The Texas caucuses are a political event associated with
primaries
Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pri ...
, the process by which
voters
Voting is the process of choosing officials or policies by casting a ballot, a document used by people to formally express their preferences. Republics and representative democracies are governments where the population chooses representatives ...
in the U.S.
state
State most commonly refers to:
* State (polity), a centralized political organization that regulates law and society within a territory
**Sovereign state, a sovereign polity in international law, commonly referred to as a country
**Nation state, a ...
of
Texas
Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...
ultimately select their
parties
A party is a gathering of people who have been invited by a host for the purposes of socializing, conversation, recreation, or as part of a festival or other commemoration or celebration of a special occasion. A party will often feature ...
'
nominee
A candidate, or nominee, is a prospective recipient of an award or honor, or a person seeking or being considered for some kind of position. For example, one can be a candidate for membership in a group or election to an office, in which case a ...
s for various
offices
An office is a space where the employees of an organization perform administrative work in order to support and realize the various goals of the organization. The word "office" may also denote a position within an organization with specific dut ...
. The process as a whole has been referred to as the Texas Two-step, after the partner dance of the
same name, because Texans were required to first vote in the primary election in order to be eligible for participation in party caucuses in which delegates were selected.
The current process differs for
Democrats and
Republicans.
The
Republican Party of Texas
The Republican Party of Texas (RPT) is the Texas affiliate of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party in the United States. It is currently chaired by Abraham George (politician), Abraham George, who succeeded Matt Rinaldi in 2024 ...
has a winner-take-all provision in its primary, and the chances any candidate will get all of that party's Texas delegates are very small. That candidate would have to win more than 50 percent of the vote statewide, and also in each of the state's 38 congressional districts, to run the table. Absent such an event, a pro-rata system is followed to allocate delegates roughly according to votes received.
The
Texas Democratic Party no longer selects state delegates at caucuses. After the votes of Texans participating in the Democratic primary are counted, delegates are awarded among the candidates who received 15 percent or more of the vote, in proportion to the votes received by each.
It would be even harder for a Democrat than for a Republican to get all of the Texas delegates from their party in a presidential primary. A democratic candidate could do so only by winning 85 percent of the vote statewide and, separately, 85% in each and every one of Texas’ 31 state Senate districts.
Controversies
The Texas Democratic Party abandoned the former caucus-based "Texas Two-step" primary system in 2015.
The Democratic County (Senate District) Conventions in late March 2008 produced a great deal of confusion. Both Clinton and Obama supporters had complaints about how these conventions were conducted. The most common complaint had to do with the fact that delegates were not being apportioned based on Precinct Convention results. For instance, in Kleberg County, 9 delegates were elected to attend the State Convention, with only one Obama supporter among them. Obama won about one third of the votes in the Precinct Caucuses/Conventions in Kleberg County.
References
{{Portal, Texas