Texas' Suburban Counties Are Now Nearly a Quarter of the Vote. Here Is How They Have Shifted
Sixteen fast-growing suburban counties have gone from about one-fifth to nearly one-quarter of Texas' registered voters. Most still vote Republican, but by far smaller margins than in 2012. The suburbs could decide the Senate race.
Texas' suburbs keep growing, and with every election they make up a bigger share of the people who decide statewide races. Next week they could decide the biggest one, the U.S. Senate race between Republican Ken Paxton and Democrat James Talarico.
Both men got their start in the suburbs. Paxton first won office representing McKinney in 2002, and Talarico won a Round Rock seat in 2018, The Texas Tribune noted in a six-chart analysis. This story relies on that single Tribune analysis, which drew on election results, census figures and VoteHub data.
Sixteen counties, a growing share
The Tribune defined 16 Texas counties as suburban, from Collin, with nearly 1.2 million people, down to Rockwall and Hunt. In eight years, those counties grew from about one-fifth to nearly one-quarter of the state's registered voters.
Every one of them added at least 30% more registered voters since 2012. Comal County, between San Antonio and Austin, led the way with an 83% jump from 2012 to 2024. Hays and Williamson counties each grew by more than 23% from 2020 to 2025, putting them among the fastest-growing in Texas.
The suburbs are also changing in who lives there. People of color made up 40% of the population in these counties in 2014 and nearly half by 2024. Collin and Fort Bend counties are both between 22% and 24% Asian.
Still red, but by less
Taken together, the suburban counties still vote Republican. But the margin has shrunk. Sen. Ted Cruz won them by 33 points in 2012 and by 15 points in 2018, a smaller win that still proved critical because he narrowly lost the combined vote in Texas' other 238 counties.
The trend runs with growth. The faster a suburban county grew from 2012 to 2024, the more it moved toward Democrats. Kaufman County nearly doubled in population and shifted 20 points left. Collin and Denton, the two largest, shifted 26 and 24 points. Galveston County, which grew the least at 21%, barely moved. Fort Bend has voted for the Democrat in every Senate race since 2018.
Still, not every suburb moves the same way. Irving moved more than 15 points toward Republicans from 2020 to 2024, while Plano moved 6 points right. Montgomery County, home to Conroe and The Woodlands, gave President Donald Trump the largest raw-vote margin of any U.S. county in 2024 and has voted Republican in every Senate race since 1988. Republicans have also made real gains with Indian American and Asian voters, which helped slow the leftward drift in Collin and Fort Bend in 2024.
We looked at Collin County as a bellwether earlier this week.
Who is moving in
Much of the growth comes from newcomers, and six of the top ten out-of-state counties sending people to the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs are in California. But exit polls do not show transplants tilting left. In 2024, Democrat Colin Allred won native-born Texans by four points, while Cruz won people who moved here by 16 points, the Tribune reported.
"What I see is people coming from other states want it to stay the way it is," said Jill Tate, president of the Texas Federation of Republican Women. "Some of the long-timers are like, I'm just ready for a change."
Wayne Thorburn, executive director of the Republican Party of Texas from 1977 to 1983, said the party has lost some younger, upwardly mobile voters it once counted on. Barry Jacobs, a 62-year-old Waxahachie attorney who voted Republican in every election before 2016, said he is voting for Talarico this year.
What it means for Tuesday
To flip Texas, Democrats need historic numbers in the suburbs, the Tribune concluded. Republicans need to hold them steady, as they did in 2024. Down-ballot races for the Legislature and county commissioners courts hang on the same voters.
Suburban families tend to weigh schools, taxes, safety and the character of the people asking for their vote. Those are the right questions. Early voting ends Friday, Oct. 30, and Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 3.
