MONDAY, NOVEMBER 9, 2026
..in a spate of ch-ch-ch-changes? Did Texas produce the biggest change on an evening of ch-ch-ch-changes?
As we ponder that opening question, just consider this passel of facts:
The state of Texas—a large, distinct and distinctive state—has a very large number of counties. In fact, there are 254 such jurisdictions in all.
No other state has that many counties! In terms of population, these are the half dozen smallest, or so Wikipedia says:
Smallest Texas counties by population
Loving County: 64
King County: 265
Kenedy County: 350
McMullen County: 400
Borden County: 631
Kent County: 753
That is correct! According to Wikipedia, the 2020 census shows Loving County with a population of 64 persons—or possibly people or souls, depending on who does the telling.
On the other extreme, the population of Harris County (county seat, Houston) is now estimated to be a bit over 5 million people—officially, a bit more than 4.7 million as of the 2020 census.
Texas is a large and extremely varied place. We did a week at the Houston Punchline at some point in the 1990s, not knowing that our dates coincided with those of the Houston Rodeo itself.
Had we ever heard of the Houston Rodeo? We don't think we had. We'd certainly never heard of the "trail rides," nor have they been forgotten.
As we begin a journey through Americana, we offer a background report:
Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo
The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo is the largest livestock exhibition and rodeo in the world. It was originally created to promote livestock production and agriculture in Texas, providing a space for farmers and ranchers to showcase their work. Over time, the event has grown from a small regional exhibition into one of the largest cultural and economic events in the United States. It includes one of the richest regular-season professional rodeo events. It has been held at Reliant Stadium in Houston, Texas, since 2003... It was previously held at the Astrodome.
...The event is 20 days long. It is kicked off by the Downtown Rodeo Roundup held near Houston City Hall, the Downtown Rodeo parade, and the ConocoPhillips Rodeo Run – a 10k and 5k walk & run and the World's Championship Bar-B-Que Contest.
And so on, at length, from there.
This event is part of the sprawling creature known as Americana. During the week when we were headlining right there at the Punchline, we did in fact make a point of going to view what must have been the Downtown Rodeo Roundup held near Houston City Hall and/or the Downtown Rodeo Parade.
We saw long lines of bewildered cattle parading down the wide boulevards beneath Houston's gleaming skyscrapers. On a weekend afternoon, we also went to the rodeo itself, at that time at the Astrodome.
Upon our arrival in Houston one night, we don't think we knew about the rodeo. But we danged sure didn't know a lick about this:
(continuing from above)
Trail Rides
From 1952 [to the present], traditional trail rides have been a part of the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. The trail rides have grown past 2,000 participants managing over 100 wagons across roughly 1,300 total collective miles. The trail rides range in size from a dozen to over one thousand people who ride on horseback or in horse-drawn wagons from various areas of the state to Houston...
The trail rides last from a few days to three weeks, depending on the distance they cover...Participants can bring their own provisions, or, in some cases, purchase meals at a chuck wagon that is also following the trail.
The rides converge at Memorial Park in Houston on Go Texan Day, the Friday before the livestock show and rodeo begins. The city closes some roads downtown to allow the riders to reach their destination safely.
We didn't know from the trail rides! On our first morning, we emerged from our impossibly chic Houston hotel to see, to our substantial surprise, a large number of covered wagons moving through the streets, or were they camped in a nearby park?.
This too is part of our sprawling country. Our question:
Did Texas, this famous state-unto-itself, provide last week's biggest surprise? Of all the nation's ch-ch-ch-changes, were these changes in Texas the biggest?
How Democrats Turned Texas Blue
It wasn’t just that James Talarico won the U.S. Senate race or that Gina Hinojosa defeated Greg Abbott, the three-term governor. Up and down the ballot, Democrats swept Texas, winning all of the top statewide offices. They also flipped the Texas House of Representatives.
Every county in Texas shifted left, voting more Democratic than two years ago when President Trump was on the ballot. Rural counties like Jefferson in the Piney Woods region of deep red East Texas, Lubbock just south of the Panhandle and Midland in the Permian Basin, known as the epicenter of Texas oil and gas, all moved to the left. So did suburban counties outside Houston and Dallas. Even big cities, already centers of Democratic power, saw further gains.
