Continuing the 2004 postmortem, looking at the turnout-versus-message argument (see here, here, and here)...

I had a chance to hear Gerry Birnbirg's analysis of the 2004 election, and how Democrats did in Harris County. He downplayed the importance of message while stressing turnout, which Greg and I have discussed in the posts linked above. There was one thing he said which stood out to me, though, and I wanted to check it out. He spoke about how in the various uncontested State Rep races, the Republicans did a much better job getting people to the polls than the Democrats did.

Well, there were sixteen uncontested races (I'm counting any race without a Democrat and a Republican as uncontested - sorry, Libertarians and Independents). Those races split as eight uncontested Dems and eight uncontested Republicans. In those eight races, the Republican incumbents drew a total of 298,571 votes, for an average of 37,321 each. On the Democratic side, the numbers were 201,337 and 25,167.

The difference between the two parties is over 97,000 ballots. If the uncontested Democrats had drawn an equal number of voters, and if those voters had pushed the button for other Democratic candidates, that 97,000 boost to the totals would have been enough to win every contested judicial race. Every single one, from Kathy Stone (47.92%, lost by 42,000) down to Zone Nguyen (45.79%, lost by 85,000). Think about that.

Democrats would have still lost the top-of-ticket countywide races, but Reggie McKamie would have been within 8000 votes of Chuck Rosenthal, and Guy Robert Cark would have lost to Tommy Thomas by less than 15,000. And we'd be talking about how Harris County was just like Dallas County, on the verge of being blue again.

I'm making some assumptions here, of course, but in looking at these numbers, which I have under the More link, I can see where Birnbirg is coming from. I'll pick this up again in a later post.

(All data from the Cumulative Results page on the Harris County Clerk site.)

UPDATE: Greg responds.

Dist   Incumbent         Votes  Ballots   Reg'ed  RegPct  VotePct Turnout
=========================================================================
129    John Davis-R     40,002   58,414   91,506    43.72   68.48   63.84
130    C Van Arsdale-R  54,026   71,088  102,778    52.57   76.08   69.17
131    Alma Allen-D     28,474   35,807   65,278    43.62   79.52   54.85
132    Bill Callegari-R 40,328   55,543   86,167    46.80   72.61   64.46
133    Joe Nixon-R      21,184   39,406   67,844    31.22   53.76   58.08
135    Gary Elkins-R    31,014   46,107   75,279    41.20   67.27   61.25
136    B Woolley-R      41,719   58,165   85,890    48.57   71.73   67.72
139    S Turner-D       30,151   36,714   73,284    41.14   82.12   50.10
141    S Thompson-D     27,490   36,429   74,294    37.00   75.46   49.03
143    Joe Moreno-D     13,282   19,586   49,074    27.07   67.81   39.87
144    Robert Talton-R  25,873   40,398   73,312    35.29   64.05   55.10
145    Rick Noriega-D   15,160   21,638   48,909    31.00   70.06   44.24
146    Al Edwards-D     36,773   49,157   86,964    42.29   74.81   56.53
147    Garnet Coleman-D 32,566   40,676   76,962    42.31   80.06   52.85
148    Jessica Farrar-D 21,041   31,684   60,783    34.62   66.41   52.13
150    Debbie Riddle-R  44,425   60,102   94,473    47.02   73.92   63.62

Votes = Votes received by that candidate

Ballots = Total votes cast in that district

Reg'ed = Total registered voters in that district

RegPct = Percentage of registered voters who voted for that candidate

VotePct = Percentage of total votes which went to that candidate

Turnout = Percentage of registered voters who voted

Dem Avg Votes = 25,167 (201,337 total)

Rep Avg Votes = 37,321 (298,571 total)