We know that the story of HD133, which has now been won twice by Jim Murphy and once by Kristi Thibaut, is one of turnout. With sufficient turnout in the Democratic part of the district – that is, the precincts in Rep. Al Green’s CD09 – it’s a Democratic district. With dominant turnout in the Republican part of the district – the precincts in Rep. John Culberson’s CD07 – it’s a Republican district. How did things look this year?
CD07 - 2010 Pcnct Votes Turnout Murphy Thibaut T Pct T Margin ====================================================== 130 1483 64.37 1145 285 19.93 -860 356 1456 51.02 978 425 30.29 -553 395 1064 59.64 782 240 23.48 -542 437 1195 60.38 892 270 23.24 -622 438 1132 63.52 879 213 19.51 -666 483 1856 43.85 1075 700 39.44 -375 492 1214 48.39 790 400 33.61 -390 493 962 53.47 696 235 25.24 -461 499 1498 65.56 1146 311 21.35 -835 504 1363 60.82 991 346 25.88 -645 625 990 53.40 646 314 32.71 -332 626 1231 43.22 731 455 38.36 -276 706 213 40.19 130 78 37.50 -52 727 764 31.48 265 466 63.75 201 Total 18,369 50.44 11,146 4,738 29.83 -6,408 CD09 - 2010 Pcnct Votes Turnout Murphy Thibaut T Pct T Margin ====================================================== 96 323 26.22 38 274 87.82 236 338 1561 33.85 498 1001 66.78 503 429 1142 27.93 278 819 74.66 541 487 966 30.35 340 582 63.12 242 503 402 28.71 131 246 65.25 115 508 1179 36.71 397 728 64.71 431 559 1449 32.14 433 940 68.46 507 565 752 22.49 120 597 83.26 477 620 1948 39.05 1103 783 41.52 -320 765 1335 34.83 608 681 52.83 73 Total 11,057 32.14 3,946 6,651 62.76 2,705
The good news from Thibaut’s perspective is that turnout was up in her good precincts by quite a bit over 2006. The bad news is that it was also up in the bad precincts for her. Both did a little better percentage-wise in their strong areas, with Murphy doing a little better than Thibaut at improving the base rate. In the end, Murphy’s margin was larger in absolute terms than it was in 2006, but slightly smaller in relative terms. That’s not a whole lot of comfort, but given what a wave this was for Republicans, it makes Thibaut’s showing look more respectable.
I wondered what the result might have been in a somewhat more normal year. Out of curiosity, I applied the turnout and voter percentage rates from 2006 to all of the CD07 districts, and left the CD09 districts as they were for this year. This is how it looks in CD07 based on that:
Pcnct Votes Turnout Murphy Thibaut T Pct T Margin
======================================================
130 1246 54.09 924 322 25.85 -602
356 1128 39.51 756 371 32.94 -385
395 880 49.32 626 253 28.81 -373
437 997 50.39 748 249 24.98 -499
438 975 54.71 731 244 25.03 -487
483 1464 34.58 873 591 40.35 -282
492 917 36.55 610 307 33.47 -303
493 818 45.46 577 240 29.40 -337
499 1237 54.15 911 326 26.38 -585
504 1153 51.47 797 357 30.93 -440
625 830 44.75 517 313 37.69 -404
626 1049 36.83 611 438 41.72 -173
706 175 33.09 108 68 38.69 -40
727 484 19.96 198 287 59.20 89
13,354 42.49 8,987 4,366 32.70 -4,621
12,933 11,107 46.38
That last row represents what the total numbers would have been. The overall turnout rate, and Thibaut’s percentage of the vote, are each a bit different than what I showed in the original post for 2006 because I apparently just averaged the percentages back then, instead of adding the actual vote and voter numbers and figuring it out from there. My bad. Anyway, what this shows is that this district was always going to be a tough hold, but was at least within hailing distance of a win under more normal circumstances. It’ll be very interesting to see what happens here in the 2011 redistricting. One obvious “fix” would be to shift some of those CD09 precincts to Hubert Vo’s HD149, while moving some CD07 precincts from there to here. That shores up Murphy while acknowledging that if the Republicans couldn’t take out Vo in 2008 with his apartment issues and a strong candidate opposing him, and they couldn’t take him out in this hundred-year-flood year, they’re not likely to ever take him out. We’ll see about that.
For those who might wonder about Bill White’s ability to attract crossover votes, I should note that he lost this district by all of 15 votes. Here’s how the other statewide candidates who had Democratic opponents did this year and in 2006:
Incumbent 2006% 2010% 06 margin 10 margin ================================================ Dewhurst 62.30 58.94 4,952 4,645 Abbott 63.43 60.33 5,456 5,436 Patterson 59.84 59.03 3,902 4,656 Staples 59.27 58.18 3,688 4,197
Dewhurst and Abbott saw their percentages drop as much as they did because their margins were smaller with more votes being cast. Patterson and to a lesser extent Staples were helped by the increase in straight ticket voting, as both of them had a higher undervote rate in 2006 than in 2010. If you’re curious, you can see how the first three candidates did in 2002 here, on page 131.
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