Roundtable on the Governor's race

The Chron got some opinions from different perspectives on the four-way Governor's race. It's a good read, some of which you've seen before here and elsewhere, and some of which is new. Couple points I want to highlight:

Mike Baselice: Pollster for Perry

Baselice said he thinks Strayhorn's decision to run as an independent increases Perry's chances of re-election.

"I don't know how this works. It's a Republican-leaning state," Baselice said. "There's only so many disenchanted party loyalists who are willing to take a stab at an independent candidacy."

Baselice said Texas has a base Republican vote of 50 percent and a base Democratic vote of 35 percent. He said if each party loses 5 percent of its vote and it is added to the independent, the swing vote just reaches 25 percent.

" If you gave it all to Strayhorn and none to Kinky, she's still woefully short," Baselice said.

[...]

Tom Pauken: Former Texas GOP chairman

Pauken said there is enough dissatisfaction with Republican voters about Perry's administration and inability to pass a public school finance plan than either Strayhorn or the Democratic nominee can defeat Perry in a multicandidate race.

"It's not a given that Perry will be re-elected," Pauken said. "He's alienated a lot of Republicans."

As I said before, even if you agree with Baselice's estimate of the partisan divide, "Republican base" is not the same as "Rick Perry's base". Strayhorn was likely to get about 30% of the vote in the GOP primary, leaving Perry with 70%. Guess what? Seventy percent of fifty is 35, which puts Perry even with the Democrats' base. All Strayhorn needs to do to put Perry in jeopardy is hold onto the support she would have gotten in the primary.

Jason Stanford: Bell's chief consultant

Stanford said Democratic nominee Tony Sanchez got 40 percent of the vote against Perry in 2002. He said that vote will be enough for the Democratic nominee to win in a multicandidate race against Perry.

"Everyone in this race is making a persuasive case to fire Rick Perry," he said.

I just want to point out that Tony Sanchez was not the only Dem running statewide in 2002, and he was not one of the better performers that year:

Candidate             Votes      Pct

====================================

John Sharp        2,082,281    46.03

Margaret Mirabal  1,978,081    45.90

Ron Kirk          1,955,758    43.32

William Moody     1,860,251    43.23

Pat Montgomery    1,828,431    42.60

Jim Parsons       1,814,354    41.88

Linda Yanez       1,815,581    41.54

Sherry Boyles     1,821,751    41.48

David Bernsen     1,819,365    41.48

Kirk Watson       1,841,359    41.08

Richard Baker     1,774,242    40.50

JR Molina         1,725,065    40.00

Tony Sanchez      1,819,798    39.96

John Bull         1,692,773    39.14

Tom Ramsay        1,674,372    37.81

Marty Akins       1,476,976    32.92

Akins, by the way, was running against Carole Keeton Rylander, who scored over 64% of the vote. I don't think that means so much when running against a nonentity, but it is worth remarking on. Point I'm making here is that 40% is not that high a hurdle to clear. Even last year, all three downballot statewide Dems did better than that:

Candidate             Votes      Pct

====================================

JR Molina         2,906,720    42.14

Bob Scarborough   2,872,717    40.94

David Van Os      2,817,700    40.76

If the Democratic candidate really can consolidate that base vote, there's more than 40% available. Strayhorn and Friedman will be appealing to those voters as well, so it's far from a given, but the potential is there.

Last point:

Normally, about 36 percent of the state's registered voters turn out in a governor's contest. But this one could push turnout to the levels of 1990, when half the state's voters cast ballots in an election that put Democrat Ann Richards in the Governor's Mansion in an upset over Republican Clayton Williams.

Turnout in the Governor's race was 36.24% in 2002, 32.39% in 1998, and 50.87% in 1994. The Secretary of State's webpage does not go back to 1990, so I'm not sure if RG Ratcliffe is mixing up his years here. I also have no idea how a boost in turnout could affect the various scenarios for each candidate. Oh, yeah, I'm ready for some poll numbers.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on January 08, 2006 to Election 2006 | TrackBack