Ed Gonzalez scored a solid win for Sheriff, knocking out incumbent Ron Hickman to win the office back for Democrats. Let’s break it down.
Dist Hickman Gonzalez Hickman% Gonzalez%
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CD02 162,915 111,689 59.33% 40.67%
CD07 139,292 113,853 55.02% 44.98%
CD09 26,869 106,301 20.18% 79.82%
CD10 81,824 36,293 69.27% 30.73%
CD18 48,766 153,342 24.13% 75.87%
CD29 35,526 95,138 27.19% 72.81%
SBOE6 341,003 265,358 56.24% 43.76%
HD126 36,539 24,813 59.56% 40.44%
HD127 48,891 24,516 66.60% 33.40%
HD128 41,694 17,117 70.89% 29.11%
HD129 41,899 26,686 61.09% 38.91%
HD130 59,556 21,256 73.70% 26.30%
HD131 7,054 38,887 15.35% 84.65%
HD132 38,026 30,397 55.57% 44.43%
HD133 47,648 27,378 63.51% 36.49%
HD134 44,717 43,480 50.70% 49.30%
HD135 32,586 27,180 54.52% 45.48%
HD137 8,893 17,800 33.32% 66.68%
HD138 27,480 23,366 54.05% 45.95%
HD139 12,746 39,223 24.53% 75.47%
HD140 6,376 20,972 23.31% 76.69%
HD141 5,485 32,573 14.41% 85.59%
HD142 10,801 33,924 24.15% 75.85%
HD143 9,078 23,689 27.70% 72.30%
HD144 10,765 16,194 39.93% 60.07%
HD145 10,785 23,462 31.49% 68.51%
HD146 10,144 37,991 21.07% 78.93%
HD147 12,100 45,136 21.14% 78.86%
HD148 17,701 29,776 37.28% 62.72%
HD149 15,702 27,266 36.54% 63.46%
HD150 49,904 26,142 65.62% 34.38%
CC1 74,178 239,211 23.67% 76.33%
CC2 125,659 125,416 50.05% 49.95%
CC3 193,214 158,164 54.99% 45.01%
CC4 213,519 156,417 57.72% 42.28%
Ed Gonzalez
Gonzalez received 16K fewer votes than Kim Ogg; his overall total of 680,134 would put him fourth in line among District and county court candidates, behind Kelli Johnson, Mike Engelhart, and Robert Schaffer. I said in my initial reactions that while Ogg received crossover votes, I think Gonzalez merely maxed out the Democratic tally. In retrospect, I think Gonzalez probably drew a few Republican votes, and as usual HD134 is the evidence for that. Overall, though, he wasn’t the draw that Ogg was, which is apparent not just by his lower total but also by a cursory examination of the Republican State Rep districts, where he consistently trailed Ogg by a thousand votes or so. If you look at those districts more closely, though, you will see that Gonzalez didn’t trail Ogg everywhere. In fact, Gonzalez did better than Ogg in five districts – HDs 131, 140, 143, 144, and 145, with the latter providing the biggest difference, 493 votes in Gonzalez’s direction. That’s four of the five predominantly Latino districts, with a fair amount of overlap with Gonzalez’s old City Council District H.
Gonzalez also fell just short of a majority in Commissioners Precinct 2 – I mean, 243 votes short out of 250K cast – where Ogg carried it by over 6,000 votes. Here it’s worth noting that while Ogg carried this precinct on the strength of crossovers, Gonzalez nearly took it merely by not losing Democratic votes. Look again at the judicial average vote totals in CC2. The Republican average judicial vote is less than 500 higher than Hickman’s tally, but the Democratic average judicial vote is nearly 5,000 votes less than what Gonzalez got. Gonzalez outperformed the judicial average in all four Commissioners precincts – the undervote in his race was 3.56%, compared to about five percent in most judicial races – but the point here is that the difference is almost entirely on the Democratic side. One conclusion you might draw from this is that a serious candidate for Commissioners Court in Precinct 2, one who runs a real campaign, ought to do better than the “average Democrat” benchmark for the simple reason that fewer people who are generally voting Democratic will skip the race. Just something to think about.
I have two more in this vein to do, and I have on my list a look at Fort Bend County, too. I’ve got one or two other oddball things to look at if I can find the time, because what’s the fun of having this data if we don’t examine a few rabbit holes? If there are any particular questions you want me to try to address, leave a comment and let me know.
