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CD22

What I want from the next HCDP Chair

As you know, the Harris County Democratic Party will soon have a new Chair. And as you know, I am a Democratic precinct chair, which means I’m one of the several hundred people that will vote on who that is. So as a public service to you, and as my way of telling the candidates what will influence my vote, these are my priorities for the next HCDP Chair.

1. Start with a goal of 1 million Democratic votes for Joe Biden in 2024, and really aim for 1.1 million. Hillary got 700K votes in 2016. Beto got 800K in 2018. Biden (and Ed Gonzalez) got 900K in 2020. There’s already more than 2.5 million registered voters in Harris County, up about 100K from November 2020, and I expect there to be over 2.6 million by next November. Sixty-five percent turnout (we were at over 68% in 2020) gets 1.7 million voters total (up less than 50K from 2020), and hitting one million Dems would mean taking almost 59% of the vote for Biden, which so far is the only real reach here as he was at 56% in 2020. Beto got to 58% in 2018.

What I’m really aiming for is a net of at least 300K for Biden in Harris County; he was at plus 218K in 2020, after Beto was at plus 200K in 2018. If we want to talk about making Texas competitive for Biden, and whoever our 2024 Senate nominee may be, that’s the kind of Dem advantage in Harris County we’re going to need, at a minimum. That’s the kind of vision I want from the next Chair, and I want there to be a plan to go along with it.

2. Improve performance in base Democratic areas. Harris County went from being evenly matched in 2012 to the strong blue county it is now in large part because Dems have vastly increased performance in formerly dark red places. I’ve said this before, but Mitt Romney won 11 State Rep districts in 2012, and he won them all with over 60% of the vote. In 2020, Donald Trump only won two State Rep district with 60% or more, HDs 128 and 130, and he won nine overall with HDs 134 and 135 being won by Dems.

But Democrats didn’t do as well in a number of dark blue districts in 2020 as they had in 2016 and 2018, and as we saw in 2022 it was in those districts where Beto fell short, often well short, of his 2018 performance. We need to turn that around. Part of this is that we have a vibrant Democratic club structure in place, with a lot of that participation coming in the formerly red areas. There’s a lack of clubs, and thus neighborhood-based outreach, in a lot of traditional Democratic areas. It’s also a dirty secret that some Democratic elected officials in those areas do very little to help with GOTV efforts. Achieving the goal set in item #1 will require an all-hands-on-deck mobilization. I want to know what the next Chair intends to do about that.

3. Find ways to partner with Democratic parties in neighboring counties. I know the job title is “Harris County Dem Party Chair”, but we abut a lot of other counties, and in quite a few places the development just sprawls over the border, making the distinction between the two of lesser value. There are also a lot of offices that include parts of Harris and parts of one or more neighbors: CDs 02 and 22, SBOE6, SDs 07 and 17, and all of the Firth and 14th Courts of Appeal benches, of which there will be ten Democratic incumbents on the ballot next year. We should find ways to collaborate and cooperate to help our candidates in these races.

In counties like Brazoria and Montgomery, population growth near the Harris County border has led to some burgeoning Democratic turf, mostly around Pearland for the former and around the Woodlands for the latter. I also believe that Conroe is starting to become like Sugar Land, a small but growing urban center of its own that we ought to see as such, and seek to build alliances there. In Galveston and to a lesser extent Waller, the growth has been in redder areas, and we need to find the allies there who likely feel isolated and help them connect with and amplify each other. In Chambers and Liberty, anything we can do to help slow down the small but steady Republican advantage will help.

My point is that 10-20 years ago, as Democrats were starting to assert power in Harris County, it was still quite common for Dems in the then-dark red areas to believe they were the only ones like themselves there. A big part of what the county’s organizing, and the growth of the local clubs, has done is to dispel that notion and allow people the chance to enhance their communities. Anything we can do – in a collaborative, “how can we help?” manner that respects the people who have been doing their own work there for a long time – to help with that will help us all.

4. Threat management. I’m being deliberately provocative here because I think this is urgent and I want people to see the dangers. We know there’s a lot of disinformation and propaganda aimed at non-English speaking communities – we’ve seen the websites and Facebook posts, and we’ve seen the mailers and heard the radio ads. We know that “poll watchers” with malign intent are out there. We’ve just had multiple winning candidates get sued by their losing opponents, and many of them were left scrambling to pay for lawyers to defend themselves in court. We’ve faced previous legal challenges over voting locations and voting hours and mail ballots and on and on. For the latter at least, we’ve had a strong response from the County Attorney, but we can’t assume that will always be the case. We need to be aware of past and current threats to our elections and candidates, we need to be on the lookout for emerging threats, and we need to have a plan and dedicated staff and resources to respond to them.

This is where my thinking is. I don’t expect the candidates for HCDP Chair to have fully formed answers to these problems, but I do hope they agree that these are urgent matters and deserve attention. They may have other priorities and I’m open to that, I just want to be heard. So far the two candidates that I know of – Silvia Mintz and Mike Doyle – are the only two that have come forward. I’ll let you know if I hear anything more on that, and you let me know what you think.

Endorsement watch: A smattering

The Chron endorses Stephanie Morales, the Democratic challenger in HD138.

Stephanie Morales

Stephanie Morales began her interview with the editorial board with a story about children who wind up in the care of Child Protective Services, fleeing harsh conditions at home only to find themselves sleeping in somebody’s office because the agency is so strapped for resources. Such are the heartbreaking realities that motivated her to run for the Texas House.

“I knew that there was a need,” she told us. “This is the perfect place for me to run where I can actually make a difference, because we need someone who has been boots-on-the-ground, actually representing kids and parents to truly change the system.”

Morales is a Texas A&M and South Texas College of Law-educated criminal defense lawyer whose cases often involve parents and juveniles in the CPS system. In her meeting with us, she talked at length about the “unintended consequences” of recent legislation meant to improve how the agency works. She displayed an expertise that would benefit the Legislature, and her constituents. She wants to add funding for more trauma-informed courts like the ones in use in Harris County, and to build and fund a halfway-house program for people who age out of the foster care system.

Morales, 33, is running for House District 138, which covers Jersey Village, Spring Branch and other parts of west Harris County. She argues that she’ll be more civically engaged, particularly with supporting children’s needs, than Republican incumbent Lacey Hull. “This district needs someone who will really advocate for them and wrangle resources that we need here,” she said.

She told us that her legislative priorities also would include bolstering protections against flooding, passing whatever “commonsense” gun-safety laws might be possible, improving the credit-recapture system in Texas schools and increasing teacher pay.

Hull was another Republican who didn’t bother to screen with them, and the Chron rightly dings her for her anti-trans activism. This is as noted one of the few competitive State House districts in the area, likely the only one in Harris County that has a chance of flipping. I’ll be very interested to see how it performs in comparison to 2020. You can listen to my interview with Stephanie Morales, who is indeed a strong candidate and would make a fine legislator, here.

Elsewhere, the Chron endorses three Republican Supreme Court incumbents, two Republican CCA incumbents, the Libertarian candidate in CD22, as the Republican incumbent is an insurrection-loving MAGA-head and the Democratic candidate appears to be an apparition, State Rep. Jon Rosenthal, now in a much bluer district, US Rep. Sylvia Garcia, and a bunch of Criminal District Court nominees, slightly more than half of whom are Dem incumbents. They still have a ton of races to get to, and as has been the case in a number of elections they will have to do many of them after voting has begun.

What do we expect from CD23?

It was the perennial razor-close high-dollar swing district all last decade. Will Hurd won it three times, but never reached 50% in any of the three elections. It moved a few points towards the GOP in 2020 when Tony Gonzales won it, and redistricting made it a bit redder still, but it remains the closest Republican-held seat and may never fade as a perennial battleground. But that may depend on this year, when Gonzalez will have an easier time of it at least financially. I don’t know yet what I expect from that race.

Gonzales remains the favorite for a second term — given the new political makeup of the district and his stark financial advantage — but he said he is taking the race “extremely seriously” and treating it like he was still running under the famously competitive boundaries that were in effect before redistricting.

“The [elected officials] that don’t have to fight, that are just there as long as they want it — they’re like declawed indoor cats that get fancy meals when the bell rings out,” Gonzales said in an interview. “I think Texas [District] 23 — you’re like an alleycat that has to scrape and claw and fight for everything, and I think that just makes you just different. Like, you’re fighting for your life.”

This cycle, Gonzales said, he wants to “run up the score” and “take this seat off the table completely.”

A former Navy cryptologist, Gonzales won the seat in 2020 by 4 percentage points, a wide margin by the razor-thin standards of the 23rd District. He was the successor backed by U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, a moderate who had built his own reputation for breaking with his party, perhaps most notably opposing former President Donald Trump’s push for a border wall.

Trump carried the 23rd District by 2 points in 2020. But redistricting morphed it into a district that Trump would have won by 7 points, and in March, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee officially removed the seat from its list of targeted races.

[Democratic candidate John] Lira argued redistricting “didn’t do Gonzales that many favors,” noting the Cook Political Report, an election forecaster, only increased the Republican advantage of the district by 3 percentage points. And he said he is encouraged by the cracks in Gonzales’ Republican support, the political fallout from the Uvalde shooting and the strength of Beto O’Rourke’s gubernatorial campaign at the top of the ticket.

As for the case against Gonzales, Lira said, “he’s got Will Hurd’s playbook in his back pocket and he’s trying to see how he can play both sides.”

While national attention has faded from the race, Lira recently got the backing of O’Rourke, who rarely issues formal down-ballot endorsements. Lira also has the support of the political arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which endorsed him after the district was redrawn.

[…]

“I do think the district is going to be a little more competitive than most people anticipated — now how competitive, I don’t know,” said Jeff McManus, chair of the Bexar County GOP. “We sort of have a three-way race going,” with the independent challenger from the right.

McManus said he wishes Gonzales “were a stronger conservative.” The two were on opposite sides of the county party chair election in May, when Gonzales backed the incumbent, John Austin, that McManus defeated.

The independent candidate is Frank Lopez Jr., a former U.S. Border Patrol agent who had to give up his position as chair of the Val Verde County GOP to run. He and Gonzales are very familiar with one another: Lopez was the campaign manager for Raul Reyes, Gonzales’ bitter rival in the 2020 Republican primary runoff for the 23rd District.

Lopez said he ran as an independent, not in the GOP primary, after seeing “the way Raul lost” at the hands of the party’s establishment, which had coalesced behind Gonzales.

