THERE'S YOUR BLUEPRINT:

[C]onfirmation did not come until this week, when the U.S. Census Bureau updated its official population estimates. In new figures released Thursday, the bureau confirmed Latinos have made up the largest share of the state's population since at least July 2022. The new population figures show Hispanic Texans made up 40.2% of the state's population last summer, barely edging out non-Hispanic white Texans, who made up 39.8%.

The updated estimates retroactively captured a landmark moment in Texas' demographic evolution, but it's not much of a turning point. The new figures showing Latinos outnumbering white Texans by about 129,000 cap off a population boom that has been culturally recasting the state for several decades.

The state had a white majority from at least 1850 until 2004, when white people's share of the state population dropped below 50%. People of color, Latinos in particular, have been powering the state's population gains for at least the last 20 years.

The state's growth -- usually close to evenly split between natural increase and net migration, including both domestic and international -- has brought diversity to pockets of the state that were once nearly all white, transforming classrooms and workforces. Hispanic Texans are expected to make up a flat-out majority of the state's population in the decades to come, and most Texas children will soon be Hispanic. Recent census estimates showed that 49.3% of Texans under the age of 18 are Hispanic. It's been more than a decade since Hispanic students first came to make up a majority of Texas public school students.

Governor Greg Abbott today released a statement lauding the strength of the Texas economy as new data released by the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows Texas leading the nation with the fastest economic expansion in the fourth quarter of 2022. As measured by the state's gross domestic product (GDP), the value of all goods and services produced, the Texas economy expanded at an annual rate of 7%. This is the fastest growth in real GDP among all of the states and well ahead of the nation as a whole, which grew at 2.6%.

  

"It is no surprise that Texas continues to lead the nation, thanks to the hardworking men and women of this great state who have built the most dynamic economy in America," said Governor Abbott.

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