Anger over data centers, new transmission lines and other large projects arriving in rural Texas is pulling some longtime Republican voters toward Democrats in this year's statewide races, though it is not clear the shift will be large enough to change results, The Texas Tribune reported Friday.
Rural voters make up less than a fifth of the Texas electorate, but they vote at high rates and have long given Republicans lopsided margins that offset Democratic gains in cities and suburbs.
According to the Tribune, Democratic nominees James Talarico, running for the U.S. Senate, and Gina Hinojosa, running for governor, are polling above 30% among rural voters, and a late-September Fox News survey put Talarico at 42% in rural Texas. The Tribune noted that no statewide Democrat has topped 25% of the rural vote since the Obama years.
Voices from the countryside
The story opens in Grimes County, where Joie Miller, a 31-year-old lifelong Republican, said construction of Elon Musk's planned Terafab chip plant near her in-laws' ranch brought round-the-clock truck traffic. She told the Tribune she plans to vote for a Democrat for the first time.
In Corsicana, a group of residents who described themselves as Republicans met with Hinojosa to lay out what they have documented about data centers in their area, including noise, air quality and rising power bills. Michael Ellis, 70, who lives less than a mile from a data center under construction in Navarro County, said he had not decided how to vote.
He said officials of either party need to oversee the industry.
