Texas: not as Wingnutty as you might think

Yes, I’ve seen this:

more about "Texas governor claims sovereignty fro…", posted with vodpod

And yes, this disgusted me.

But this doesn’t tell the whole story about Texas.

First of all, remember that Texas is a huge state with many diverse regions; East Texas is very different from West Texas which is very different from South Texas. And, of course, Austin, Texas is very different from the rest of the state. In all, Texas has 32 Congressional Districts.

So, let’s look at some facts from the 2008 election. Yes, Senator McCain won the state 55-44, with racking up 4.5 million votes to only 3.5 million votes for President Obama.

But remember, those 3.5 million people live somewhere in Texas.

Here is the county by county election map (via CNN)

As you can see, there are blue areas. Some facts:

1. President Obama won 11 of Texas’ 32 Congressional Districts. (data source) That is far from a shut-out.

2. Of the 6 major cities in Texas (Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, Fort Worth, El Paso and Austin), President Obama won 5 of them (Senator McCain carried Fort Worth 55-44).
Senator Obama won Dallas County 57-42, Harris County (Houston) 50-49, Bexar County (San Antonio) 52-47, Travis County (Austin) 64-35 and El Paso 66-33!

So, Governor Perry can run his mouth as much as he wants to. That doesn’t mean that he’ll have every Texan with him!

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