Big D Stands for Democrat

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JR is finally dead. Dallas, the city of the eponymous TV show, the city which has (somewhat unfairly) been linked more than any other in the national psyche with everything Republican, is Republican no more. As the Dallas Morning News says: Big D Means Democrat Again.

For the first time in decades, straight ticket voting in Dallas County (the county of my birth) leaned against the GOP. The upshot? A whopping 41 of 42 Republican county judges up for reelection this year were tossed out on the curb. As I reported for Mother Jones a few weeks ago, the shift is part of a demographic trend in Texas that could eventually put the entire state back in the hands of Democrats.

But don’t hold your breath. A big reason for the shift in Dallas County: white flight to exurbs such as (ironically-named) Frisco, a road stop on the Metroplex’s march towards Oklahoma. The northward sprawl is giving new meaning to a common joke in Dallas: Why doesn’t Texas fall into the Gulf of Mexico? Because Oklahoma sucks.