“Texans are tired of these dangerous Democrat policies,” Lopez said in an interview, “but they’re also tired of the pandering and games from the RINOs, establishment and globalists in the Republican Party. I had to give Texans a true choice.”

Lopez added that he sees a “perfect storm” for his candidacy, citing the recent intraparty blowback Gonzales has faced and Democrats he meets who say they are looking for a new political home.

Gonzales jokingly asked “Who?” when asked about Lopez in an interview. More seriously, he said the 23rd District has always had a third candidate in November who gets 3% to 5% of the vote and that he expected Lopez would be no different. Still, he said he is not taking Lopez for granted and that it “helps me stay sharp.”

Most of the rest of the story is about Gonzales’ votes in favor of the Cornyn gun control bill and the House bill to protect same-sex marriage, both of which has drawn him some criticism and two censure votes from aggrieved county GOPs (a third, in Bexar County, failed to pass). Good for him and all, but that’s not what I’m here to talk about. I’m here for the numbers.

For what it’s worth, Trump carried CD23 by seven points in 2020. The next two closest districts are both Dem-held (CD15, Trump +3; CD28, Biden +7), and after that it’s all double digits, with CDs 24 (Trump +12), 03 (Trump +14), 22 (Trump +16), 26 (Trump +18), and 38 (Trump +18) next in line. The main difference between CD23 and these other districts is that the latter all moved strongly towards Dems since 2012, with Mitt Romney carrying them by 38 to 44 points. It would not shock me if Beto does about as well in CDs 03 and 24 as he does in CD23. I don’t think Gonzales is going to achieve his goal of taking CD23 off the table, but I could easily see him winning by 10-12 points and discouraging any serious competition in the near term future. I could also see him winning by about the seven points that Trump won it by and remaining in the same position. He has some big advantages, but this is officially a Very Weird Year, and I’m not making any predictions about it. Long term I think this district remains on the radar, but maybe not at the front of the pack. We’ll see.

July 2022 campaign finance reports: Congress

The runoffs are now over, and we’re fully into the fall election season. As before, I’ve consolidated this list down to the elections of interest, which means I’ve dropped CD30 as it was a primary-only affair. I’m also dropping CD10 and CD22, because while those are districts that are of interest to me, neither Linda Nuno nor Jamie Jordan has managed to file a report so far, and so I just can’t be bothered. Better candidates next time, please. The October 2021 reports are here, the July 2021 reports are here, the January 2022 reports are here, the April 2022 reports are here, and you can get the links to the previous cycle’s reports from there.

Dan Crenshaw – CD02
Robin Fulford – CD02
Keith Self – CD03
Sandeep Srivastava – CD03
Michelle Vallejo – CD15
Monica de la Cruz – CD15
Chip Roy – CD21
Claudia Zapata – CD21
Tony Gonzales – CD23
John Lira – CD23
Beth Van Duyne – CD24
Jan McDowell – CD24
Henry Cuellar – CD28
Cassandra Garcia – CD28
Vicente Gonzalez – CD34
Mayra Flores – CD34
Wesley Hunt – CD38
Duncan Klussman – CD38


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
02    Crenshaw     14,140,850 13,216,975        0  2,776,589
02    Fulford         109,995    100,957   15,595      9,038
03    Self            314,699    240,821        0     73,877
03    Srivastava      160,121    141,656   65,000     18,464
15    Vallejo         699,131    540,643  100,000    158,488
15    De la Cruz    2,914,515  2,366,992        0    555,028
21    Roy           1,757,556  1,047,612        0  1,173,526
21    Zapata           77,500     68,918        0      8,581
23    Gonzales      3,346,655  2,054,016        0  1,323,998
23    Lira            486,541    395,459        0     91,081
24    Van Duyne     3,022,405  1,366,847        0  1,723,967
24    McDowell         44,677     27,975    3,843     16,701
28    Cuellar       3,351,820  4,664,602        0    237,690
28    Garcia          695,640    470,707        0    224,932
34    Gonzalez      2,251,211  2,201,071        0  1,420,633
34    Flores        1,765,515  1,651,532        0    113,983
38    Hunt          4,238,227  2,390,809        0  2,071,360
38    Klussman        180,323    145,198    7,000     35,125

I get kind of a 2012 vibe from looking at these numbers. Dems raised big money in two races – the eternal target of CD23, and the open seat CD14 which only drew interest because former Congressman Nick Lampson made a run at it – and decent money in CD27, a former Dem district lost in the 2010 debacle that was made more Republican in redistricting. No Dem candidate in a red district approached raising as much as $100K for the entire cycle outside of those three; I remarked on that multiple times in 2018 as Dem candidates were shattering records left and right.

It’s a little less bleak this time, but the shape is similar. CD15 is the new CD23, though for this cycle at least it’s still a Dem hold and not a flip. CD23 is redder than before though still closer to 50-50 than any other district, with a stronger Republican incumbent; Quico Canseco was a typical “dog that caught the car” in 2010, and that surely helped Pete Gallego in his quest to win it back. John Lira is not in Gallego’s fundraising neighborhood, but he might approach a million bucks before it’s all said and done. Duncan Klussman, Sandeep Srivastava, and Robin Fulford have all topped $100K already, with Claudia Zapata likely to get there. That’s a symbolic figure more than an impactful one, but given how bleak things were in 2012 we can at least reset some expectations. I have hope that the districts I’ve quit following will rejoin the conversation in future cycles. As for Jan McDowell in CD24, at least some things never change.

The top Democratic fundraiser in a district that ought to be competitive this fall was Jessica Cisneros, who raised over $6.5 million in her ultimately losing race against Henry Cuellar. Cisneros complained loudly and at length about Dem leadership supporting the incumbent in this race. I get that and I will not offer any defenses of Cuellar, but I will note that the lack of support she got on that front did little to hinder her ability to raise money. I’m pretty sure we’ve not heard the last of her. She did succeed in wiping out Cuellar’s cash on hand advantage over Cassy Garcia, but I assume Cuellar will reopen that gap this quarter.

Along those lines, that special election in CD34 certainly helped Mayra Flores rake it in, though Vicente Gonzalez still has a large lead in cash on hand. Flores has a lot more visibility now, but she’s running in a different CD34 in November, one that was drawn to be a lot friendlier to Dems. We’ll see if she has a big Q3 or if she comes back to earth in that reality.

On the Republican side, I still have no idea what’s going on with Keith Self. How is it he hasn’t raised more than $314K at this point, having had all of Q2 to himself as the nominee in CD03? It’s a mystery to me. Unlikely to matter much, as he should easily win this year, but it will get harder for him in this blue-trending district. Mostly, I just don’t understand why he’s lagging his peers. Not complaining, you understand, just puzzling.

I’m working on posts for the other finance reports of interest. Let me know what you think.

April 2022 campaign finance reports: Congress

The primaries are over, and while we do still have some runoffs plus now a weird special election in CD34, we do have a smaller set of races and candidates to review. Given how many I had to cram into the previous posts, I’m sure you can feel my relief at that. The October 2021 reports are here, the July 2021 reports are here, the January 2022 reports are here, and you can get the links to the previous cycle’s reports from there.

Dan Crenshaw – CD02
Robin Fulford – CD02
Keith Self – CD03
Sandeep Srivastava – CD03
Mike McCaul – CD10
Linda Nuno – CD10
Ruben Ramirez – CD15
Michelle Vallejo – CD15
Monica de la Cruz – CD15
Chip Roy – CD21
Claudia Zapata – CD21
Ricardo Villarreal – CD21
Troy Nehls – CD22
Jamie Kaye Jordan – CD22
Tony Gonzales – CD23
John Lira – CD23
Beth Van Duyne – CD24
Derrik Gay – CD24
Jan McDowell – CD24
Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessica Cisneros – CD28
Sandra Whitten – CD28
Cassandra Garcia – CD28
Jane Hope Hamilton – CD30
Jasmine Crockett – CD30
Vicente Gonzalez – CD34
Mayra Flores – CD34
Wesley Hunt – CD38
Duncan Klussman – CD38
Diana Martinez Alexander – CD38


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
02    Crenshaw     12,249,172 10,844,572        0  3,257,314
02    Fulford          95,297     50,703   15,595     44,594
03    Self            235,044    225,791        0      9,253
03    Srivastava      100,619     96,231   55,000      4,388
10    McCaul        1,749,060  1,243,137        0    513,656
10    Nuno                  0          0        0          0
15    Ramirez         356,758    257,059   12,250     99,698
15    Vallejo         299,915    217,293  100,000     82,621
15    De la Cruz    2,313,272  1,957,129   13,000    363,649
21    Roy           1,454,476    830,885        0  1,087,173
21    Zapata           54,801     43,550        0     11,251
21    Villarreal       32,586     17,015   20,563     13,866
22    Nehls           670,482    322,270    5,726    367,417
22    Jordan                0          0        0          0
23    Gonzales      2,261,907    985,463        0  1,307,803
23    Lira            251,642    195,017        0     56,625
24    Van Duyne     2,035,203    731,839        0  1,371,774
24    Gay             208,661    165,886        0     42,774
24    McDowell         11,183      5,632        0      5,550
28    Cuellar       2,753,040  2,864,938        0  1,438,575
28    Cisneros      3,248,787  2,214,132        0  1,037,623
28    Whitten          58,037     57,036        0      9,142
28    Garcia          219,408    104,225        0    115,183
30    Hamilton        555,455    460,356   15,014     95,098
30    Crockett        502,506    384,575        0    117,931
34    Gonzalez      1,990,337  2,021,196        0  1,339,633
34    Flores          347,758    227,100        0    120,657
38    Hunt          3,385,520  1,743,508        0  1,865,954
38    Klussman        121,440     72,934    7,000     48,505
38    Alexander        33,812     30,882        0      2,930

I’ve taken out the people who are no longer running after the primaries, and I’ve removed some districts that aren’t particularly interesting for the general election; CD30 will be the next to go once that runoff is settled. Still a long list, but it will be shorter for Q3.

It’s weird to see the two nominees in CD03 having less than $10K on hand at this point in the cycle, but there are some extenuating circumstances. Keith Self was supposed to be in a runoff, one he just barely squeaked into, but then Rep. Van Taylor self-immolated, resetting everything in the race. I’m sure Self will post much bigger numbers for July. I would hope that Sandeep Srivastava is able to capitalize a bit as well – this district isn’t really competitive on paper, especially not in a tough year for Dems, but Collin County overall has been moving rapidly in a blue direction, and a good showing by Srivastava could put him in strong shape for 2024, which may be a much better year to run there. I’d love to see him at $250-300K raised in the Q3 report.

