Hays County

Damon writes about moving to Hays County, and how it's following in Austin's footsteps in becoming more Democratic. It's not there yet, but two things that happened in 2004 point out how it's clearly moving in the right direction. One was in the Presidential vote. In the year 2000, when George Bush got 59.3% of the vote statewide, he pulled 58.8$ in Hays County. In 2004, when Bush's share of the vote overall had climbed to 61.1%, his support in Hays dropped to 56.5%. John Kerry got 42.1% in Hays compared to 38.2% overall; Gore plus Nader was 40.3% in Hays in 2000. As I noted here, Hays was one of the few counties in Texas that saw less support for Bush in 2004 than in 2000.

It's at the bottom of the ballot where you really see the difference. Here's Hays in 2000:

Presiding Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals    

 Sharon Keller         REP 18,128 57.53% 

 Bill Vance            DEM 13,381 42.46% 

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  Race Total 31,509 

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Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals Place 2    

 Barbara Parker Hervey REP 18,150 58.66% 

 William R. Barr       DEM 12,789 41.33% 

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  Race Total 30,939  

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Member, State Board of Education, District 10    

 Cynthia A. Thornton   REP 16,812 53.69% 

 Donna Howard          DEM 12,435 39.71% 

 Nancy C. Neale        LIB  2,061  6.58% 

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  Race Total 31,308 

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State Representative District 46    

 Rick Green            REP 18,655 56.20% 

 Ivan "Buddy" Friedman DEM 12,874 38.78% 

 Shannon Louise Carr   LIB  1,661  5.00% 

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  Race Total 33,190  

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Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals Dist, Place 1    

 David Puryear         REP 17,088 54.30% 

 Woodie Jones          DEM 14,376 45.69% 

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  Race Total 31,464 

And here's Hays in 2004:

State Representative District 45    

 Alan A. Askew   REP 21,073 44.88% 

 Patrick M. Rose DEM 25,874 55.11% 

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  Race Total 46,947  

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Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals District, Place 4    

 Bill Green      REP 21,782 49.09% 

 Jan Patterson   DEM 22,588 50.90% 

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  Race Total 44,370  

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Justice, 3rd Court of Appeals District, Place 6 (Unexpired)    

 Bob Pemberton   REP 22,678 51.56% 

 Diane Henson    DEM 21,299 48.43% 

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  Race Total 43,977 

Quite the difference, and with a third more voters, too. Definitely the sort of thing you want to see, kind of like what we're starting to see in Fort Bend. We're expecting big things here, Damon.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on April 15, 2006 to Show Business for Ugly People | TrackBack