AUSTIN (Nexstar) — Starr County hasn’t voted for a Republican in 128 years. On Tuesday, it flipped red for the first time in living memory, along with most of Texas’ border counties that are turning toward Republicans after a generation of Democratic loyalty.
“As Tejanos, we’re raised as conservatives, we’re Catholics, we’re Christians, and we believe that what the Republican Party represents now is what we stand by,” Zapata County Republican Party Chair Jennifer Thatcher told Nexstar. Her county voted for Hillary Clinton by 32.8 points in 2016. In 2024, they voted for Donald Trump by 22.5 points — a whopping 55-point swing in just two elections.
Similar shifts played out up and down the border — Hidalgo, Cameron, Starr, Webb, Duval, Willacy, Maverick, and Val Verde counties all turned red. El Paso County remained blue, but Democrats won there by only 15 points — 28 points fewer than in 2016.
Trump carries all Rio Grande Valley border counties
“It’s just a real abject Democratic collapse,” Executive Director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas Austin James Henson said. “It’s going to take a couple more cycles to make a reasoned judgment about what the long-term consequences are here, to see what the trend looks like. But that said, it’s completely understandable and justifiable for Republicans to say that they they broke through in these border counties.”