Also remarkable for his modest total is Rep. Troy Nehls, who really stands out in a “one of these things is not like the others” when compared to Reps. Chip Roy, Tony Gonzales, and Beth Van Duyne. I don’t know if this reflects a lack of interest in fundraising on his part, a lack of interest in him by the donor class, a lack of urgency given that his opponent hasn’t raised anything, or some combination. CD22 is another district that I expect to be competitive in a couple of cycles, so if Nehls proves to be a lackluster fundraiser that could be an issue down the line.

We’ve talked about the CD34 special election and the financial edge that the Republicans should have in it. The filing deadline for that was in April, so the candidates in that election, other than Mayra Flores who is the GOP candidate for November, is on this list. Flores also has less money than I would have thought, but as with Keith Self I expect that to grow between now and the next report. There will be some interim reports available before the election on June 14, I’ll check in on that in a few weeks.

Not much else to say at this time. Let me know what you think.

January 2022 campaign finance reports: Congress

The filing deadline has passed, the primary lineups are set, and we have a new set of races and candidates to review. As was the case in the past two cycles, I’ll follow the contested primaries as well as the (fewer than before) November races of interest. I’ll drop the former once those contests are settled. The October 2021 reports are here, the July 2021 reports are here, and you can get the links to the previous cycle’s reports from there.

Dan Crenshaw – CD02
Robin Fulford – CD02
Van Taylor – CD03
Keith Self – CD03
Sandeep Srivastava – CD03
Doc Shelby – CD03
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Mike McCaul – CD10
Linda Nuno – CD10
Mauro Garza – CD15
John Villarreal Rigney – CD15
Ruben Ramirez – CD15
Roberto Haddad – CD15
Eliza Alvarado – CD15
Monica de la Cruz – CD15
Chip Roy – CD21
Scott Sturm – CD21
Robert Lowry – CD21
Claudia Zapata – CD21
Ricardo Villarreal – CD21
Troy Nehls – CD22
Jamie Kaye Jordan – CD22
Tony Gonzales – CD23
John Lira – CD23
Beth Van Duyne – CD24
Derrik Gay – CD24
Kathy Fragnoli – CD24
Jan McDowell – CD24
Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessica Cisneros – CD28
Tannya Benavides – CD28
Ed Cabrera – CD28
Willie Vasquez Ng – CD28
Cassandra Garcia – CD28
Abel Mulugheta – CD30
Jane Hope Hamilton – CD30
Jessica Mason – CD30
Jasmine Crockett – CD30
Colin Allred – CD32
Vicente Gonzalez – CD34
Mayra Flores – CD34
Greg Casar – CD35
Eddie Rodriguez – CD35
Rebecca Viagran – CD35
Lloyd Doggett – CD37
Donna Imam – CD37
Wesley Hunt – CD38
Duncan Klussman – CD38
Diana Martinez Alexander – CD38
Centrell Reed – CD38


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
02    Crenshaw     10,302,932  7,639,567        0  4,516,080
02    Fulford          49,692     15,595   15,595     34,097
03    Taylor        1,857,852    652,058  503,192  1,228,292
03    Self            165,608     58,297        0    107,321
03    Srivastava       59,699     49,257   25,000     10,441
03    Shelby                0          0        0          0
07    Fletcher      2,414,235    485,311        0  1,990,020
10    McCaul        1,413,600    643,881        0    777,453
10    Nuno                  0          0        0          0
15    Garza           504,584    162,893  663,201    387,578
15    V Rigney        151,025         26  151,000    150,999
15    Ramirez         108,280     34,054   12,250     74,225
15    Haddad          100,000    100,000        0          0
15    Alvarado         75,035     24,183   29,000     50,851
15    De la Cruz    1,539,153    921,051   13,000    625,607
21    Roy           1,240,412    651,863        0  1,052,131
21    Sturm            47,618     37,869        0      5,728
21    Lowry            39,725     36,227   27,325      3,497
21    Zapata           38,436     34,619        0      4,769
21    Villarreal       25,190     15,048   20,563     10,141
22    Nehls           670,482    322,270    5,726    367,417
22    Jordan                0          0        0          0
23    Gonzales      2,261,907    985,463        0  1,307,803
23    Lira            251,642    195,017        0     56,625
24    Van Duyne     2,035,203    731,839        0  1,371,774
24    Gay             208,661    165,886        0     42,774
24    Fragnoli         28,121     17,328   12,096     10,793
24    McDowell         11,183      5,632        0      5,550
28    Cuellar       1,853,133  1,056,272        0  2,347,334
28    Cisneros        812,072    320,983        0    494,058
28    Benavides        27,177     17,265        0      9,912
28    Cabrera         289,230    112,450  250,000    176,779
28    Ng              137,786     11,436   50,900    126,349
28    Garcia           85,601      2,742        0     82,858
30    Mulugheta       252,713     65,673        0    187,039
30    Hamilton        228,605    157,280    5,014     71,325
30    Mason           199,082    160,217        0     38,865
30    Crockett        101,281     21,094        0     80,186
32    Allred        2,213,564    621,340        0  1,751,646
34    Gonzalez      1,688,731    942,491        0  2,116,732
34    Flores          187,115    128,345        0     58,769
35    Casar           467,579    111,870        0    355,709
35    Rodriguez       251,472     31,134        0    220,338
35    Viagran          47,375      2,286        0     45,088
37    Doggett         635,901    360,138        0  5,476,237
37    Imam            210,983    110,414        0    100,518
38    Hunt          2,039,403    708,280        0  1,555,065
38    Klussman         17,865        385    7,000     17,479
38    Alexander        11,892      6,462        0      5,429
38    Reed             11,377        192    6,496     11,184

Some of these races have a lot of candidates, and in some of those cases I limited myself to people who raised a noticeable amount of money. Most but not all races have both Republicans and Democrats listed – the incumbent is listed first followed by other candidates from that party, if any. In the case of open seats like CDs 15 and 34, I listed the Democrats first since those are Democratic seats.

The two races that the DCCC has focused on as potential pickups are CDs 23 and 24. Leading candidates John Lira and Derrik Gay had raised respectable amounts so far, but if you look at the October reports you can see they didn’t add all that much to their totals. They spent more than they took in over the past three months, not terribly surprising given that they’re in contested races (Lira’s opponent didn’t report anything), but it means they’ll be starting way in the hole. If they don’t pick it up considerably in this quarter it won’t much matter anyway.

I’m a little surprised that State Rep. Jasmine Crockett hasn’t raised more in CD30, as she is the candidate endorsed by outgoing Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson, but she was only an official candidate in that race for five weeks, so in that context she did pretty well. In the likely event of a runoff, we’ll see what her April report says. On the Republican side, I expected more from Keith Self, who was Collin County Judge and whose candidacy was fueled by the grievance of Rep. Van Taylor voting for the January 6 commission. I guess his buddy Ken Paxton is in no position to lend him a hand right now. Rebecca Viagran is the one San Antonio candidate in a district with two Austin heavyweights duking it out. You’d think that might be a good path to getting into a runoff, but her fundraising doesn’t reflect that.

Donna Imam had been running in CD31 as of the October report, but switched to the new CD37 when her old district became less hospitable. I expect she’ll join a long list of candidates who got their heads handed to them by Rep. Lloyd Doggett, but you don’t know till you try. All of the Dems in CD38 were late filers in the race, so they had less than three weeks to collect cash. If this were 2012, the eventual winner of that primary would struggle to raise more than about $50K over the entire year. This is not a race that Dems have any expectation of winning, but I’ll be interested to see if the nominee here can do better than their long-longshot counterparts from a decade ago. My theory is that after two exciting cycles and a fair amount of engagement and organization, there should be a higher base level of support for candidates like these. We’ll see how dumb that theory turns out to be.

I did not comment on the absurd fundraising total of Rep. Dan Crenshaw last time. I will do so this time: That’s a lot of money. Whatever else you might say about the guy, he’s a fundraising machine. Spends a lot of it, too – I don’t look at the report details, so I can’t say where it’s going. But anyone who can rake it in like that, you have to think he’s got his eye on a statewide run, maybe in 2024 if Ted Cruz makes good his threat to run for President again. He does have three primary opponents, who combined to raise less than $50K. He also occasionally says things that make the most rabid of Trump minions howl with rage, so the possibility exists that he could underperform against that collection of no-names. I would not expect it to amount to anything, but it might provide a bit of fodder for the pundits.

Filing update: More candidates than you can count

This headline and first paragraph are short by a couple of candidates.

Judge Lina Hidalgo

A dozen potential challengers to Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo were among the scores who filed ahead of Monday’s deadline to run for county offices next year.

[…]

Hidalgo, who is seeking a second term, faces three candidates in the Democratic primary: former Precinct 1 Constable’s Office Chief of Staff Erica Davis, real estate broker AR Hassan and photographer Georgia Provost.

Nine Republicans are vying for their party’s nomination, including attorney Vidal Martinez, former Army Capt. Alexandra del Moral Mealer, Humble Independent School District board president Martina Lemond Dixon and Randy Kubosh, brother of Houston Councilman Michael Kubosh. The others are Oscar Gonzales, George Zoes, Robert Dorris, Warren Howell and HQ Bolanos.

There are five Democrats running against Judge Hidalgo, not three. Joining Erica Davis on the last-day-to-file train were Kevin Howard and Maria Garcia; I know nothing about either of them. The photos in that Facebook post, plus the 2022 candidate filings album, are the main source that I have for figuring out where the SOS qualified candidates webpage falls short. Chron reporter Zach Despart must have gotten his info from there before the late-filers were included.

There are still some oddities and seeming exclusions on the SOS page as well. I know I saw a Democratic candidate for CD22 on there on Monday, but as of Tuesday there’s no listing. There’s still no one listed for HD22, the seat being vacated by longtime Rep. Joe Deshotel, but local news in Beaumont lists three candidates, one of whom (Joseph Trahan) is the Jefferson County Democratic Party Chair. Jonathan Cocks had been listed for well over a week as a candidate for SBOE8 but is now showing as a candidate for SD08, which makes sense because his address is in the Metroplex city of Allen, and because the Svitek spreadsheet had him going there after pulling out of the Land Commissioner race. Svitek lists two of the three HD22 candidates as the news story, and has the CD22 candidate (Jamie Jordan) as well.

