The Obama economy has been very good for Texas, and vice versa.

Job growth in the state has been much stronger since President Barack Obama took office in January 2009, at least compared with his predecessor. Texas has added nearly 1.5 million private sector jobs under Obama, twice as many as during the tenure of favorite son President George W. Bush.

Under Bush, manufacturing also declined more, both here and nationwide. The U.S. lost 4.5 million manufacturing jobs while Bush was president, compared with a loss of 294,000 under Obama. And it was the Republican president, not the Democrat, who oversaw a big surge in government hiring after the 9/11 attacks and two wars.

These trends may help explain why Donald Trump, a political outsider, has connected with so many Republican voters, especially in hard-hit economic areas in the Rust Belt.

But the numbers don’t fit the conventional wisdom in Texas about liberal politics and the economy. They’re also at odds with the anti-Obama narrative that often comes from lawmakers in Austin. Many have opposed Obama initiatives on health care, immigration, the minimum wage and clean energy, and often warned that such moves would derail the economy.

It’s clear that Texas did just fine with a Democratic president and a Republican-dominated state house. And the deep recession that ended in 2009 pulled many people and employers to Texas.

“Through many decades, we’ve seen a lot of relocations to Texas after a recession,” said Bernard Weinstein, an economist at the Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist University. “Companies start re-thinking where they want to be and it can take a few years to implement.”

Net migration to Texas topped 1 million in the past five years with a majority of newcomers arriving from other states. Texas absorbed that influx and lowered its unemployment rate by almost half since the peak in 2009.

Migration is a constant for Texas and it’s one reason that construction jobs have grown faster here than in the nation. And the segment did better under both Bush and Obama.

I compared job growth in two periods: Bush’s tenure from January 2001 to January 2009, and Obama’s from January 2009 to September 2016. Obama, who still has a few months to pad his numbers, already has a huge edge in total job creation.

Timing contributes to the results. While the Great Recession spanned the terms of both presidents, only Obama had time to oversee a rebound. In Bush’s last year, non-farm employment fell by almost 4.4 million nationwide. In Obama’s first year, it dropped another 4.3 million.

The trend changed in late 2010 and the nation has been adding jobs ever since. Through September, over 10.7 million jobs had been added under Obama. That compares with almost 1.4 million under Bush.

Several economists said presidents have a limited impact on the economy of a single state, especially one as large and diverse as Texas. The state may have performed better under Obama, for instance, because it had less of an overhang from the housing bust, said James Galbraith, an economist and professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas.

That was the result of consumer protections adopted years earlier in Austin, not Washington.

Texas also is the nation’s largest exporter, which offsets some of the losses in manufacturing. The fracking boom, which took off under Bush, lowered energy prices and attracted more manufacturers to the state.

Jobs in mining and logging, which include the oil and gas industry, grew rapidly under Bush. They increased almost 54 percent in the state, and the Texas hires accounted for half the increase in those jobs nationwide.

Oil prices began a sharp decline two years ago, and the industry has cut back exploration and laid off workers. Under Obama, mining and logging jobs have declined over 10 percent in the U.S. and 1 percent in Texas.

While Obama has pushed new regulations to address climate change, the current problem is a glut of cheap energy in the U.S. and the world.

Texas’ supply of oil and gas remains a strength even with prices low. State and local leaders also have been aggressive in diversifying the economy and spurring economic development. Those factors have a bigger effect on the economy than federal policies, said Waco economist Ray Perryman.

In 2014, when oil prices hovered near $100 a barrel, Texas was adding jobs at an annual clip of about 400,000. Many talked about a “Texas miracle,” Perryman wrote in an email. But he believes it’s more impressive that Texas continues to add workers at an annual rate of 180,000 or more.

“That’s the real miracle,” Perryman wrote. “It’s certainly in stark contrast to the 1980s.”

One area that suffered under Obama is income inequality. Compared with the previous two recessions, inequality grew much worse this time, said Mark Hamrick, senior economic analyst at Bankrate.com.

While there have been recent gains in median income, many workers have yet to get much leverage.

“By and large, employers still have more bargaining power,” Hamrick said.