As Texas Becomes More Diverse, GOP Invests In Voter Registration for First Time In Years

Texas Republicans are spending big on registering GOP voters. At the same time, anti-immigrant rhetoric from President Trump has energized new Latino voter registration efforts in the state.

By Elizabeth TrovallFebruary 28, 2020 9:30 amGovernment & Politics, Houston Public Media, Partner Organizations, Texas Newsroom

Eric Gay / AP

Canvassers with Engage Texas, a political super PAC, seek to sign up voters while set up outside a driver’s license office in San Antonio. With their base not expanding and their margins of victory getting thinner, Texas Republicans have begun spending big on finding more conservatives to vote.

From Houston Public Media:

Texas Republicans have swept statewide races for decades. So when Beto O’Rourke lost his bid for Senate against Ted Cruz by a margin of 2.6 percentage points in 2018, it was a wake-up call for Republicans, who had never had to try very hard to register voters.

“The party had never been intentional about it,” says Texas GOP chairman James Dickey. “We started right away in December 2018 pushing the idea that for the first time in anyone’s memory, the Republican Party of Texas needed to be intentional about doing voter registration efforts.”

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