Some other bits of interest:

HD80 was carried by Trump by four points in 2020, so yeah, that’s a big miss for the GOP.

Bryant represented the old CD05 through the 1994 election. He ran in the 1996 primary for US Senate and lost in the runoff to Victor Morales. His old seat was then won by Pete Sessions, who was drawn into CD32 by Tom DeLay in the 2003 re-redistricting, knocking off longtime Rep. Martin Frost the next year. This concludes your history lesson for the day.

Spent a million bucks of his own money to do so, ultimately winning 3,831 votes, or 20.67%, against Rep. Garcia and several others. I suspect Rep. Fletcher won’t have too much trouble with him, but she’ll want to spend some money to make sure.

I will of course keep an eye on that. I’m sure there will be at least one more post in this general vein.

Two other items of note: While Fort Bend County Judge KP George did not draw a primary challenger, there are two candidates vying to take him on in November, including failed 2020 Sheriff candidate and Congressional brother Trever Nehls. Both incumbent County Commissioners, Grady Prestage and Ken DeMerchant, drew multiple primary opponents. Here in Harris County, while HCDE Trustee Eric Dick is one of two Republicans running in the primary for County Treasurer, his wife Danielle is running for his seat (Position 2) in Precinct 4. She will be opposed by Andrea Duhon, the incumbent in Precinct 3 who now lives in Precinct 4 following the adoption of the new map. A bit more than a year from now, we will have between zero and two members of the Dick household in public office. I can’t think of a better place to end this post.

UPDATE: Tahir Javed has withdrawn from the CD07 primary, leaving Rep. Fletcher without opposition in March. I’ll have a post on that tomorrow.

The filings I’m still looking for

Today is Filing Deadline Day. By the end of today, we’ll know who is and isn’t running for what. While we wait for that, let’s review the filings that have not yet happened, to see what mysteries may remain.

Congress: Most of the potentially competitive districts have Democratic candidates in them. The ones that remain are CDs 22, 26, 31, and 38, though I have been told there is a candidate lined up for that latter slot. Of the rest, CD22 would be the biggest miss if no one files. I have to think someone will, but we’ll know soon enough.

For open seats, CD15 has five candidates so far, none of whom are familiar to me. CD30 has six candidates, with State Rep. Jasmine Crockett receiving the endorsement of outgoing Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. CD34 has six, with current CD15 Rep. Vicente Gonzalez the presumed favorite. CD35 has three serious contenders – Austin City Council member Greg Casar, former San Antonio City Council Member Rebecca Viagran, and State Rep. Eddie Rodrigues – and one person you’ve not heard of. CD37 has Rep. Lloyd Doggett and former CD31 candidate Donna Imam, in addition to a couple of low-profile hopefuls, but it will not have former CD25 candidate Julie Oliver, who has said she will not run.

Democratic incumbents who have primary challengers include Rep. Lizzie Fletcher in CD07 (I’m still waiting to see if Centrell Reed makes some kind of announcement); Rep. Veronica Escobar in CD16 (I don’t get the sense her challenger is a serious one); and Rep. Henry Cuellar in CD28, who gets a rematch with Jessica Cisneros, who came close to beating him last year. The Svitek spreadsheet lists some dude as a potential challenger in CD18 against Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, but so far no filing. Reps. Al Green, Joaquin Castro, Sylvia Garcia, Colin Allred, and Marc Veasey do not appear to have any challengers as of this morning.

Statewide: Pretty much everyone who has said they are a candidate has filed. Frequent candidate Michael Cooper and someone named Innocencio Barrientez have filed for Governor, making it a four-candidate field. Two Harris County district court judges, Julia Maldonado and Robert Johnson, have filed for slots on the Supreme Court and CCA, respectively. The Svitek spreadsheet lists potential but not yet filed contenders for two other Supreme Court positions but has no listings for CCA. The one potential candidate who has not yet taken action is Carla Brailey, who may or may not file for Lt. Governor.

SBOE: As this is a post-redistricting year, all SBOE seats are on the ballot, as are all State Senate seats. Dems have four reasonable challenge opportunities: Michelle Palmer is running again in SBOE6, Jonathan Cocks switched from the Land Commissioner race to file in SBOE8, Alex Cornwallis is in SBOE12, and then there’s whatever is happening in SBOE11. The good news is that DC Caldwell has company in the primary, if he is actually allowed to run in it, as Luis Sifuentes is also running. I would advise voting for Sifuentes.

There are two open Democratic seats, plus one that I’m not sure about. Ruben Cortez in SBOE2 and Lawrence Allen in SBOE4 are running for HDs 37 and 26, respectively. There are two candidates in 2 and three candidates in 4, so far. Georgina Perez is the incumbent in SBOE1 but as yet has not filed. If she has announced that she’s not running, I have not seen it. There is a candidate named Melissa Ortega in the race.

In SBOE5, the district that was flipped by Rebecca Bell-Metereau in 2020 and was subsequently made more Democratic in redistricting, we have the one primary challenge to an incumbent so far, as a candidate named Juan Juarez has filed against Bell-Metereau. I’m old enough to remember Marisa Perez coming out of nowhere to oust Michael Soto in 2012, so anything can happen here. The aforementioned Perez (now Marisa Perez-Diaz) and Aicha Davis are unopposed so far.

Senate: Nothing much here that you don’t already know. Every incumbent except Eddie Lucio has filed for re-election, and none of them have primary opponents so far. Lucio’s SD27 has the three challengers we knew about, Sara Stapleton-Barrera, State Rep. Alex Dominguez, and Morgan LaMantia. A candidate named Misty Bishop had filed for SD07, was rejected, and has since re-filed for SD04; I’m going to guess that residency issues were at play. There are Dem challengers in SD09 (Gwenn Burud, who has run for this office before) and SD17 (Miguel Gonzalez), but no one yet for SDs 07 or 08.

House: Here’s the list of potentially competitive districts, for some value of the word “competitive”. Now here’s a list of districts on that list that do not yet have a filed candidate:

HD14
HD25
HD28
HD29
HD55
HD57
HD61
HD66
HD67
HD84
HD89
HD96
HD106
HD126
HD129
HD133
HD150

I’m told there’s someone lined up for HD133. We’ll see about the rest.

All of the open seats have at least one candidate in them so far except for HD22, the seat now held by Joe Deshotel. There’s a name listed on the Svitek spreadsheet, so I assume that will be sorted by the end of the day.

Reps. Ron Reynolds (HD27), Ana-Maria Ramos (HD102), and Carl Sherman (HD109) are incumbents who have not yet filed. No one else has filed yet in those districts as well. Svitek has a note saying that Rep. Ramos has confirmed she will file; there are no notes for the other two. There is the possibility of a last-minute retirement, with a possibly preferred successor coming in at the same time.

Here is a complete list of Democratic House incumbents who face a primary challenge: Rep. Richard Raymond (HD42) and Rep. Alma Allen (HD131). Both have faced and turned away such opponents in the past. If there was supposed to be a wave of primary opponents to incumbents who came back early from Washington, they have not shown up yet.

Rep. James Talarico has moved from HD52 to the open HD50 after HD52 was made into a lean-Republican district. Rep. Claudia Ordaz-Perez, the incumbent in HD76, will run in HD79 against Rep. Art Fierro after HD76 was relocated from El Paso to Fort Bend.

Harris County: Again, nothing new here. Erica Davis has not yet filed for County Judge. County Clerk Teneshia Hudpseth is the only non-judicial incumbent without a primary opponent so far.

Far as I can tell, all of the county judicial slots have at least one filing in them, except for a couple of Justice of the Peace positions. George Risner, the JP in Precinct 2, Place 2 (all JP Place 2 slots are on the ballot this year) has not yet filed, amid rumors that he is mulling a challenge to Commissioner Adrian Garcia. Incumbent Angela Rodriguez in JP precinct 6 has not yet filed. No Dem challengers yet in precincts 4 or 8.

Other judicial races: Sorry, I don’t have the bandwidth for this right now. I’ll review it after today.

And that’s all I’ve got. See you on the other side. As always, leave your hot gossip in the comments.

Cracking Asian-American communities

The Trib explores what the new Congressional maps did to Asian-American communities, mostly but not exclusively in the Houston area.

When Texas lawmakers redrew congressional maps following the 2020 census, they split up Asian American populations in both Harris and Fort Bend counties.

One district line, winding between a local car wash and bar, severs most of the Korean neighborhoods, grocery stores, restaurants and a senior center from the community center itself, which now hangs on the edge of one congressional district while most of its members reside in the next district over.

“It’s like (lawmakers) don’t even know we are here,” said Hyunja Norman, president of the Korean American Voters League, who works out of the center. “If they were thoughtful, they could’ve included the Korean Community Center in (our district). But it’s like they are ignorant of us, or they just don’t care.”

As the Asian American and Pacific Islander population has grown and continued to mobilize politically, especially in the midst of rising hostility and targeted attacks, the community’s desire for representation in Texas and U.S. politics has become stronger. But many now feel their political aspirations became collateral damage in Republican efforts to draw political districts designed to preserve partisan power.

Although they make up only about 5% of Texas’ total population, Asian Texans accounted for a sizable portion of the state’s tremendous growth over the past decade. Nearly one in five new Texans since 2010 are Asian American, according to the census. They were the fastest-growing racial or ethnic voting group in the state, increasing from a population of about 950,000 in 2010 to nearly 1.6 million in 2020.

[…]

In Fort Bend County — which has ranked as the most diverse county in the country multiple times — Lily Trieu’s parents grew scared of even routine errands like grocery shopping or filling their gas tanks. They were afraid to wear masks in public.

And when Asian Americans in the U.S. House of Representatives introduced a resolution condemning the Atlanta shootings, almost every Texas Republican voted against it, including Fort Bend County’s U.S. Rep. Troy Nehls.

“This is why representation matters,” Trieu told Texas lawmakers when she testified at redistricting hearings. “This is why splitting our community to dilute our votes is directly denying our opportunity to receive that representation.”

[…]

Previously, more than 9% and 11% of the eligible voter populations in CD-7 and CD-9, respectively, were Asian American. But under the approved plans, CD-7 would increase to 17% Asian American population, covering Houston suburbs, while CD-9 would decrease to 9% Asian population — shifting the majority into one district and lessening its power in another.

A majority of the Asian American population in the suburbs also got redrawn into CD-22, a mostly rural district, decreasing its percentage of the Asian population from more than 15% to 10%.

