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Texas voters favored Donald Trump on Tuesday, giving the Republican candidate the state’s 40 delegate votes and continuing a streak of going red in every presidential election since the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, according to the Associated Press.

Neither candidate has yet reached the 270 delegate votes needed to clinch the race.

Governor Greg Abbott congratulated Trump on his victory.

“I congratulate President Donald Trump on his landslide victory in Texas,” Abbott said in a statement. “Texans know who will lower inflation, secure our southern border, unleash American energy, and crack down on violent crime — Donald Trump. Texans have rejected Kamala Harris’ left-wing agenda and restored freedom, prosperity, and opportunity for all Americans.” voted to.”

Despite a handful of visits by both candidates in recent months, Texas has never been considered a seriously swing state this election cycle. But Democrats have held out hope for years that the state was moving more blue.

In recent years, Democrats have argued that they are reducing the GOP’s electoral advantage by both mobilizing a more racially diverse younger generation of voters and winning over moderate Republicans and independent voters tired of the dominant party’s shift to the right.

In 2012, Republican Mitt Romney won the state by 16 percentage points over Democratic former President Barack Obama. In 2016, Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton by 9 percentage points. And in 2020, Trump won the state by 5.6 percentage points over Biden. This was the closest presidential race in Texas since 1996, when GOP candidate Bob Dole defeated former President Bill Clinton by 5 points.

Republicans have downplayed the progress the minority party has made and pointed to Democrats’ many false starts, including the 20-point defeat of former state Sen. Wendy Davis by Gov. Greg Abbott in 2014 and the 11-point defeat of Democratic superstar Beto O’Rourke. by Abbott two years ago. Both Democratic candidates had raised large sums of money for their bids against Abbott.