Voter oppression here is really bad, and it might look like apathy for someone on the outside looking in. I'm in school full-time right now, and the week before the election, I asked many of my classmates if they were going to vote. The most common answer was, "They didn't know how." Like they didn't know how even to get registered; by then, it was too late to register.
In the last election, 9.5 million people either didn't or couldn't vote. Over 5 million in 2020.
We've had bad Democratic leadership in Texas, but we still do, but I'm optimistic. All of our major cities are blue, and 83% of the state lives in urban counties. The demographics are blue. Biden and Beto won with every racial group except white people. And even though white people are a minority in Texas, they make up the majority of people who actually vote.
And there was not a huge shift to Trump, and that small shift did not move at all in 2022. But the takeaway from South Texas in 2020 should be how every down-ballot Democrat won. They only shifted the vote for Trump. It was an anomaly based on Trump/Biden.
Regardless, we have the numbers in our favor, and we just have to get people to the polls. I think most people now realize that's the issue.