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Texas Democrat James Talarico May Be on Track to Turn the Lone Star State Blue
(www.vanityfair.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Jun 2026
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politics
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The population of the Chicago metro area (excluding the 2 WI and 2 IN counties that get lumped in) accounts for 66% of the population of the state.
The combined population of the Houston, Dallas, and Austin metro areas only account for 58% of the population of the state.
Not only that, most of Chicagoland is blue, but you cannot say the same for Texas cities where most of the outlying suburbs of the metro area are red.
The population of Houston proper, Dallas proper, and Austin proper combined only make up 15% of the population of Texas. But Chicago proper alone makes up over 21% of the population of Illinois. Throw in Aurora and Naperville to make the 3 city comparison a little more fair, and you get almost 26% of the population of IL.
San Antonio is the 7th largest city in the country, (soon to be the sixth) we have surpassed Philadelphia.
But it has only 1/3rd the density of LA. Famously car centric hellscape LA is 3(?!) times as dense as San Antonio.
I think physical proximity is part of what drives people in cities to vote more democratic. Texas Metro areas so so spread out they don't generate the same voting trends.
The winds of change are blowing. The cities continue to grow and the rural counties populations in West Texas are shrinking, but it will take a very long time for the weight of urbanization to take hold in Texas politics the way it has in Georgia and Virginia.