[rayiner]

It cannot: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_Union. Texas in fact voted to secede during the civil war, in a public referendum where secession got 75% of the vote. (Or course, it should be noted that the 30% of the population that was enslaved could not vote.) After Texas was defeated in the civil war, it was governed by a governor appointed by the union president for five years until it was readmitted to the United States.

[aiyodev]

The Texas secession movement doesn't claim a right to secede. Texas retains the right to split into five states. They plan to use the threat of adding 8 right-leaning senators to the US senate to convince democrats to let them leave.

[ForHackernews]

Not quite that straightforward https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Texas_divisionism

[steve19]

Texas demographics are changing. I don't know if they would be able to add eight right senators now, and definitely not in the future. Of course that may depend on a definion of right (right of center or right of Bernie) .

[aiyodev]

Yeah. It's unlikely to work.

[rayiner]

It depends very heavily on your definition of "right." Hispanic people in general are pretty conservative, and Hispanic people in Texas are particularly so. For example, Hispanic registered voters are less likely than white registered voters to support marijuana legalization, and more likely to support restrictions or bans on abortion: https://www.pewhispanic.org/2014/10/16/chapter-2-latinos-vie.... On the criminal justice front, hispanics are more likely than whites to view the elimination of mandatory minimums for drug crimes as a bad thing, and twice as likely to support jail time for minor drug possession: https://www.people-press.org/2014/04/02/section-2-views-of-m....

Hispanic people are more likely to attend religious services at least once week and to pray daily: https://www.pewforum.org/religious-landscape-study/racial-an.... Hispanic people strongly support school choice: https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/11/school-choice-strong-.... Hispanic people list preventing terrorism as a top priority, alongside education and higher than healthcare or immigration: https://www.pewhispanic.org/2017/02/23/latino-priorities-for.... Among Democrats, Hispanic people are much more likely than whites to list the economy as the issue that "matters most" and much less likely to list the environment: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/06/business/economy/black-de....

Another key issue is aging. The median age for Hispanic people is 28 (squarely millennial), versus 42 (later side of Gen X) for non-Hispanic whites. That means, to a significant degree, the more liberal attitudes you see for Hispanic people as a group are a function of age and generational membership. Everyone gets more conservative with age, and you will see that same trend among Hispanic people.

Trump managed to get 28% of the Hispanic vote, despite running on an aggressively anti-Hispanic and anti-immigrant platform: https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/02/24/2020-hisp.... His approval rating among Hispanics is now 35-45% depending on the poll. Greg Abbott won re-election in Texas with 42% of the Hispanic vote. Due to the various factors discussed above, I think the increasing Hispanic representation in the Texas vote is going to have much less of an impact than people assume.

[p1necone]

Isn't Texas only a red state because of gerrymandering?

[adventured]

No. It's a mixed bag still favoring the Republicans.

2018 Texas governor election:

4.65 million (55.8%) votes for the Republican Abbott, to 3.56 million (42.5%) for Valdez.

2018 Texas Senate race:

4.26 million votes for Cruz vs 4.05 million for O'Rourke. That's with the left pouring enermous support and resources behind O'Rourke. Cruz raised $37 million, O'Rourke raised $80 million.

2014 Texas Senate race:

2.86 million (61.6%) votes for the Republican Cornyn vs 1.58 million (34.4%) votes for Alameel.

Republicans are still winning the popular vote.

[NotSammyHagar]

Well, no, but there is gerrymandering. https://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/Ranking-Te...

[aiyodev]

No. Gerrymandering is something a political majority does to hurt the minority.

Texas was a reliably blue state until Bill Clinton was elected president in 1992 without winning Texas. Before that it was thought no democrat could win without winning Texas. Democrats stopped spending money in the state and George W. Bush became governor in 1994. Republicans have controlled both houses of congress and every statewide position since the 90s.

There's a chance Trump might change that as he is less popular among republicans in Texas than he is nationwide.