CD-22 also now includes all of Sugar Land, which is the most Asian town in Texas.

Similar manipulations took place around Dallas. In Collin County, lawmakers approved a map for CD-4 that takes most of the Asian community across Frisco and Plano and attaches it to a district stretching north to the Oklahoma border.

Asian American voters, who would have made up 10.8% of the vote in their old district, comprise just 5.6% of their new one.

Chanda Parbhoo, president of South Asian American Voter Empowerment of Texas, said she had organizations members — mostly from Collin County — submit almost 50 written testimonies against the proposed maps during redistricting hearings.

It still didn’t feel like it was enough, Parbhoo said.

“It makes it really difficult for the (South Asian) community, an emerging political entity, that we haven’t had years of experience (with redistricting),” Parbhoo said. “As soon as a map comes out, then I’ll have to try to explain it to my community, like, ‘This is what’s not fair. These are the numbers.’ Everything moves so fast that the process doesn’t really allow for people to absorb it and to be able to ask questions.”

Ashley Cheng, lead organizer of the Texas AAPI Redistricting Coalition, also testified multiple times as lawmakers redrew voting districts and said the community has various issues at stake that a continued loss of representation will exacerbate.

Cheng said translating documents for Asian American voters is vital for the community to participate in voting. She said during the winter storm, many emergency alerts were only in English and Cheng’s mother, who does not fluently speak English, was left without information at her house.

“We are in a time of history where we’re really rising up as a community and making sure that our political voices are heard,” Cheng said. “Part of that is because our lives are being threatened. There’s been a heightened sense of Islamophobia in the last few years, heightened anti-Asian hate because of all of the political rhetoric around COVID. We have so much in common in a need for representation.”

Those Asian-American communities that are now stuck in CD04 had previously been in CD03, which even after redistricting is becoming more Democratic but which has been moved backwards in the process. The most recent lawsuit filed against the redistricting plans, which has now been combined with most of the other lawsuits, had a focus on Asian-American communities and concerns, though as this story notes the courts have not previously recognized Asian-Americans as a minority population in need of protection at the voting booth. I doubt that will change now, but all you can do is try.

Precinct analysis: The new Congressional map

Previously: New State House map

We will now take a look at how the districts of interest in the new Congressional map have changed over the past decade. Same basic idea, looking at the closer districts from 2020 to see how they got there. You can find all of the data relating to the new Congressional map here, and the zoomable map here.

I’m not going to tally how many seats were won by each side in each year, for the simple reason that there just wasn’t any real movement like there was in the State House. You can browse the middle years, I’m just going to focus on 2012 and 2020.


Dist   Obama   Romney Obama%Romney%     Biden    Trump Biden% Trump%
====================================================================
03    67,799  153,969  30.1%  68.3%   152,288  204,514  41.9%  56.3%
07   101,379   82,810  54.1%  44.2%   179,334   96,259  64.2%  34.4%
10    73,300  150,282  32.1%  65.8%   134,799  198,754  39.7%  58.5%
12    73,392  141,316  33.6%  64.8%   130,111  188,548  40.1%  58.2%
15    82,049   64,589  55.3%  43.6%   109,172  115,719  48.1%  50.9%
21    87,795  195,130  30.5%  67.7%   164,243  246,188  39.4%  59.1%
22    64,502  149,023  29.8%  69.0%   138,243  191,927  41.2%  57.3%
23    85,081  107,169  43.7%  55.0%   134,574  155,579  45.8%  52.9%
24    87,716  206,535  29.4%  69.2%   168,176  216,381  43.0%  55.4%
26    60,849  148,265  28.6%  69.8%   144,834  212,009  40.0%  58.5%
28   103,701   66,693  60.1%  38.7%   131,699  114,156  52.8%  45.8%
31    63,054  139,030  30.5%  67.3%   132,158  201,379  38.8%  59.1%
34    95,897   42,597  68.5%  30.4%   116,930   85,231  57.2%  41.7%
38    70,264  186,032  27.0%  71.6%   143,904  208,709  40.2%  58.4%

I’m going to sort these into three groups. The first is the “don’t pay too much attention to the vote percentage gains” group. I explained what I mean by that, with the help of a sports analogy, here. I’d put districts 21, 23, and 31 as canonical examples of this, with districts 10, 12, and 31 being slightly less extreme. All of them saw a net decrease in the Republican margin of victory from 2012 to 2020, but the rate is so slow that there’s no reason to believe that any continuation of trends would make them competitive in this decade. (With the possible exception of 23, which is reasonably close to begin with but always finds a way to disappoint.) Maybe things will look different after the 2022 election – these districts do still include places with a lot of Democratic growth – but they’re not the top priorities.

The next group is, or should be, the top priorities, at least from an offensive perspective, because they did have real movement in a Democratic direction. I’d put CDs 24, 03, 22, 38, and 26 in this group, in that order. This of course assumes that trends we have seen since 2016 will continue more or less as before, which we won’t really know until 2022 and beyond, but those numbers do stand out. I know the DCCC is targeting both CD23 and CD24, at least so far in this cycle, but I’d make CD24 more likely to be truly competitive this year. CD03 now includes Hunt County while a big strip of Collin County was put into CD04, so it will take more than just turning Collin blue to make CD03 flippable, but it will help. CD38 is if nothing else the biggest non-Commissioners Court prize on the board for Harris County Democrats.

Finally, there are the districts Dems need to worry about. CD15 is already going to be a tough hold, and even if Dems manage to keep it in 2022, there’s no reason to think it will get any easier, and may well get harder. If that happens, then CD28 could well be in peril as well. As noted before, it’s more like a 10-12 point district downballot, and whatever you think of him Henry Cuellar has shown the ability to outperform that level. Who knows how long those things can last if the trends continue? CD34 is almost as blue now as CD38 is red, but it was also almost as blue as CD38 was red in 2012. Again, I don’t like that trend. The main difference here is that the 2020 election was the sole data point in the new direction, whereas the trending-blue districts have been doing so since 2016. But the numbers are what they are, and until we see evidence that the trend isn’t continuing, we have to be prepared for the possibility that it will. Don’t take any of this for granted.

The bottom line is that right now, only a couple of districts look competitive. That was the case in 2012 as well, and we saw what happened there after a couple of cycles. That said, the reason for the big change was only partly about changing demography – the Trump effect and efforts to register voters, by Dems at first and by Republicans later, all played roles as well. We can extrapolate from existing trends, but it’s hard to know how much that will continue, and it’s really hard to know what exogenous factors may arise. And for all of the movement that the 2011/2013 Congressional districts saw, in the end only three districts were held by the opposite party in 2020 than in 2012 – don’t forget, Dems won CD23 in 2012, but only held it that one term. As much as that map looked like it could be a disaster for the Republicans at the end of the decade, it mostly held to form for them. Would it be a big surprise if the same thing happens this decade? Obviously, I don’t want that to happen, but the GOP built itself some big cushions into this map. Overcoming all that isn’t going to be easy, if indeed it is possible. We have a lot of work to do.

More redistricting stuff

Just a roundup of some redistricting stories. We’ll start with the DMN.

The new map, part of a process of redrawing legislative boundaries every 10 years, makes significant changes in North Texas, where Democrats likely will gain a seat held by Republican Jeff Cason. The district would move to an area made up of mostly minority voters.

But the Republican proposal also adjusts the southern Denton County district represented by Democrat Michelle Beckley to make it more favorable for a GOP candidate. Beckley has opted to run for Congress in 2022 against Republican incumbent Beth Van Duyne in Congressional District 24.

Meanwhile, the North Dallas district represented by John Turner would move west and become a majority Hispanic district in Oak Cliff and Grand Prairie. Turner is retiring after his term ends, and had he stayed, he would have been paired with a Republican Morgan Meyer.

In North Texas, Republicans had the goal of protecting their incumbents who could be in trouble during the next decade. They made alterations that now have the Dallas County seats held by Republicans Angie Chen Button of Garland and Meyer, who lives in University Park. The new maps place them in areas won in 2020 by Donald Trump, but only at a 50% to 49% margin. Those districts will remain battlegrounds as Democrats try to make Dallas County a blue oasis.

Republicans bolstered their Tarrant County seats, except for the one held by Cason, which will become more Democratic. Cason also was one of only two Republicans who voted against House Speaker Dade Phelan in January. And they made the Collin County districts represented by GOP Reps. Matt Shaheen and Jeff Leach stronger for a Republican, but as with the case in Dallas County, the Collin County seats will remain targets for Democrats.

“Republicans did their best to cement their majority and, from a partisan gerrymandering standpoint, they played this very smart,” said David de la Fuente, a senior policy analysts for the center-left group called Third Way. “They didn’t go overly aggressive for new pickup opportunities for themselves because they know that a lot of this growth that’s happening in Texas is growth that could benefit the Democratic Party, so they tried to stop losses more than anything else.”

[…]

Rep. Jasmine Crockett, a Dallas Democrats who represents District 100, which includes parts of southern and eastern Dallas County, as well as West Dallas, is upset that her district is slated to incur a radical drop in its Black population. Under the new maps, the number of voting age Black residents District 100 will drop from 34.6% to 27%. The white voting age population would increase from 22% to nearly 37%. Crockett’s voting age Hispanic population drops from 41% to 29%.

“They have taken the voice away from African Americans in my district and that’s a clear violation of the Voting Rights Act,” Crockett said. “They are spitting on the legacy of HD 100. They went too far.”

Most of the Black population lost by Crockett will be moved to the nearby District 104 that is represented by Dallas Democrat Jessica González. Her new constituents would include residents from the historic Joppa neighborhood, a community built by freed slaves. District 104 has largely changed, González said. The district now extends to Mesquite and Garland.

While she would pick up Black population from districts represented by Crockett and Rose, González said the number of eligible voters with Hispanic surnames would drop from over 50% to about 48%. That could be a Voting Rights Act violation, analysts say.

Crockett and González were vocal participants of the quorum break by House Democrats to stall a controversial elections bill.

“I’m not too shocked that it ended up being me they targeted,” Crockett said. “I kind of wear it as a badge of honor…It is still a safe Democratic seat, but partisan gerrymandering is legal and when you slice and dice communities of interests, you end up with a problem.”

State Rep. Toni Rose, D-Dallas, would also have the Black population in her district sharply reduced, and she would lose Paul Quinn College. Rose’s district would see a drop in Black voting age population–from 34% to 26%. The Hispanic voting age population in the district would rise from 58% to 63%.

