In 1978, Republican William P. Clements won the race for governor 
of the Lone Star State, marking the start of an interlude of two-party 
competition in the state. Eventually, Republican ascendancy would 
once again make Texas a "safe" place for a single party—but not the 
party that had dominated the state since the end of Reconstruction.

    At the time, observers asked whether the election of a Republican 
governor was a mere flash in the pan. For the previous twenty years, 
other races, at every level from national to local, had made inroads 
into Democratic strongholds, but that party's dominance by and large 
had held. In 1978, the situation changed.

    Now, historian Kenneth Bridges—drawing on polling data, 
newspaper reports, archival sources, and extensive interviews—both 
confirms the significance of the election and explains the many and 
complex forces at work in it. He analyzes a wide range of factors that 
includes the disaffection among Mexican American voters fanned by 
La Raza Unida, miscalculations by Democrat John Hill and his 
campaign staff, the superior polling techniques used by Clements, 
the unpopularity of the Democratic president, Jimmy Carter, the 
changing demographics of the state, and the unprecedented 
spending by the Clements team. In the process, Bridges describes 
not an ideological realignment among Texas voters, but a partisan 
one.

   Twilight of the Texas Democrats illuminates our understanding 
of both political science and regional history.

_________________________________________________________

KENNETH BRIDGES is an assistant professor of history at South 
Arkansas Community College. He lives in El Dorado, Arkansas.


Number 107: Centennial Series of the Association of Former 
Students, Texas A&M University


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