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February 25th, 2020:

UH poll: Biden, Bernie tied

Feb 25th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
13 comments

One more primary poll.

Texans are split between Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders as their choice in the Democratic presidential primary, according to a University of Houston poll released Monday.

The poll, from the university’s Hobby School of Public Affairs, shows the two candidates in a statistical dead heat, with Biden slightly edging out Sanders among likely Democratic primary voters, 22.5% to 22.1%.

Among the rest of the field, 18.3% of likely voters supported Elizabeth Warren, 13.4% supported Michael Bloomberg, 11.9% supported Pete Buttigieg, 7.2% supported Amy Klobuchar, 3.5% supported Tulsi Gabbard, and 1.1% supported Tom Steyer.

But a split between moderate candidates could still leave Sanders with the most delegates. The poll predicts Sanders earning 85 delegates in Texas, compared to Biden taking 80. Following behind, Elizabeth Warren is expected to take 61, with Mike Bloomberg and Pete Buttigieg winning one delegate each.

“It’s so early but Sanders is the front-runner now, and of course there’s a debate on Tuesday night. And I suspect all the contenders are going to go after him the way some of them went after Bloomberg in the last debate,” Hobby School executive director Jim Granato told Houston Matters host Craig Cohen on Monday.

Most important to those polled was picking a candidate who could beat Donald Trump in November’s general election. More than half of respondents said defeating Trump was their No. 1 priority, while a little less than a third said agreeing on the issues was most important. Just 11.1% found experience to be a major factor in their decision.

Here’s the Hobby School’s poll webpage, and here is the full report. I asked on Twitter if they did head-to-head matchups with Trump and was told No, but that they did ask voters if there were any Democratic candidates that they felt they could not support in November against Trump, and found that outside of Tulsi Gabbard, there were no significant differences among the contenders. The survey was fielded between February 6 and February 18 with 1,352 YouGov respondents, which is almost entirely before the Vegas debate that won Elizabeth Warren such plaudits, so it’s possible she has improved her standing since the questions were asked. We’ll have to wait and see on that. They did do a poll of the Senate primary, which should come out today. I’ll write that one up when I see it. In the meantime, the four recent Dem Presidential primary polls of Texas show Biden with a big lead over Bernie, with a small lead over Bernie, tied with Bernie, and slightly behind Bernie. You may now leap to your own conclusions about What It All Means. The Texas Signal has more.

Who will carry the flag in CD31?

Feb 25th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
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This primary interests me mostly to see if we can get a truly viable challenger in this district or not. No one person has emerged yet, that’s for sure.

Democrats who want to be Republican U.S. Rep. John Carter’s challenger in November think focusing on health care will turn the 31st District north of Austin blue. But Republicans, who have long held the seat, say their opponents won’t have much luck without a high-profile candidate like 2018’s MJ Hegar, who is now focusing on a U.S. Senate run.

Democratic candidates Eric Hanke, Donna Imam, Dan Janjigian, Christine Mann and Tammy Young are vying for their party’s nomination in the district includes suburban Williamson County and the more rural Bell County. They say rising health care costs and support for military veterans are voters’ top priorities — and most want to expand access to affordable health care to address those concerns.

“I would put health care at the top of the list because we have a lot of people that don’t have access to health care because it’s not affordable,” said Hanke, a 41-year-old singer-songwriter who recorded a new song, “Turn Texas Blue,” for a campaign ad.

But whoever snags the party’s nomination will need to unseat Carter, who was first elected in 2002 and said the general election in November will be about economic security and safety.

[…]

In 2018, Hegar, a political newcomer, became a strong challenger to Carter after a viral ad documenting her military service garnered millions of views. She came within 3 percentage points of unseating Carter, making the district a target for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this cycle.

“MJ really put this race on the map and showed us that this was possible,” said Young, a 51-year-old Round Rock City Council member. “For too long, we’ve allowed Washington insiders to stay in office as long as they want, not believing things could change. MJ showed us what is possible with the right candidate.”

[…]

So far, there is no clear Democratic front-runner, according to State Rep. James Talarico. He campaigned alongside Hegar for his seat in the Texas House and said the key to flipping the congressional district is to have an inclusive platform and work across the aisle.

“It’s going to take a candidate who has a message that appeals to a broad base of community members. One that fires up our Democratic base while still being inclusive of independents and even some disillusioned Republicans,” said Talarico.

Mann, who entered the primary before the other four candidates, has been the top fundraiser in contributions, collecting $171,000 through Dec. 31, according to Federal Election Commission records. Imam has raised $208,000, though it includes a $100,000 loan to herself.

Steve Armbruster, chair of the Williamson County Republican Party, sees Hegar’s 2018 run as lightning in a bottle and is doubtful Democrats will replicate her performance.

