Capital Highlights Week of November 11 – 15

GOP win raises stakes for Cornyn’s leadership bid 

With Republicans regaining majority control of the Senate, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, is making his bid to become that chamber’s majority leader. U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, had previously announced he would step down as party leader. Republicans will hold at least a 53-45 edge in January, with Senate races in two states still undecided as of Friday morning.
According to The Dallas Morning News, Cornyn said voters rejected Democrats’ “years of disastrous border policies, reckless spending, and failed management that has caused the Senate to lurch from one avoidable crisis to the next.” 
Cornyn faces competition from Senate Minority Whip John Thune of South Dakota and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida. Senate Republicans plan to hold their leadership elections this week by secret ballot. If elected leader, Cornyn vowed to improve transparency with GOP senators.
“There will be no more backroom deals or forced votes on bills without adequate time for review, debate, and amendment,” he said.

Republicans largely flip Rio Grande Valley from blue to red

More counties in the Rio Grande Valley and surrounding areas went Republican this election, continuing what GOP leaders are calling the culmination of a years-long strategy. The party has managed to flip 16 counties since the 2016 presidential election, according to the Texas Standard.
The economy clearly was a major issue among voters in this election between former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
“A lot of the rural parts of Texas are shifting red because the economy is less good,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political scientist. “And the threats to the oil and gas industry that people perceive are coming from Democrats are driving the communities to vote Republican.”
For example, in Starr County, Biden beat Trump by five points in 2020, but four years later voters there chose the former president over Harris by 16 points.

Election Day runs smoothly across state

Voting in Texas went fairly smoothly in Texas with no major disruptions reported, according to The Texas Tribune. Roughly half of the state’s 18.6 million registered voters cast ballots in person either in person or by mail, and another two million went to the polls on Election Day. That is slightly under the 11.3 million who voted in 2020, thus far, with counting of provisional ballots nearly complete.
There was only one violent incident reported at the polls, when a man punched an election worker in Bexar County after being asked to remove his Trump hat. Wearing clothing backing a candidate or proposition inside a Texas polling location is illegal. After the assault, the man was charged with a felony.
In another case, a Tarrant County man claimed a voting machine flipped his ballot from Trump to Harris, but election officials say he made a mistake while filling out his ballot. That ballot was discarded, and he was allowed to cast another ballot, prompting Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick to note that machines were not flipping votes.
“In Tarrant County, we have only had one person say their vote was flipped out of 591,885 votes cast to date,” he said.

State population estimates released by demographic center

The Texas Demographic Center has released its population estimates for July 1, 2023, and Jan. 1, 2024. Final population estimates are available for counties and places by age, sex, and race/ethnicity at demographic.texas.gov. Information for the estimates is collected through five surveys taken from October to February, gleaning information from counties, cities, and educational institutions. 
The state’s estimated population rose from 29,145,505 in 2020 to 30,749,924 on Jan. 1, 2024 – an increase of 5.5%. Counties showing the largest percentage increase in that time period were Kaufman (26.7%); Rockwall (25%); Kendall (22.2%); and Liberty (20.3%).
The U.S. Census Bureau also makes annual population estimates, and TDC says differences in input data and methodologies lead to slight variations between the two.

DFW area predicted to be hottest real estate market in 2025

A real estate trends study reported by the Texas Standard predicts the Dallas-Fort Worth area will be the  hottest real estate market in the nation for investment and development next year. The study compiled data from more than 2,000 industry experts.
“Obviously, it’s the really strong post-pandemic recovery. It’s also size,” Nick Wooten, real estate reporter for The Dallas Morning News, said. “We’ve seen the metro top 8 million people in the latest census estimates,” he said. “And there’s just continued demographic growth. Those are the three big factors that these experts cited.”
Both sales and home prices are fairly flat in 2024, with supply reaching levels not seen in a dozen years, Wooten said.
“You’re not seeing sales change a lot,” he said. “I think a lot of people are still sitting on the sidelines trying to figure out what’s going to happen in 2025.”

Record number of Texas horned lizards released to the wild.

The state reptile, the Texas horned lizard, has been listed as a threatened species since 1977. The Houston Chronicle reports that thanks to captive breeding efforts to populate the wild with the iconic critter, more than 600 hatchlings were recently released to the Mason Mountain Wildlife Management Area in Central Texas in cooperation with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department.
The lizards are popularly referred to as horny toads. Their population decline is blamed on the pet trade, wild habitat loss, and the spread of invasive fire ants. The Texas horned lizard was designated as the state reptile in 1993. Their range takes them across the state’s borders to northern Mexico and throughout much of Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and New Mexico. The hatchlings, about three-fourths of an inch in length, can reach as much as 7 inches in length at maturity.

Gary Borders is a veteran award-winning Texas journalist. He published a number of community newspapers in Texas during a 30-year span, including in Longview, Fort Stockton, Nacogdoches, Lufkin and Cedar Park. Email: [email protected]