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September 7th, 2021:

Precinct analysis: SBOE

Introduction
Congressional districts
State Rep districts
Commissioners Court/JP precincts
Comparing 2012 and 2016
Statewide judicial
Other jurisdictions
Appellate courts, Part 1
Appellate courts, Part 2
Judicial averages
Other cities
District Attorney
County Attorney
Sheriff
Tax Assessor
County Clerk
HCDE
Fort Bend, part 1
Fort Bend, part 2
Fort Bend, part 3
Brazoria County
Harris County State Senate comparisons
State Senate districts 2020
State Senate district comparisons
State House districts 2020, part 1
State House districts 2020, part 2
Median districts
State House district changes by demography
State House district changes by county

Hey, guess what? The 2020 election data is finally on the Texas Redistricting page for Congress and the State Board of Education. It had been there for awhile for the State House and State Senate, which is why I was able to do those most recent Precinct Analysis piece. Now I can fill in the missing pieces, and I will start here with the State Board of Education, which has a current composition of nine Republicans and six Democrats following the Dem flip in SBOE5. Here’s what the 2020 results looked like for these districts:


Dist   Biden    Trump  Biden%  Trump%
=====================================
01   288,864  245,645   53.3%   45.3%
02   259,587  281,363   47.4%   51.4%
03   361,827  238,999   59.4%   39.2%
04   388,518  117,290   75.9%   22.9%
05   554,766  475,249   52.9%   45.3%
06   391,913  371,101   50.6%   47.9%
07   351,218  509,642   40.2%   58.4%
08   307,826  526,425   36.3%   62.2%
09   196,720  577,419   25.1%   73.7%
10   440,594  445,355   48.7%   49.3%
11   383,185  472,594   44.1%   54.3%
12   469,730  429,676   51.3%   47.0%
13   401,190  128,910   74.7%   24.0%
14   310,738  570,422   34.7%   63.7%
15   150,843  498,932   22.9%   75.6%

Before we dive into the numbers, you’re probably wondering where these districts are. I know I don’t have a mental map of the SBOE like I do for the legislative districts. Here is the SBOE statewide map, and the District Viewer, which you can zoom in on to the street level. That will be your best friend for when the new maps are coming out.

So the numbers. As you can see, Joe Biden carried seven of the fifteen districts, falling just short in district 10 for a majority but carrying Republican-held districts 6 and 12. The bad news is that he did not carry district 2, which is a Democratic district held by Ruben Cortez, who was not on the ballot after winning re-election in 2018 by seven points. District 2 has been purple through the decade but it was on the blue side of purple before 2020. Beto carried SBOE2 in 2018, but only by 4.5 points; Greg Abbott won it by a wider margin, with Glenn Hegar and George P Bush also carrying it. Based on this I think Cortez would have held it had it been on the ballot last year, but I feel confident they’ll make a stronger push for it next year.

Here’s my look at the 2018 results for these districts, for which Beto won nine districts, carrying SBOE2 and 10 where Biden fell short. As you know, District 5 has been on my radar since 2016 when Hillary Clinton carried it, and it came through as I expected. District 10 was the longest-shot of the potential takeovers, with districts 12 and 6 being in between. If we went into the 2022 elections with the same districts, I’d feel like Democratic SBOE candidates would win between five and seven districts (remember, everyone is on the ballot in the first post-redistricting year), with 2 and 12 being the main variables. I see 6 and 10 as tougher nuts to crack, with 10 having more Republican turf in it, and 6 starting from a redder place and thus just taking longer to get where I think it would be going.

Obviously, all of this will be affected by redistricting, and not only is there a greater degree of freedom for the GOP given the small number of districts, there’s been little to no attention paid to SBOE districts. The SBOE map was never part of any voting rights litigation in the 2011 cycle. I have no idea how much attention it will get this time, but as SBOE5 was one of the few Democratic pickups from 2020, I have to think that people will care a little more about it, on both sides.

As we know, Biden tended to run ahead of the rest of the Democratic ticket. It’s pretty straightforward here, in that the rest of the ticket carried five districts, with everyone winning SBOE5 but falling short in 2, 6, 10, and 12. Consistent with what we have seen in the House and Senate districts, Biden’s number in SBOE2 was about the same as everyone else’s, which you can interpret optimistically (it didn’t get any worse!) or pessimistically (Republicans overall improved, it wasn’t just Trump!) as you see fit.

For comparison, here are the numbers from 2016 and 2012:


Dist Clinton    TrumpClinton%  Trump%
=====================================
01   255,909  169,214   57.4%   37.9%
02   234,172  204,262   51.4%   44.9%
03   282,715  163,940   60.2%   34.9%
04   333,156   76,478   78.7%   18.1%
05   377,928  376,417   47.0%   46.8%
06   286,931  301,142   46.3%   48.6%
07   255,474  407,386   37.1%   59.2%
08   205,760  416,239   31.5%   63.7%
09   148,687  486,392   22.7%   74.1%
10   287,936  346,670   42.5%   51.2%
11   257,515  397,155   37.3%   57.6%
12   315,973  356,576   44.4%   50.1%
13   324,952  102,622   73.5%   23.2%
14   195,965  453,354   28.8%   66.5%
15   114,553  426,441   20.3%   75.5%

