Once again, rural Texans voted en masse for President Donald Trump in 2020. Joe Biden spent no time campaigning in Texas and thus failed to reach the large swath of counties populated by some of the most conservative voters in the nation. It’s no surprise the president-elect did poorly here. But rural Texas’ repudiation of Biden was especially severe in two of the state’s largest oil and natural gas producing areas, places where Democrats have otherwise found some success. Local leaders say it’s a sign that Biden’s messaging on environmental issues didn’t work in the oil patch—and that Trump’s did.
Texas is home to two of the most productive oil fields in the United States. The Permian Basin, a shale play that stretches from West Texas into New Mexico, produces roughly 4 million barrels of crude a day. The smaller Eagle Ford Shale spans 26 counties from Central Texas to the U.S.-Mexico border. The two areas, combined with other oil and gas plays in Texas, account for nearly $10 billion in annual revenue and taxes and 1.8 million jobs. Much of the windfall comes courtesy of hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” which has unleashed vast reserves of oil and gas throughout the state.
People who live in the Permian and Eagle Ford are fairly conservative, but they aren’t reliably Republican, in part because of the voting history of the counties’ sizable Latino and Tejano base. For example, Hillary Clinton won La Salle County in South Texas with 56 percent of the vote in 2016. She won Reeves County in West Texas with 54 percent. Both are big players in Texas’ oil boom. Biden lost both.
