 |
|
 |
|
 |
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
"We're used to winning these championships by three touchdowns, but tonight we win by a field goal and we're glad for the victory," said Bonilla in his much-delayed victory speech.
Make that a field goal in overtime, after tying the game in the final seconds of regulation against a team that wasn't supposed to put up much of a fight. Bonilla prevailed with 51 percent of the vote, but he isn't used to close calls. In 2000, he carried 59 percent of his enormous district, which sprawls from Laredo and San Antonio in the east all the way to El Paso in the west. In 1998, his last midterm election, Bonilla carried 64 percent of his district. Charlie Cook had rated Bonilla's seat as "safe." It was anything but safe this year, thanks to Cuellar, a former secretary of state and state representative. Even before last night's final numbers came in, Cuellar was viewed as Bonilla's most impressive challenger to date. Yet nobody predicted his exceedingly strong performance, made possible by heavy turnout in Cuellar's native Laredo. Democrat Tony Sanchez lost his bid for the governorship, but his presence on the ticket appears to have boosted Hispanic turnout for Cuellar. The 23rd-district race is of unusual interest to Republicans because Bonilla is the GOP's only non-Cuban Hispanic in Congress. The voting-age population is 63 percent Hispanic, and in 1996 it gave Bill Clinton a six-point edge over Bob Dole. (In 2000, Texas governor George W. Bush trounced Al Gore, 58 percent to 42 percent.) Bonilla has been one of the Republican party's few examples of a politician who can succeed in a Hispanic-majority environment. By virtue of this fact, he's the kind of guy who gets to make big speeches at GOP conventions. Many Republicans had hoped Bonilla would run for the Senate seat that John Cornyn won on Tuesday, but the San Antonio native appears to be comfortable in the House, where he sits on the appropriations committee. It looked like a lifetime job. Until Tuesday. And this is something Republicans will have to get used to in Texas. The demographics of the state are shifting in a way that favors Democrats. The most important political story of the last few decades in Texas has been the remarkable rise of the GOP, which won every statewide race on Tuesday. The most important political story of the next decade or so will be the ascendancy of the Democrats, thanks to Hispanic population growth. The Lone Star State is currently about one-third Hispanic. Of its 6.7 million Hispanics, 2.4 million arrived during the 1990s. State demographer Steve Murdock calculates that Anglos (i.e., non-Hispanic whites) will make up less than half the population by 2005 or 2006. If current trends in birthrates and immigration hold, Hispanics will be a majority in the state sometime between 2026 and 2035. The Anglo population isn't projected to decline in raw numbers, as it has in California and several other states, but its rate of growth is expected to come to a near stop. Polling indicates that Texas Hispanics are more conservative than Hispanics in other parts of the country — only Cubans lean more to the right. But two-thirds of Texas Hispanics are also Democrats. George W. Bush has been hailed for winning a large share of their support, and carrying 40 percent (or so) of the Hispanic vote is nothing for Republicans to sniff at. But it's also not a formula for lasting victory. Unless there's a sea change in American politics, more Hispanic voters will mean fewer Republican victories — and Texas is one of the first places the GOP will begin to feel the effect. Bonilla's close call is just an early tremor. The earthquake is just a few years off. |
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||
<% dim printurl
printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%>
ongressman
Henry Bonilla wasn't on anybody's danger list Tuesday, but the 48-year-old
Texas Republican had to wait an entire day before being 