Dist   Obama   Romney  Obama% Romney%
=====================================
01   213,132  161,807   56.1%   42.6%
02   209,020  187,147   52.1%   46.7%
03   247,020  149,659   61.4%   37.2%
04   311,236   84,036   78.0%   21.1%
05   294,887  375,942   42.9%   54.7%
06   215,839  332,415   38.8%   59.7%
07   215,952  390,808   35.2%   63.6%
08   160,372  398,664   28.3%   70.3%
09   156,833  449,301   25.6%   73.3%
10   235,591  331,022   40.5%   57.0%
11   210,974  396,329   34.2%   64.3%
12   242,306  373,920   38.7%   59.7%
13   314,630  110,615   73.3%   25.8%
14   163,020  413,181   27.9%   70.6%
15   116,797  413,942   21.7%   76.9%

As noted, Hillary Clinton carried six districts, while Barack Obama carried five. The thing that always interests me is the shift over time, and you can see how dramatic it was in the districts that we’ve been talking about. Mitt Romney won districts 5, 6, 10, and 12 by double digits, with 6 and 12 being 20-point wins for him. Again, we have seen this in the previous posts, these districts are anchored in the big urban and suburban districts that have trended hard blue recently, this is just another way of looking at it. I like having the different views, you can always pick up some nuances when you have different angles.

I’m working on the Congressional data next. As always, let me know what you think.

The tab for voter ID

Impressive.

Still the only voter ID anyone should need

Texas remains responsible for nearly $6.8 million in legal fees and costs owed to the collection of parties who sued over its voter ID law.

Though the state ultimately won the long-winding fight to keep the voter ID law on the books, a panel of the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a lower court ruling that found the state is on the hook for that sum — the last vestige of the legal battle over the 2011 restrictions the state set on what forms of photo identification are accepted at the polls.

The Texas attorney general’s office had appealed that lower court ruling, which found the plaintiffs in the litigation — Democratic U.S. Rep. Marc Veasey of Fort Worth, individual voters, voting and civil rights groups, the NAACP-Texas and the Texas House’s Mexican American Legislative Caucus, among others — were the “prevailing parties.”

“It seems obvious that they are,” the 5th Circuit judges on Friday. “Plaintiffs successfully challenged the Texas photo ID requirement before our en banc court, and used that victory to secure a court order permanently preventing its enforcement during the elections in 2016 and 2017.”

Just a quick recap, the original voter ID law that was passed in 2011 was ruled to have had discriminatory intent by a district court judge in 2014, but the Fifth Circuit allowed it to stand while the appeal was made. Both the three-judge panel and the full Fifth Circuit ultimately upheld the district court ruling, but as it was close to the 2016 election by then, a modified version of the law that mitigated some of the harm was implemented. After the 2017 Lege codified those changes, the law was challenged again, and despite another ruling by the same district court judge that the law was still discriminatory, this time the Fifth Circuit ruled in favor of the state, and here we are now. (Yes, SCOTUS was involved in both of these cases, but this has gone on long enough.) The state may press on again with this appeal, but at this point it would seem unlikely they’d win. Perhaps by now we have had more than enough money spent on this cursed thing.

The Big XII is finally ready for UH

Hope it was worth the wait.

Five years after a potential match fizzled, the University of Houston and Big 12 Conference are on the verge of uniting after all.

UH has emerged as a leading contender to join a reconfigured 12-team Big 12 with a formal vote planned for next week, two people with knowledge of the talks said Thursday.

The shift comes just over a month after Texas and Oklahoma announced they were leaving the Big 12 for the Southeastern Conference, starting another round of conference realignment that could eventually fulfill UH’s longtime desire to join one of the major conferences in college athletics.

Earlier reports Thursday by ESPN, The Athletic and the Dallas Morning News said the Big 12 has targeted UH, BYU, Central Florida and Cincinnati as expansion candidates to join the league’s eight remaining schools. Long the powerbrokers of the Big 12, Texas and Oklahoma have accepted invitations to join the SEC in 2025.

The Big 12 requires eight of its current 10 members to approve candidates before expansion can occur. A person with knowledge of the process said UH is expected to receive unanimous approval.

The Morning News said the expansion timetable “remains very fluid,” with one source saying, “it can move as fast as everyone wants it to.”

[…]

By adding UH, UCF and Cincinnati, the Big 12 would raid the American Athletic Conference, which has long been considered the best league outside of the so-called Power Five that includes the SEC, Big Ten, ACC, Pac-12 and Big 12. The addition of the three schools would allow the Big 12 to remain involved in the Houston television market, extend its reach to Florida and add a Cincinnati program that begins this season in the football top 10.

BYU, which is independent in football, brings a strong national brand, large fan base due to its affiliation with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and rich football tradition. All of BYU’s athletic programs except football currently play in the West Coast Conference.

See here for some background on the last time UH was on the Big XII dance card. As you know, this is all the result of UT and OU saying good-bye to the Big XII for greener pastures. Cincinnati and UCF make sense as additions and BYU is a nice get, probably the biggest non-Notre Dame free agent out there, but it’s going to make for some geographic challenges – Utah is a long way away from the next closest school in the conference. The PAC 12 probably makes more sense logistically for BYU, but they decided to stand pat for whatever the reason. BYU is now the center of another political and religious fight, which may bring some negative attention to their future conference and conference-mates, but that’s more or less the cost of doing business these days. The UH Board of Regents is having a special meeting today to discuss their Big XII prospects, and I think we can expect that they will go along with any plan to join up. So congrats, Coogs, you finally made it.

UPDATE: UH’s Board of Regents has officially approved pursuing Big XII membership.