positive for covid. Incumbent U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Laredo, who won his reelection on Tuesday, was the only Texas congressional Democrat who voted to condemn Harris for her role in creating the border crisis.
Texas OLS operations have been actively interdicting human and drug smuggling in Webb County, one of the busiest areas of the border in the state.
Uvalde County, which suffered from an unprecedented number of bailouts and crime forcing schools to close under the Biden-Harris administration, overwhelmingly voted for Trump. Texas OLS and multi-agency operations are actively apprehending human smugglers, finding stash houses and shutting down cartel-linked gang crime there.
The city of Uvalde’s former mayor, Don McLaughlin, Jr., won his race for Texas House District 80, flipping the seat red for the first time in more than 20 years.
Val Verde County was also hit hard after roughly 30,000 Haitians descended on the small rural county in a short period of time creating a public health crisis; more than 60% were released into the U.S., The Center Square reported. Its county seat of Del Rio was overwhelmed by illegal border crossings, prompting its Democratic mayor to also criticize the administration and thank Abbott for sending additional resources. It was in Del Rio that Abbott first announced Texas would build its own border wall.
Most significant: Starr County voters made history on Tuesday when a majority voted for Trump – the first Republican to win the county in 132 years. Trump won by a resounding 16 points.
The last time the county voted Republican was in 1892. The county has voted for a Democratic president every election since 1896, The San Antonio Express-News reports.
Starr County is also the most Hispanic county in the entire United States, with Hispanics comprising 97% of the population.
Even though the border counties of Brooks, El Paso, Jim Hogg, Presidio, and Zapata voted for Harris, they shifted Republican by 9.4%, 20%, 9.7%, 3.2%, and 17%, respectively, compared to 2020 margins, according to the data.
Border counties that voted for Trump and shifted right (geographically from the Rio Grande Valley, stretching northwest) include:
