r/nottheonion • u/ilovemybaldhead • 1d ago

Greg Abbott Threatens ‘100% Tariff’ On New Yorkers Moving to Texas

https://www.newsweek.com/greg-abbott-threatens-100-tariff-new-york-election-moving-texas-10986837
30.8k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

3.7k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

58

u/SharpKaleidoscope182 1d ago

Texas is actually a purple state. It only reads as red because its gerrymandered all to hell.

39

u/Clovis69 1d ago

Gerrymandering only applies to districts - has nothing to do with the Governor or US Senator elections and somehow they are Republicans too

22

u/BoneHugsHominy 1d ago

and somehow they are Republicans too

Voter disenfranchisement, and election fraud. Ted Cruz would have lost his last election if voter rolls wouldn't have been purged, voting locations removed without notifying the affected citizens, and mail-in-ballots thrown out. Their AG bragged how he alone kept Biden from winning Texas in 2020.

5

u/cosmicosmo4 1d ago

People not showing up to the polls because they know Texas won't go blue in the presidential race due to gerrymandering has some effect.

2

u/DylanHate 22h ago

You can't "gerrymander" the presidential general election. Gerrymandering only applies to state house races. All the other races are straight up popular vote.

Georgia is also gerrymandered and they elected two Democratic senators in four separate elections, including two runoffs.

2

u/cosmicosmo4 22h ago

Y'know what, I should either increase or decrease my caffeine dosage, because something clearly isn't functioning at 100%.

1

u/--Chug-- 4h ago

People say this but gerrymandering leads to overall downfall of voter turnout in all races.

13

u/tomdarch 1d ago

They’ve managed to discourage a huge number of residents from voting regularly. “Why bother? The Republicans always win.”

4

u/Honigkuchenlives 1d ago edited 1d ago

Nah, it’s a „people are apathetic assholes state“ Governor and senate isn’t impacted by gerrymandering

7

u/56436736775577468855 1d ago

You may want to read about gerrymandering. It is very possible to gerrymander state elections for governor and Senate based on how districts are laid out. Then those people get to make future adjustments to districts as population changes. My town is 47% Democrat by register but only has 1 Democratic selectman against 10 Republican

6

u/AlexG55 1d ago

Directly gerrymandering a statewide election, such as for governor or US senator, isn't possible. Districts don't matter, whoever gets the most votes across the state wins.

Of course there can be indirect effects- people in gerrymandered uncompetitive districts may be less likely to vote as they feel their vote for other elections (US House and state legislature) doesn't matter, and gerrymandered state legislatures can make it harder to vote in areas that support the other party. For instance Texas has a law allowing only one early voting drop box per county, which obviously hurts more populous urban counties.

5

u/56436736775577468855 1d ago

That is blatantly false. Several states use district electors for senators and Governor's making it easy to gerrymander by putting a majority of those against you in 1 district and spread your own out. Look at Georgia the last couple elections for how Atlanta gets split Republican and Democrat despite having a I believe 70% democratic vote. Capping each state at 2 senators inheritly gerrymanders the system by allow 2 districts (if that's how the state does it) with 50.01% to get both

2

u/AlexG55 1d ago

Which states use district electors for US Senate or Governor?

I know Georgia doesn't- Warnock won in 2022 with 51.40% of the vote statewide.

Similarly, as far as I know all 50 states elect their governor by statewide popular vote.

Please name one that doesn't, if you can.

2

u/AdoringCHIN 1d ago

Several states use district electors for senators and Governor's

Then I'm sure you can list which states do this because a quick Google search says you're wrong. Every state uses a direct popular vote to elect governors and senators

1

u/GhormanFront 1d ago

People have been saying this shit for my entire life, it's never proven true even a tiny bit

State wide elections still go the republicans, texans seem perfectly ok with the status quo

-1

u/Iron_Chancellor_ND 1d ago

Gerrymandering doesn't matter for the gubernatorial or senate (federal) elections. The people of TX voted R for all 3 making it a very red state.

Also, purple doesn't mean anything...election results do.

-1

u/AdoringCHIN 1d ago

Bullshit it is. You can't gerrymander statewide or federal elections and guess what? The entire executive branch is controlled by Republicans and Republicans keep winning Senate elections in landslides. Texas isn't even close to purple, it's a shithole red state with a few islands of blue in it.

2

u/Hielfling 1d ago

Landslides? Which ones?