Read on Twitter
This NYT story on GOP attempt at voter suppression in Texas illustrates a paradox I described in @TheAtlantic last week ... 1/x https://twitter.com/JohnJHarwood/status/1385918466142740482
The story is set in Harris County, Texas (greater Houston). Texas GOP hopes to repeal innovations that promoted record voting in 2020.
Now the paradox: 2/x
Now the paradox: 2/x
Harris County, target of GOP voter suppression in 2021, is one of the counties where the Latino vote swung most sharply to Trump in 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/republicans-are-making-four-key-mistakes/618575/ 3/x
I wrote: "Of Harris’s 299 majority-Hispanic precincts, more than 90 percent moved toward Trump between 2016 and 2020, some precincts by more than 30 points." 4/x https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/republicans-are-making-four-key-mistakes/618575/
The upscale and mostly white voters whose voting rights the GOP most wants to protect? They are swinging hard *away* from the GOP, especially in Texas.
Meanwhile ... 5/x
Meanwhile ... 5/x
The voters most susceptible to voter suppression - non-college Latino men - are the group swinging hardest *to* the GOP, especially in Texas. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/republicans-are-making-four-key-mistakes/618575/ 6/x
Republican lawmakers are self-sabotaging because they get their political ideas from watching Fox News' programs warning of "great replacement." In fact, incoming Latino voters are the GOP's best (only?) hope for counter-acting its loss of educated younger white voters. 7/x
It's natural to assume that political professionals know what they are doing. And I assume that non-Parscale Republican pollsters and strategists mostly do know. But the legislators watch Fox News. And Fox lies to them, to their harm. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/republicans-are-making-four-key-mistakes/618575/ END
PS and that's why Florida's DeSantis is so interesting to me. He seems to be one of the few leading national Republicans who can count. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/what-ron-desantis-knows/618673/