Black residents represented 25% of the growth in the Dallas/Fort Worth area, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Well, that answers my question about what Rep. Cason did to offend the redistricting gods. Gotta say, I was under the impression that doing what was done here to Rep. Crockett’s district was called “retrogression” and it was a no-no under the Voting Rights Act. It’s not clear to me if that slicing and dicing was done for strategic reasons or just out of spite. Wait for the lawsuits, I guess.

Here’s the Chronicle:

“The map gives Republicans a slight advantage,” said Ross Sherman of the advocacy group RepresentUs, which works with the Princeton Gerrymandering Project to grade redistricting proposals. “This seems to be a trend this cycle: another map producing safe seats and insulating politicians from their constituents.”

The Gerrymandering Project gave the proposed House map a “C” in fairness for its GOP advantages. It’s the highest grade a Texas map has received so far, after proposals for congressional and state Senate maps earned “F” grades.

[…]

Speaking in general about the maps, GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser said the Republicans tried to “lock in the gains” they earned during the 2020 election, rather than “be too aggressive” and shift blue seats their way.

The House seats currently are divided almost equally between districts that favored Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. The current map includes 76 Trump-led districts and 74 Biden-led districts, but the new map shifts that support to 86 in favor of Trump and 64 in support of Biden.

Texas grew by roughly 4 million people over the past decade, a surge driven almost entirely by people of color, especially Latinos. Updating the political maps is required every 10 years, to account for such shifts.

Still, the proposed House map reduces the number of majority-minority districts by voting age population. Previously, 67 districts were majority-white; the new map proposes 72 districts that have mostly white voters.

Those numbers change dramatically when evaluating estimates for adult citizens. Using those figures, the House currently has 83 majority-white districts, compared with 89 under the new map. And while the current districts include 33 with Hispanic majorities and seven with Black majorities, those numbers would fall to 30 and four, respectively.

“These maps do nothing but preserve the status quo at the expense of Black and brown Texans,” said Anthony Gutierrez, the executive director of the good-government group Common Cause Texas.

Same observation about the reduction of majority-minority districts. I mean, I get that the Voting Rights Act may as well be written on toilet paper with this Supreme Court, but it’s still theoretically the law of the land. The Republicans may have had more challenges with the State House districts because of the law that requires districts to be entirely within counties where possible, which prevented them from putting pieces of urban counties in the same district with rural counties, which was not the case for the Congress or State Senate maps. Again, I figure the lawyers will have a lot to say about all this when the dust settles.

Speaking of Congress:

In a strongly-worded letter, U.S. Reps Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green said they oppose the Republicans’ proposed redrawing of their districts and say they were not consulted before the map was released to the public.

The map “makes radical and unneeded changes to the two local congressional districts that include the majority of Black voters in Harris and Fort Bend counties,” the letter to the Texas Senate Redistricting committee states.

There are massive changes for Harris County in the congressional redistricting plan the Texas Senate released earlier this week. The county would still have nine members of Congress, but the district lines would be dramatically altered to improve the re-election chances of current Republicans and create a new congressional seat that appears to have been drafted to ensure another Republican would be elected to Congress.

The map would have a dramatic impact on the districts represented by Jackson Lee and Green, changing who represents 200,000 mostly Black residents.

Jackson Lee’s 18th Congressional District would not only lose the Third Ward, but also downtown Houston, the University of Houston and Texas Southern University — most of those areas would instead be shifted to the 29th Congressional District, represented by Democratic U.S. Rep. Sylvia Garcia.

And the Republican map would put Jackson Lee’s home in Riverside Terrace into Green’s 9th Congressional District, meaning she would not even be able to vote for herself unless she moved. It would also put Jackson Lee’s main district office for the 18th in Green’s district, forcing her to move it.

“No other member of the large Texas delegation is so severely impacted by the proposed map,” the letter notes, pointing out at Jackson Lee’s 18th Congressional District has roots that tie back to Barbara Jordan, who in 1972 became the first Black woman to represent Texas in Congress.

I said before that Reps. Green and Jackson Lee would easily win the new districts as drawn, but what was done to them is clearly an insult. For Sen. Huffman to claim that no one got in touch with her about the maps she was drawing is disingenuous, especially when she knows what effect those maps are going to have. You have the power, you have the responsibility. Spare me the whining.

More from the Statesman:

Nonwhite residents accounted for about 95% of the population growth that gave Texas two additional seats in the U.S. House.

Despite that, the number of predominantly Hispanic congressional districts in Texas would fall from eight to seven, while majority Anglo districts would rise from 22 to 23, in the Republican-drawn map unveiled this week, said Gloria Leal with the League of United Latin American Citizens.

[…]

“Toss-up seats, which presented an opportunity for Hispanics to elect candidates of choice, were cut from 12 to one,” Leal said. “This blatant attempt to increase partisanship in districts not only results in the suppression of minority votes, but it eliminates the opportunity for Hispanics to elect a candidate of their choice in violation of the Voting Rights Act and the U.S. Constitution.”

State Sen. Joan Huffman, R-Houston and chairwoman of the committee, said the map was drawn in a “color-blind way,” without taking into account the race of residents.

“We did not consider race in drawing the maps at all,” Huffman said. “Once we drew the maps, we provided them to our legal counsel … and we are advised that they were legally compliant” with the Voting Rights Act.

Michael Li, with the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, testified that creating the map without regard to race is not enough to insulate it from legal challenges, particularly if lawmakers know about its adverse impact on nonwhite Texans.

Li said the proposed map raised several “red flags,” particularly in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where Black and Hispanic populations increased sharply in the past decade, yet no new districts were created to give nonwhite voters an opportunity to elect preferred candidates. At the same time, SB 6 would move a significant Latino population from a district held by U.S. Rep. Mark Veasy, D-Fort Worth, and into an Anglo majority district that includes seven rural counties, he said.

Li also questioned changes made to District 22 — centered on Fort Bend County, one of the most diverse suburban counties in America — where the voting age population would rise to 55% Anglo, up from the current 46%. Dismantling a district where rising numbers of Hispanic, Black and Asian voters were able to create voting coalitions “raises many red flags,” he said.

Have I mentioned that the lawyers are going to be busy? I don’t have much faith in the courts, but I believe in the lawyers.

Decision Desk:

Texas gained two Congressional districts through 2020 reapportionment. One district went into Austin, which the GOP previously divided between five Republican districts in 2010. All five ended up as marginal races by 2020. This new Democratic district releases pressure on the five seats allowing them to absorb Democratic voters from other parts of the state. The second new Congressional seat is roughly the successor to the old Seventh district in west Houston, with the new TX-07 traveling between Houston and her suburbs as a new, safe Democratic seat.

TX-03, TX-06, TX-07, TX-10, TX-21, TX-22, TX-23, TX-24, TX-25, TX31, and TX-32 were all potential competitive seats in 2020. TX-15, TX-28, and TX-34 became competitive because of newfound Republican strength among South Texas Hispanics. All but one of the districts are now uncompetitive. Republican Districts gain more Republican voters, and the few Democratic held seats become more Democratic. All of the former Republican suburban seats reach deep into the rural and exurban areas and drop Democratic suburbs. Former rural and exurban seats – TX-04, TX-05, TX-08, TX-13, and TX-36 – reach deeper into the suburbs to carve up Democratic areas. The result is  districts with obtuse borders where the Democrats gained the most voters, such as the north Dallas suburbs with the new TX-04.

In South Texas, past voting rights litigation prevents Republican map-makers from exploiting recent party gains. The resulting districts resemble the present lines and stretch northwards, but the most GOP-favoring Hispanic areas are now congregated in TX-15 which makes it a potential swing district. O’Rourke did win this seat by over 10%, so the district will not be competitive if the 2020 results end up as a one-off occurrence.

Texas mappers still found ways to cater to their protected incumbents. In TX-10, Senior Republican Michael McCaul gets a district that squiggles narrowly around Austin from his neighborhood west of the city to rural Texas. New TX-06 Republican Jake Ellzey’s district takes in more rural areas where he is better known and loses Arlington Republican voters who backed Susan Wright during the 2021 Special Election. TX-25 previously did not include Republican Roger Williams’ base in Weatherford, west of Fort Worth. Now it does.

Republicans also released their proposed Legislative and Board of Education district maps, which can be viewed here. Biden in 2020 and O’Rourke in 2018 won a majority or a near-majority of districts on the former maps for these bodies, so Republican mappers were even more desperate to gerrymander these lines. Both maps protect incumbents in a similar manner to the Congressional plan with the rural and exurban areas reaching into the suburbs. The legislative plans however go beyond incumbent protection and each attempt to carve up a marginally Democratic seat in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex. 

The desire to protect incumbents may end up dooming State House Republicans in future years. County nesting requirements prevented the GOP from linking the Republican dominated rural areas to the suburbs. By giving former Biden-District Republicans seats Trump won, other, formerly safe Republican seats needed to take in Democratic voters. Even more districts than previously become marginal districts that could potentially swing heavily away from the GOP.

Voting rights litigation is a constant factor in Texas redistricting. For example, plaintiffs forced Texas Republicans to draw the new Dallas-based TX-33 into a Hispanic Democratic seat in 2010 (initial 2010 map here). This new Congressional gerrymander disadvantages minority communities across the state, especially since nearly all of Texas’s recent growth came from minority groups. The proposed TX-23 is only 60% Hispanic compared to the 80% or higher in other South Texas seats, limiting minority opportunity. TX-27 has several majority Hispanic counties, including the city of Corpus Christi, inside a seat where White voters historically pick the representative. TX-38 could be a second, overwhelmingly Hispanic seat in the Houston area. TX-18 was previously an African American district, but is here majority Hispanic, an example of regression. Fort Worth minority voters are distributed between four Districts and there could be a fourth minority seat in the region. A majority-minority coalition seat can be drawn in the suburbs north of Dallas. Expect this criticism and more to potentially be levied in future court cases.

I suspect he means that only CD15 is competitive, but CD23 is only Trump+7, which seems competitive enough to me. I also think that over time several others will become more competitive as well, if these districts are allowed to go into effect as is. I’m sure there will be changes, and then of course the lawsuits, though as we well know they will take years to resolve. What we eventually get here is what we’re going to have for awhile. The Current and the Trib have more.

What about Lizzie?

