The Texas Politics Project

Click on the links below to toggle between charts and see various comparisons.

Majority-Minority Rule, Coming Soon? Texas, as of 2004, is the newest addition to a group of five majority-minority states in which minority groups constitute a majority of the population. In the rest of the states and the nation as a whole minority populations fall well short of majority status. At one extreme, only 4 percent of Maine and Vermont residents are minorities. Even the state nearest majority-minority status--New York--is home to only 42.5 percent minorities. At the other extreme, Hawaii is 93 percent minorities, the District of Columbia is 71.7 percent, New Mexico is 58.8 percent, and California is 58 percent. With a rapidly shifting population, Texas is now at 51.5 percent and rising. But politically what does majority-minority status mean? As students of government well know, when partisan majorities shift, public policies change. What is less clear is how demographic shifts affect partisan majorities. Time will tell.