“I don’t think that the Democrats have anybody on their side of the aisle that they could choose that would have the ability to draw voters out like they had two years ago,” Armbruster said.

Hegar said she believes this year’s Democratic lineup is competitive enough to finish what she started in 2018.

“We have a strong batch of candidates, and I am confident that by continuing to mobilize volunteers and voters the eventual nominee will close the 2.9 [percentage point] gap we had left and send John Carter to retirement in 2020,” Hegar said in an email.

The story of CD31 is like the story of several other Congressional districts, in that it took a small step in a blue direction from 2012 to 2016, then went really far in that direction in 2018. It’s no surprise at all that CD31 is on the DCCC target list, but let’s do keep in mind how far we have come.


2012

Carter  61.3%  Wyman   35.0%
Romney  59.4%  Obama   38.1%
Keller  57.8%  Hampton 36.8%

2016

Carter  58.4%  Clark   36.5%
Trump   52.6%  Clinton 40.1%
Keasler 56.8%  Burns   37.3%

2018

Carter  50.6%  Hegar   47.7%
Cruz    50.5%  Beto    48.4%
Keller  52.7%  Jackson 44.2%

That’s incumbent John Carter versus his opponent that year, then the top of the ticket, and then a Court of Criminal Appeals race for further context. Carter was used to doing better than other Republicans in CD31, but that did not happen with MJ Hegar as his opponent. The blue shift has occurred up and down the ballot, but the top has gone farther in our direction, as you can see. That means there’s still work to be done, and that the candidate quality will matter. It also means that if the environment isn’t quite as good as we hope it will be, what looks competitive now will be less so later. On the other hand, if the Presidential race remains as close as recent polling has indicated it is, then we should expect to see conditions much like 2018, with the extra benefit of further demographic change and Presidential year turnout.

I don’t know any of these candidates well enough to have a preference. I’m sure they’d all be fine. I also don’t expect anyone to raise money like Hegar did, but we do need someone to start raking it in, so that they can have the resources they will need in November. I’m hoping the primary will give us some clarity, at the very least.

2020 Primary Early Voting, Day Seven

Feb 25th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
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And we’re back at it. Here’s the Day Seven report for 2020, and here are the totals from 2012, 2016, and 2018. The totals after Day Four:


Year    Mail    Early    Total
==============================
2012   5,609   14,063   19,672
2016  10,180   28,367   38,547
2018  11,207   30,064   41,271
2020  16,651   44,339   60,990

2012  12,535   29,508   42,043
2016  14,683   40,547   55,230
2018  13,812   26,959   40,771
2020  18,949   39,207   58,156

A big mail day for the Republicans keeps them close to even with the Dems, who had their best in person day (by 100) and their best overall day not counting Day One (by 300). The usual pattern is for small gains on Tuesday and Wednesday, and the big step on Thursday and Friday.

What’s going on statewide? Let’s see what Derek Ryan had to say Monday.

Someone reached out and asked what turnout looked like compared to 2016. I was only able to compare the top 15 largest counties to this same point in 2016. Interestingly enough, the number of voters in the 2020 Republican Primary is larger than it was at this point in 2016 (225,826 vs 212,142). The current turnout percent is 2.1% in these counties in the Republican Primary.

I was honestly a little surprised that the total numbers were up since there is no contested presidential race in the Republican Primary this cycle. So, for comparison, I looked at the turnout in the 2012 Democratic Primary when President Obama was basically unopposed in his bid to be the Democratic nominee for a second term. Turnout at this point in 2012 was only 1.3%. (One reason turnout is higher this year in the Republican Primary compared to the 2012 Democratic Primary is the number of contested primaries for congressional seats.)

On the Democratic side, turnout is up significantly over 2016 in the top counties. Over 100,000 more people have voted in the Democratic Primary in 2020 than voted at this point in 2016 (271,377 vs. 170,839). The current turnout percent is 2.6%.

Click over to see a chart comparing the early vote so far in the top 15 counties from 2016 to 2018, as well as his Day 6 analysis. I’ve been curious about how much the top 15 counties’ turnout represents for each party, so I put together this table:


Year D   Big 15      Total  Big 15%
===================================
2016  1,062,607  1,423,895    74.0%
2020    271,377    374,320    72.5%

Year R   Big 15      Total  Big 15%
===================================
2016  1,527,315  2,836,488    53.8%
2020    225,826    464,569    48.6%

The 2016 numbers in each case are final totals, and the 2020 numbers are what we have so far. You’d expect that Dems get most of their turnout from the big counties, while Republicans get a lot of theirs from the other counties. I find it somewhat encouraging that Dems are getting a slightly larger share of their primary vote from the other counties, and I find it interesting that Republicans’ share of turnout from the big counties has dropped as much as it appears to have. I’m presenting this for entertainment value only, as we can really only compare the final totals for each, so just enjoy it for now and we’ll check it again later.