Redistricting efforts undertaken by Republican state legislators to redraw a more favorable map left their own candidates vulnerable in a Democratic wave election. Democrats won four of the five districts that Republicans had redrawn to favor them, and they also reversed many of the gains Republicans made along the border in 2024.
In the race for U.S. Senate, every single county in Texas shifted toward Democrats. In total, Democrats won 28 counties that voted for Mr. Trump in 2024.
Does the New York Times have it right? If so, of the 254 counties, every single one shifted left!
That doesn't mean that every county in Texas voted Blue. But if the New York Times has it right, they all swung in that same direction.
As we noted last week, Governor-elect Hinojosa is a second-generation state political figure. She won her race by a full seven points. James Talarico, 37 years old, strikes us as a more surprising figure.
A bit cherubic, 37 years young, the candidate didn't look the type to bring down Big Red. But much like the even younger Dr. King a great many years before him, he was talking Love Thy Neighbor with substantial fluency.
Even as the TrumpWorld mutts and the mutts at Fox slimed him in every conceivable grimy fashion, Talarico rolled to a 12-point win over the candidate President Trump himself had selected. Reportedly, the way the former seminarian talked was said to have rung a lot of bells with many of the state's Hispanic voters.
Plus, four of the five rejiggered House districts ended up falling to Dems! Was the sweep of Texas the day's biggest change? Also, will this large change hold?
Texas isn't just like your own state, unless you live in Texas. But it's part of the sprawling American tableau and it's full of American people.
Tomorrow: The governors of Kansas
Yup, everybody is tired of Trumpian bullshit. Fucking losers
ReplyDelete
ReplyDelete"If so, of the 254 counties, every single one shifted left! "
Oh, cracka, please. Bullshit. You retarded Dumbocrats don't represent any "left" by any stretch of imagination. Rs have been more left then you are, in a couple of recent decades.
So, Rs didn't vote, Dumbocrats got more votes, but that ain't any "shit" and definitely not any "left shift".
As if some troll in Eastern Europe knows anything about the great state of Texas!
DeleteEastern Europeans are a mix of modern human, neanderthal, and denisovan. That’s why their brains don’t work.
DeleteHow does Somerby write a lengthy essay about the shift in voting in Texas without ever mentioning Latino and female voters?
ReplyDeleteHe did mention Hispanic voters.
DeleteEvan Hurst at Wonkette writes this today:
ReplyDelete"In the sort of act of self-parody that’s come to define the New York Times, the paper of record has traveled to North Texas to talk to some old white Republican losers, so they can explain how it feels to lose. It’s not like there are any other post-midterm stories out there worth telling, like the thousands of Latino voters that swung sharply back to Democrats after Donald Trump’s ICE terror attacks, or the Black voters who knew the assignment and delivered the South, to such an earthshaking degree that American politics will be feeling the reverberations for generations.
Nothing about the gigantic coalitions of women and young people and non-white people and LGBTQ+ people who created last Tuesday’s results.
Naw, best to go visit Gunther Peenwhistle and his pig-ass friends down at the Bible study outside Amarillo, to see what the rest of us fail to understand about how hard losing is for them in the new blue state of Texas."
https://www.wonkette.com/p/new-york-times-goes-on-cletus-safari
His main point is that you don't find out what changed by interviewing traditional Texas voters. Somerby muses about his visit to the rodeo in the good old days when he was doing comedy. Those people aren't the ones who changed the outcome in Texas.
I should point out that it isn't cows and trail rides that make a state red. We in Colorado, a very blue state, have our rodeo and stock show in Denver, in which 30-40 longhorn cattleare driven from union station down 17th street (downtown). We have our ranches with their fences adorned by Trump banners, but there were far fewer of them this year than previously. Even Lauren Boebert lost in her new, very red district.
Just as Somerby focuses on the wrong voters, Evan Hurst points out that the New York Times is avoiding the disgust Texas has for ICE and Detention Centers, the deaths of women due to extremist anti-abortion measures, and the ugly homophobia directed at Talarico. Republicans not only went to far, but they ignored the real problems of Texans. This is not a repudiation of rodeos but a repudiation of everything Trump and the right stand for.
Hear! Hear!
DeleteIndiana has a decorated vet that rides around on a Harley with a flag attached that says:
DeleteFUCK TRUMP
And when people get triggered by him he stops and asks them "What are the three branches of government?" and none are able to answer him.
