The Lone Star State

I'm about to say something that almost certainly will surprise my readers here in Texas -- and my readers who used to live here.

But bear with me.

I'm going to be watching Tuesday night's primary results to find out more than whether Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton wins the presidential primary here. I want to see which party is attracting Hispanic votes and how many Hispanics participate.

If Clinton is going to win Texas, she's going to do it with the help of Hispanic voters, the way she did in Nevada and California. And I haven't looked at the numbers from Florida as carefully as I should have, but I would guess that the Hispanic vote was a factor there, too.

If Hispanics participate in the Texas primary, that may help Clinton's cause. Nearly one-third of Texas' population is Hispanic.

The Hispanic demographic is growing faster than any other in the country -- and the numbers tell the story better in Texas than anywhere. Part of that story is the historically low participation rate in elections by most Hispanics. Will those numbers go up in the primary? And will that increase favor the Democrats or Republicans?

If they're participating in part because of their frustration over the Republicans' hard-line approach to immigration, that's not good news for the Republicans, who, not so long ago, were the minority party in Texas.

When George W. Bush was re-elected in 2004, he received about 40% of the Hispanic vote. But Hispanics watched with the rest of the country in 2005 and 2006 as Hurricane Katrina whipped New Orleans, the war in Iraq dragged on with no end in sight, and Bush and the congressional Republicans tried to pull every string they could to keep Terri Schiavo alive.

When Texans went to the polls in 2006, some unexpected things happened.

Here in normally rock-ribbed Republican Dallas County, Democrats were elected county judge and district attorney, and almost every contested judicial race was captured by a Democrat.

And even though now-disgraced Rep. Tom DeLay had gerrymandered the congressional districts to make them more receptive to Republicans, Democrats had a better-than-expected showing in Texas' congressional races in 2006. Democrats won DeLay's old seat after he was forced to resign from the House under the weight of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal.

And in the newly redistricted 23rd District, Ciro Rodriguez upset seven-term Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla. In 2004, Texas' voters sent Bonilla to Washington with 69% of the vote. But in a redrawn district with an all-party primary in the 2006 general election, Bonilla failed to get a majority and, in the December runoff, could only muster 46% against his Democratic opponent -- who supports abortion rights and gun control.

Nationally, the numbers showed that support for Republicans among Hispanics had dropped to the low 30s. Experts had been predicting that another election with 40% support from Hispanics would make the Republicans the majority party for a generation.

But that didn't happen. And now it remains to be seen if the Hispanic support level has dropped even more since 2006.

I'm not saying the Democrats' presidential nominee will win Texas this year. The last Democrat who carried Texas was Jimmy Carter in 1976.

But keep your eye on what the numbers say about Texas' Hispanic voters. I believe they hold the keys to success in November.

And I believe the Republicans should be worried about what the numbers will tell us.