input type text CSS selector does not apply to default-type text inputs

Question

Text is the default input type. Since the type was not expressly defined on the control, I have always thought that CSS declarations aimed at input[type='text'] would nonetheless have an impact on those inputs. But I've recently realised that the styles are not applied to my default-type text inputs. How come this is the case? And how do I deal with this?

input[type='text'] {
  background: red;
}

<input name='t1' type='text' /> /* Is Red */
<input name='t1' /> /* Is Not Red */

Answer 1

Because that is not what it is supposed to do.

The attribute selector input[type=text] will only select elements with the matching attribute.