Few were shocked on Tuesday night Texas was called for former President Donald Trump. But how easily the newly elected president carried the Lone Star state showed that Republicans had made huge gains compared to just four years ago.

Trump won more than 56 percent of the vote in Texas. 14 points higher Than Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. In 2020, Trump trailed President Joe Biden by just 6 percentage points.

Such a seismic shift did not happen overnight; According to experts and Texas Republicans, this was not a coincidence. Texas GOP Chairman Abraham George told Texas Newsroom this took years of work.

“We’ve worked really hard in the South Texas area. We’ve done that over the next couple of years, probably the last 4 or 5 months since I became president, one of my campaign promises was: I’m turning South Texas around,” he said.

This work has paid off, with Republicans managing to flip 16 districts since the 2016 presidential election.

Political Scientist Kevin Kearns of Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi said he has noticed increased Republican interest in the district.

Emphasizing Senator Cruz’s activities in the region, Kearns said, “Even here in Corpus Christi, we have seen Governor Abbott come and campaign periodically.” “Even if you look at the political candidates coming to South Texas — so in the midterm elections in 2022 — President Trump was here.”

It wasn’t just Republicans’ frequent South Texas campaign stops. The GOP’s gains in Texas can also be attributed to the makeup of the region and the messaging the party is sending to voters there, according to Joshua Blank of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin.

“It’s important to note that we’re not talking about college-educated or even urban Hispanic voters, especially in South Texas,” Blank said. “In many cases, we’re talking about non-college-educated suburban and often rural Hispanic voters who, for all intents and purposes, are likely leaning toward Republicans, regardless of their racial or ethnic identity.”

Non-college-educated voters, often referred to as the working class, have long been considered a key voting bloc for the Democratic party. But Blank said the party is now often seen as “reflecting the tastes and policy preferences of a core group of college-educated voters.”

Blank pointed to Harris. plan First-time homebuyers will receive $25,000.

“That sounds great. As long as you can find a home for under $250,000. That represents 10% of your down payment, and then I’m really hoping you can get a high-interest bank loan,” he said.

But it was given 2024 house pricesBlank said the program probably didn’t resonate with working-class voters who couldn’t save enough money to take advantage of such a program in the first place.

This ties into a larger issue voters are worried about this election: the economy.

“A lot of rural Texas is going into the red because the economy is less good,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a political scientist at the University of Houston. “And threats oil and gas “The industry that people perceive to come from Democrats drives communities to vote Republican.”

The change has not been subtle. In Starr County, Biden beat Trump by 5 points in 2020. Four short years later, voters there chose Trump over Harris by a 16-point margin.

Rottinghaus says the biggest takeaway from this is ” Economics transcends issues of racial affiliation To the Democratic Party.”

Craig Goldman, former Texas House GOP caucus chairman and now elected congressmanHe told The Texas Newsroom that people in South Texas and the Rio Grande Valley “realized that (Democrats’) policies were not supporting them and Republicans’ policies were more accommodating and more accommodating.”

Democrats a long time ago appeared make a profit In Texas. But after that election, Goldman said: “Texas is not getting any bluer. Texas is getting more red, and that’s proven by what’s happening in the Rio Grande Valley.”