The Bible doesn’t say anything about three branches of government.
Delete"Even as the TrumpWorld mutts and the mutts at Fox slimed him in every conceivable grimy fashion..."
ReplyDeleteAs I pointed out the last time Somerby used this term, the word mutt refers to a mixed breed dog. It echoes the terms used by white supremacists to refer to mixed race people. Good decent people do not classify people into categories in order to raise up some while denigrating others, and we do not refer to people as mutts. This is true no matter who you are discussing, including Gutfeld and his crew.
What other voice do you hear in your head?
DeleteI refer to that crew as fucking assholes working to fuck over America. Do I have it about fucking right?
DeleteWeeks before rape conviction, Russell Brand was featured speaker for Maha group allied with RFK Jr
ReplyDeleteBrand has been supported by Tony Lyons, who runs Maha Action, and has appeared on stage with Mehmet Oz
Brand is also friends with and is supported by Megyn Kelly, whose general pro rape stance would be noteworthy if she wasn't a right wing loon Republican.
DeleteBrand is going to have a whole new set of friends, if you know what I mean. Couldn't happen to a more repugnant creep.
He's going to get a clear lesson in what the word "consent" means.
DeleteHe won’t be able to revoke his consent after the fact.
DeleteBrand may discover a side of him he never knew, or one he kept on the down low.
DeleteBefore sentencing, apparently Brand's wife gifted him a soap on a rope.
DeleteThis Took Longer Than Expected
ReplyDelete"Trump Claims Election Fraud Without Evidence to Excuse Midterm Rebuke"
Trump is older and slower now.
DeleteHe should get Pompeo to investgate.
DeleteHe should get the FSB to investigate.
DeleteEventually his constant gaslighting will wear even the most MAGA down even more, or maybe not. "The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness." Arendt’s "The Origins of Totalitarianism," written in 1951. Fucking mindless weirdos, the whole lot of you.
DeleteWill Somerby tell us yet again that “it sure sounds like Trump really believes he won, so don’t accuse him of lying”?
DeleteThomas Massie has submitted his articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth.
ReplyDeleteHegseth is a bloodthirsty ghoul that raped a woman while he was cheating on his second wife with the woman that became his third wife.
DeleteBombing random fishermen in the Caribbean Sea didn't satisfy him so he hit that girl's school in Iran, killing nearly 200.
But he still wasn't satisfied, so he double tapped that school.
And still he wanted more.
So he triple tapped that girl's school.
Fucking psycho.
What's up with Senator Mitch McConnell?
ReplyDeleteAccording to Michael Jackson, he's a vegetable.
DeleteWhat’s up with Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith?
DeleteWith Colom increasing his lead, Hyde-Smith is maintaining a low profile, donning her Confederate uniform and fixing to be front row for a public hanging if things go her way.
DeleteDid the Confederacy have women’s uniforms? Seems anachronistic.
DeleteWomen who served as soldiers for the Confederacy disguised themselves in men's uniforms to enlist.
DeleteHyde-Smith dressed up as a Confederate soldier and posed for pictures and also stated that she would be eager to be in the front row for public hangings. Mississippi has a notorious record of publicly hanging Black people.
Her racism does represent a significant portion of Whites in her state, and in surrounding states as well.
However, her racism is also off-putting to enough people in her state that she may lose her Senate seat.
Apparently, calling out racism is an effective electoral strategy for Dems, possibly even in the Deep South where racism has a rich tradition.
Depending on your perspective, Somerby's analysis was correct.
ReplyDeleteFrom a Republican pov, Somerby was right, he was warning us that MAGA Republican lewdness and boorishness was hurting the GOP. And sure enough, the Republicans got wiped out.
To be fair, his advice for Dems to roll over for Republicans was not heeded, and a blue tsunami followed.
Somerby gets it right when advising Republicans, gets it wrong when advising Dems.
Somerby never in any way shape or form said that Dems should roll over for Republicans. What is wrong with you?
DeleteIs that why Somerby blamed both Ossoff and El-Sayed for being too uppity in their criticisms of the right?
DeleteTrump is the least popular president in history.
ReplyDeleteFox News' ratings are plummeting.
Somerby's world is crumbling.
Will he change his tune or retire?
Delete