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher is waiting to see what happens to her district with redistricting, just like the rest of us.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher

Lizzie Pannill Fletcher’s political career became something of a trophy to Washington Democrats in 2018 after she won the Houston-based 7th Congressional District — long a bastion of Texas Republican leadership.

The seat was once held by the late President George H. W. Bush, and one of Fletcher’s most prominent constituents is U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. The 7th was designed to be a safe Republican stronghold, but the 46-year-old former trial attorney snatched it away three years ago. And while many of her classmates from the 2018 Democratic wave lost reelection in 2020, she held on against a formidable Republican opponent.

Any day now, she’ll find out how intent Texas Republicans are on taking the seat back.

The Texas Legislature is poised to unveil its proposed maps for new Texas Congressional districts, and some expect they’ll redraw the 7th in a way that dooms Fletcher’s chances of winning there again.

Fletcher is well aware she is in political purgatory.

“I’ve always known that this is just part of the process and … there’s so much happening here, that perhaps it’s good that it’s not my focus,” she said in an interview. “It’s on my radar that my job is to represent my constituents and certainly hearing what I’ve heard, knowing what I know, I do feel a responsibility to try to protect the district and to protect them.”

[…]

What that district will look like after the Legislature is done drawing new maps is now one of the most debated questions in Texas politics, and the merciful scenarios for Fletcher are limited.

It’s an open secret that House GOP leadership wants to elevate her 2020 rival, retired veteran Wesley Hunt. And after Republicans held onto the Legislature last year, speculation began about how to draw maps in a way that would make it impossible for her, and U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, a Dallas Democrat also elected in 2018, to win reelection.

[…]

But eight state and national Republican operatives with direct ties to the Texas delegation warned in interviews that an aggressive effort to unseat Fletcher could endanger the Republican incumbents who surround her district: U.S. Reps. Michael McCaul of Austin, Dan Crenshaw of Houston and Troy Nehls of Richmond.

Historically, the Legislature listens to the sitting Congressional Republicans when they redraw maps, and McCaul, as a senior Republican, is serving as a point person between the state lawmakers and his GOP colleagues.

While early details of the new districts remain closely held, some Republican sources said they sense survival instincts are setting in among the federal Republicans. Meaning, few are excited about the notion of pulling conservative voters from nearby Republican incumbents’ districts to take out Fletcher.

Instead, the map drawers could decide to leave Fletcher alone, and siphon Republicans from her district to bolster the long term reelection chances of Republicans in neighboring districts.

But that might hurt Fletcher in a different way: Her district could end up including many new Democratic voters unfamiliar with her, leaving her vulnerable to a primary challenge from an established Houston Democrat.

Wesley Hunt is running for something, he just hasn’t specified what yet. Moving is always an option, for when the Republicans draw the new seats. As for Rep. Fletcher, we’ve discussed the scenarios a few times here. The Republican decline in Harris and Fort Bend counties is a challenge for them. I’m sure they can draw something that would favor a Republican over Fletcher, but at what risk to their incumbents in close districts? For what it’s worth, Dave Wasserman is predicting that Reps. Fletcher and Allred get packed and not cracked, which is to say their districts become Democratic vote sinks to protect the Republicans around them. That may make her more vulnerable to a primary challenge, but she’s pretty well-regarded and she has lots of cash on hand, two things that would help her in that scenario.

And if she does wind up on the outs, one way or another?

“I don’t know that I’ve thought through my process,” she said, describing how she will sort out her political future. “But I’m generally most concerned about making sure that my constituents get the representation they deserve.”

“At this point, all options are on the table,” she said.

When asked if that included retirement, she laughed: “I’m too young to retire, right?”

But there is another option.

The 2018 wave was consequential in Texas partly because it gave Democrats a farm team for the first time in decades. Fletcher could run for a different office.

“If I think I have something to offer, or if I think I can contribute … I have to kick the tires for a long time before I feel confident that I can do a job here, but I think I’ve done a good job here,” she said.

Lord knows, we can always use good statewide candidates. This is not how I would prefer to find them, but it’s a possible path. We’ll see where we go.

Precinct analysis: Congress, part 1

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
SBOE

In addition to the SBOE data, we finally have 2020 election results for the Congressional districts as well. With the redistricting special session about to start, let’s look at where things were in the last election.


Dist   Biden    Trump  Biden%  Trump%
=====================================
01    83,221  218,689   27.2%   71.5%
02   170,430  174,980   48.6%   49.9%
03   209,859  214,359   48.6%   49.6%
04    84,582  258,314   24.3%   74.3%
05   107,494  172,395   37.9%   60.8%
06   164,746  175,101   47.8%   50.8%
07   170,060  143,176   53.6%   45.1%
08   109,291  274,224   28.1%   70.5%
09   178,908   54,944   75.7%   23.2%
10   203,937  210,734   48.4%   50.0%
11    58,585  235,797   19.7%   79.1%
12   140,683  224,490   37.9%   60.4%
13    54,001  219,885   19.4%   79.1%
14   124,630  185,961   39.5%   59.0%
15   119,785  115,317   50.4%   48.5%
16   160,809   77,473   66.4%   32.0%
17   137,632  172,338   43.5%   54.5%
18   189,823   57,669   75.7%   23.0%
19    71,238  195,512   26.3%   72.2%
20   177,167   96,672   63.7%   34.7%
21   220,439  232,935   47.8%   50.5%
22   206,114  210,011   48.8%   49.7%
23   146,619  151,914   48.5%   50.2%
24   180,609  161,671   51.9%   46.5%
25   177,801  216,143   44.3%   53.9%
26   185,956  248,196   42.1%   56.2%
27   104,511  170,800   37.4%   61.1%
28   125,628  115,109   51.6%   47.2%
29   106,229   52,937   65.9%   32.9%
30   212,373   50,270   79.8%   18.9%
31   191,113  202,934   47.4%   50.3%
32   187,919  151,944   54.4%   44.0%
33   117,340   41,209   73.0%   25.6%
34   106,837   98,533   51.5%   47.5%
35   188,138   84,796   67.6%   30.5%
36    82,872  221,600   26.9%   71.9%

Joe Biden carried 14 of the 36 Congressional districts, the 13 that Democratic candidates won plus CD24. He came close in a lot of others – within two points in CDs 02, 03, 10, 22, and 23, and within five in CDs 06, 21, and 31 – but the Congressional map gets the award for most effecting gerrymandering, as the Presidential results most closely matched the number of districts won.

Generally speaking, Biden did a little worse than Beto in 2018, which isn’t a big surprise given that Beto lost by two and a half points while Biden lost by five and a half. Among the competitive districts, Biden topped Beto in CDs 03 (48.6 to 47.9), 07 (53.6 to 53.3), and 24 (51.9 to 51.6), and fell short elsewhere. He lost the most ground compared to Beto in the Latino districts, which is a subject we have covered in much detail. I only focused on the closer districts in my 2018 analysis, but you can see the full 2018 data here. Biden’s numbers are far more comparable to Hillary Clinton’s in 2016 – I’ll get into that in more detail in a subsequent post.

As we have also seen elsewhere, Biden’s underperformance in the Latino districts – specifically, CDs 15, 28, and 34 – was generally not replicated by other candidates down the ballot. Again, I’ll get to this in more detail later, but with the exception of John Cornyn nipping MJ Hegar in CD15, Democrats other than Biden generally carried those districts by five to ten points, still closer than in 2016 but not as dire looking as they were at the top. Interestingly, where Biden really overperformed compared to the rest of the Democratic ticket was with the judicial races – Republicans carried all but one of the statewide judicial races in CD07, for example. We discussed that way back when in the earlier analyses, but it’s been awhile so this is a reminder. That’s also not too surprising given the wider spread in the judicial races than the Presidential race, and it’s also a place where one can be optimistic (we still have room to grow!) or pessimistic (we’re farther away than we thought!) as one sees fit.

I don’t have a lot more to say here that I haven’t already said in one or more ways before. The main thing to think about is that redistricting is necessarily different for the Congressional map simply because there will be two more districts. (We should think about adding legislative districts, especially Senate districts, but that’s a whole ‘nother thing.) I have to assume that Republicans will try to give themselves two more districts, one way or another, but I suppose it’s possible they could just seek to hold serve, if going for the gusto means cutting it too close in too many places. I figure we’ll see a starter map pretty soon, and from there it will be a matter of what alternate realities get proposed and by whom. For sure, the future plaintiffs in redistricting litigation will have their own maps to show off.

For comparison, as I did in other posts, here are the Congressional numbers from 2016 and 2012:


Dist Clinton    TrumpClinton%  Trump%
=====================================
1     66,389  189,596  25.09%  71.67%
2    119,659  145,530  42.75%  52.00%
3    129,384  174,561  39.90%  53.83%
4     60,799  210,448  21.63%  74.86%
5     79,759  145,846  34.18%  62.50%
6    115,272  148,945  41.62%  53.78%
7    124,722  121,204  48.16%  46.81%
8     70,520  214,567  23.64%  71.93%
9    151,559   34,447  79.14%  17.99%
10   135,967  164,817  42.82%  51.90%
11    47,470  193,619  19.01%  77.55%
12    92,549  177,939  32.47%  62.43%
13    40,237  190,779  16.78%  79.54%
14   101,228  153,191  38.29%  57.95%
15   104,454   73,689  56.21%  39.66%
16   130,784   52,334  67.21%  26.89%
17    96,155  139,411  38.43%  55.72%
18   157,117   41,011  76.22%  19.90%
19    53,512  165,280  23.31%  71.99%
20   132,453   74,479  60.21%  33.86%
21   152,515  188,277  42.05%  51.91%
22   135,525  159,717  43.91%  51.75%
23   115,133  107,058  49.38%  45.92%
24   122,878  140,129  44.28%  50.50%
25   125,947  172,462  39.94%  54.69%
26   109,530  194,032  34.01%  60.25%
27    85,589  140,787  36.36%  59.81%
28   109,973   72,479  57.81%  38.10%
29    95,027   34,011  70.95%  25.39%
30   174,528   40,333  79.08%  18.27%
31   117,181  153,823  40.07%  52.60%
32   134,895  129,701  48.44%  46.58%
33    94,513   30,787  72.78%  23.71%
34   101,704   64,716  59.07%  37.59%
35   128,482   61,139  63.59%  30.26%
36    64,217  183,144  25.13%  71.68%

