⭐ Texas takeaways
MAGA vs. conservatism, new DDHQ Votes portal, faithless Trump voters, where the educated elite are strongest, falling LGBTQ identification, parenting is hard but worth it
No. 393 | March 6, 2026
⭐ Lone Star primary takeaways
White voters are in the drivers’ seat of Democratic primaries. Much was made of a Latino vote surge in the Democratic primary, but in fact, turnout surged more in white counties, especially in white, college-educated suburbs. That was the key to James Talarico’s victory. The education divide is increasing white liberal control of Democratic primary, jeopardizing the historic veto power Black voters have had in many primaries. Black voters came out strong for Jasmine Crockett, but she was unable to break through much beyond that to build a multiracial coalition that also included Hispanic and Asian voters, both groups that backed Talarico.
“MAGA-aligned” has replaced “Conservative” as the sine-qua-non for Republican primary voters. Proving your conservative bona fides used to be table stakes in Republican primaries. But when adherence to conservative principles stands in conflict with alignment with Donald Trump, it’s conservatism that loses. Just look at Dan Crenshaw’s loss in TX-2 or Chip Roy coming in second place in the Texas AG primary. Crenshaw was a conservative hero in Trump’s first term who then challenged Trump’s claims about the 2020 election and stood with Ukraine. Chip Roy was a Freedom Caucus conservative who challenged the party from the right, earning Trump’s ire. Conservative purity or adherence to the pre-Trump conservative movement is no longer an asset in a Republican primary when it runs afoul of Trump. That’s a dynamic this newsletter has noted many times before: the Republican Party is more establishment-pilled than it’s ever been, but the establishment is Donald J. Trump. On the flip side, Tuesday was a good night for Trump-endorsed candidates. Even the weakest possible Trump endorsee, scandal-plagued Tony Gonzales, was able came out first in his TX-23 primary. But he has since withdrawn his re-election bid under pressure from Republican leadership.
But candidate quality still matters. In probably the biggest surprise of the evening, John Cornyn came out ahead of Ken Paxton in the Republican primary and is now the odds-on favorite to earn the Trump endorsement and win in a runoff. This result has D.C. Republicans breathing a huge sigh of relief. Many assumed the only way to avoid a competitive money sink was for Jasmine Crockett to top James Talarico in the Democratic primary, a fate GOP may now avoid because their own voters stepped back from the brink. Paxton was clearly the more MAGA-aligned candidate, per bullet #1, but was also uniquely problematic, with adultery scandals, FBI investigations, and Republican votes to impeach him. A less objectionable MAGA-aligned candidate with statewide name ID could very well have won this primary. Trump alignment dominates in Republican primaries, but candidate quality still factors in (see the Gonzales case above).
Nobody (still) knows nothing about anything. Prediction markets correctly defied polling averages showing a tossup in the Democratic primary, but still missed badly in the Republican race.
Election season starting in earnest means new election results experiences from our favorite sites, starting with the new DDHQ Votes portal (login required):
VoteHub has precinct results for urban counties. In the GOP primary, Dallas was more pro-Cornyn (red) than Houston.
VoteHub also had very detailed results for the early voting period, which detailed the white suburban surge for Talarico.
The Arrow also sticks out like a sore thumb in this map of the modeled racial composition of the early vote in Harris County.
🔴 The Trump voters who say they never voted for him
As Trump approval has declined, voters in panel surveys who previously say they voted for Trump now say they never did.
🇮🇷 War with Iran has had no impact on Trump approval
The war with Iran has had no impact thus far on Trump’s approval rating, similar to other foreign policy events. That just confirms the increasingly static nature of Presidential approval and that it’s much harder to generate the “rally around the flag” effect common in previous conflicts.
The new Echelon Substack (subscribe!) also has a post about how difficult it is to predict approval for a military operation before the fact. Recent polls have shown the public on balance disapproving of the Iran strike, but support for last summer’s Iran strike grew as time went on. And a similar dynamic played out with the Maduro capture a couple of months ago. Over at the Daily Wire, Ben Domenech makes a smart case that present public opinion matters little in comparison to the real-world effects of the operation. If things go well, it’ll be popular. If they don’t, no attempt to win the American people over beforehand will have mattered.
🎓 The biggest hubs for the educated elite and the working class
An extremely detailed map has been made depicting the density and education of the United States population.
I have a couple of threads highlighting the country’s biggest hubs by social class. First, New York, Boston, DC, and Atlanta are some of the largest hubs of the educated elite.
Starting on the east coast, notable working class hubs are places like South Brooklyn, The Bronx/Harlem/Queens, Philly, and Baltimore:
🏳️🌈 The great reversal in LGBTQ identification
LGBTQ identification among 18-24 year olds has fallen by 21% since 2022.
🧑🧑🧒🧒 When parenting is harder, it’s worth it
Enforced parenting rules are associated with greater parenting difficulty but also better parent-child relationships as reported by both parents and teenagers.
🥇 Visualizing countries’ dominance by sport
Overall medal counts at the Olympics don’t tell you which countries are good at which sports. Country-level specialization in sports like cross-country skiing or the biathlon turns out to be pretty important, as shown by this visualization. Maybe it shouldn’t shock anyone that Norway won 100% of the gold medals in the Nordic Combined.