Dist   Obama   Romney  Obama% Romney%
=====================================
01    69,857  181,833  27.47%  71.49%
02    88,751  157,094  35.55%  62.93%
03    93,290  175,383  34.13%  64.16%
04    63,521  189,455  24.79%  73.95%
05    73,085  137,239  34.35%  64.49%
06   103,444  146,985  40.72%  57.87%
07    92,499  143,631  38.57%  59.89%
08    55,271  195,735  21.74%  76.97%
09   145,332   39,392  78.01%  21.15%
10   104,839  159,714  38.77%  59.06%
11    45,081  182,403  19.55%  79.10%
12    79,147  166,992  31.65%  66.77%
13    42,518  184,090  18.51%  80.16%
14    97,824  147,151  39.44%  59.32%
15    86,940   62,883  57.35%  41.48%
16   100,993   54,315  64.03%  34.44%
17    84,243  134,521  37.76%  60.29%
18   150,129   44,991  76.11%  22.81%
19    54,451  160,060  25.02%  73.55%
20   110,663   74,540  58.77%  39.59%
21   119,220  188,240  37.85%  59.76%
22    93,582  158,452  36.68%  62.11%
23    94,386   99,654  47.99%  50.67%
24    94,634  150,547  37.98%  60.42%
25   102,433  162,278  37.80%  59.89%
26    80,828  177,941  30.70%  67.59%
27    83,156  131,800  38.15%  60.46%
28   101,843   65,372  60.21%  38.65%
29    75,720   37,909  65.89%  32.99%
30   175,637   43,333  79.61%  19.64%
31    92,842  144,634  38.11%  59.36%
32   106,563  146,420  41.46%  56.97%
33    86,686   32,641  71.93%  27.09%
34    90,885   57,303  60.71%  38.28%
35   105,550   58,007  62.94%  34.59%
36    61,766  175,850  25.66%  73.05%

Looking at the 2016 numbers, you can begin to see the outlines of future competitiveness. That’s more a function of Trump’s weak showing in the familiar places than anything else, but Democrats got their numbers up enough to make it a reality. Looking back at 2012 and you’re reminded again of just how far we’ve come. Maybe we’ll reset to that kind of position in 2022, I don’t know, but that’s a little harder to imagine when you remember that Mitt Romney won the state by ten more points than Trump did. We’ll be going down that rabbit hole soon enough. As always, let me know what you think.

July 2021 campaign finance reports: Congress

It’s July, and that means its campaign finance report season. I’m going to do a tour through the finance reports as I have done before, beginning with Congressional reports. I have posted reports from January 2021, which is the completion of the 2020 cycle, and the October 2020 reports, which gave a look back on that cycle and the 2018 cycle, but these are the first reports I’ve posted from the 2022 cycle, not counting the CD06 special election. Because we’re in that weird pre-redistricting period, when no one knows what districts will be where, there’s not a lot of new candidate activity. The list of mostly incumbents below will likely change over time, but for now here are some reports that may be of interest.

Dan Crenshaw – CD02
Van Taylor – CD03
Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Morgan Luttrell – CD08
Mike McCaul – CD10
Vicente Gonzalez – CD15
Monica de la Cruz Hernandez – CD15
Chip Roy – CD21
Troy Nehls – CD22
Matthew Berg – CD22
Tony Gonzales – CD23
John Lira – CD23
Beth Van Duyne – CD24
Derrik Gay – CD24
John Carter – CD31
Donna Imam – CD31
Colin Allred – CD32


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
02    Crenshaw      5,184,216  3,143,696        0  3,893,234
03    Taylor        1,137,073    250,293        0    909,277
07    Fletcher      1,225,493    182,475        0  1,104,114
08    Luttrell        461,429     12,672        0    448,757
10    McCaul          745,285    260,682        0    492,336
15    Gonzalez        607,467    454,132        0  1,523,826
15    Hernandez       438,341    218,901        0    226,945
21    Roy             678,470    385,959        0    756,093
22    Nehls           312,512    112,897        0    218,821
22    Berg            113,753     41,564    5,100     72,189
23    Gonzales      1,088,487    331,330        0    788,516
23    Lira            100,789     49,833        0     50,955
24    Van Duyne     1,084,713    296,053        0    857,070
24    Gay
31    Carter          429,329    216,023        0    413,711
31    Imam              7,682          0        0      7,682
32    Allred        1,216,765    329,397        0  1,046,790

Couple of things. I’m including Republicans here mostly because there just aren’t that many reports of interest otherwise. That will likely change later, but for now this is what I’ve got. I’ve no idea what districts will be of interest this cycle yet, but we know these were all of interest last time. CD08 is an open seat, and as you can see there’s a candidate who has established a presence to note. CD34 is also an open seat, but as yet no one has filed a report with anything of substance. There are a couple of Democrats filing reports in CD30, where longtime Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson may or may not step down – she’s had challengers in most of the last few cycles, but no one has come close to really threatening her.

So far there are announced Democrats in four districts that were competitive in 2018 and 2020, and will likely be at least somewhat competitive in 2022. Derrik Gay and Donna Imam, who was the CD31 challenger in 2020, entered late enough in the cycle to not have anything to report. I find it somewhat heartening that even without knowing what the districts will look like, Matthew Berg and John Lira started out with totals over $100K; as you recall, almost no Dem challengers raised as much as $100K for the entire 2012 cycle. We’ve come a long way from that. That said, freshman incumbents Tony Gonzales and Beth Van Duyne are not taking their upcoming challenges lightly.

Along with the now-open CD34, CD15 was unexpectedly close in 2020, and the challenger from that cycle is back for another crack at it. Monica de la Cruz Hernandez raised some decent money, but incumbent Vicente Gonzalez maintains a strong lead in cash on hand. For all of the districts with two candidates, I listed the incumbent first.

Not much else to say here. Given when we’ll get the apportionment data, and assuming we’ll have the redistricting-oriented special session in September as expected, we probably won’t get a feel for who’s running for what until the Q4 reports come in next January. There will probably be some further announcements before then, and there’s always the possibility than an incumbent will choose to step down, but everything is written in pencil until we know what the new districts – including the two extra ones – look like.

UPDATE: This was drafted before State Rep. Michelle Beckley announced her intent to run in CD24. Her July report from the TEC is here – she reports $25K on hand, with her ability to raise funds limited by being in session for most of the year. Also, there is now a candidate in CD10, but he announced in July, so we won’t see a report from him until Q3.

DCCC starts with two targets in Texas

Consider this to be written in chalk on the pavement, pending the new Congressional maps.

Rep. Beth Van Duyne

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee announced Tuesday that it will target two Republican-held districts in Texas — the ones currently held by Reps. Tony Gonzales of San Antonio and Beth Van Duyne of Irving. They were one of 22 districts nationwide that the committee included on its 2022 target list, which it emphasized as preliminary due to redistricting.

Last election cycle, the DCCC sought to make Texas the centerpiece of its strategy to grow its House majority — and came up woefully short. They initially targeted six seats here and later expanded the list to 10 — and picked up none of them.

Van Duyne’s and Gonzales’ races ended up being the closest. Van Duyne won by 1 percentage point to replace retiring Rep. Kenny Marchant, R-Coppell, while Gonzales notched a 4-point margin to succeed Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes, who was also retiring.

The shape of those races remains very much in question more than a year and a half out from Election Day, most notably because Texas lawmakers are expected to redraw congressional district lines in a special session of the state Legislature later this year. Texas is on track to gain multiple congressional seats due to population growth. Republicans control the redistricting process and may be be able to make Gonzales’ and Van Duyne’s seats more secure.

On paper, Van Duyne’s 24th District looks to be the most competitive in 2022. It was the only GOP-held district in Texas that Democratic President Joe Biden won — and he carried it by a healthy margin of 5 points. The DCCC has already run TV ads against Van Duyne this year.

Biden, meanwhile, lost Gonzales’ 23rd District by 2 points. The 23rd District is a perennial swing seat that stretches from San Antonio to near El Paso and includes a large portion of the Texas-Mexico border.

As noted, the Republicans have their target list as well, which will also be affected by whatever the final maps look like as well as any retirements. CD24 is an obvious target, but if the map were to remain exactly as it is now I’d have several CDs higher on my list than CD23 at this point based on 2020 results and demographic direction. I’d make CDs 03, 21, 22, and 31 my top targets, with CDs 02, 06 (modulo the special election), and 10 a rung below. I’d put CD23 in with that second group, but with less conviction because I don’t like the trend lines. Again, this is all playing with Monopoly money until we get new maps.

Just to state my priors up front: I believe there will be electoral opportunities in Texas for Congressional candidates, though they will almost certainly evolve over the course of the decade. I believe that if the economy and President Biden’s approval ratings are solid, the 2022 midterms could be decent to good, and that we are in a different moment than we were in back in 2009-10. I also know fully well that the 2022 election is a long way off and there are many things that can affect the national atmosphere, many of them not great for the incumbent party. I was full of dumb optimism at this time in 2009, that’s for sure. I also had extremely modest expectations for 2018 at this point in that election cycle, too. Nobody knows nothing right now, is what I’m saying.

January 2021 campaign finance reports: Congress

Should have done this a long time ago, just to close the books on the 2020 election cycle, but for a variety of reasons I didn’t. With the forthcoming special election in CD06, I now have a reason to care about the April finance reports for Congress, so I may as well cross this off the list. The October 2020 finance reports can be found here, and you can get the links to all the earlier posts from there.

MJ Hegar – Senate

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Hank Gilbert – CD01
Sima Ladjevardian – CD02
Lulu Seikaly – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Elizabeth Hernandez – CD08
Mike Siegel – CD10
Adrienne Bell – CD14
Rick Kennedy – CD17
Wendy Davis – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Donna Imam – CD31


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Hegar        29,597,569 29,558,486        0     86,564

07    Fletcher      6,405,639  6,386,609        0     61,096
32    Allred        5,777,600  5,721,622        0    159,422  

01    Gilbert         968,154    734,410   50,000    233,744
02    Ladjevardian  3,894,082  3,886,672   50,000      7,410
03    Seikaly       1,654,380  1,654,038    3,000        341
06    Daniel          681,820    678,976        0      2,833
08    Hernandez        17,407     15,160        0      1,985
10    Siegel        2,942,987  2,898,827  127,835     47,651
14    Bell            248,995    245,174        0      8,920
17    Kennedy         216,825    218,253        0          0
21    Davis        10,428,476 10,366,864  257,967     61,611
22    Kulkarni      5,781,704  5,772,741        0     36,731
23    Jones         6,918,062  7,005,280        0      4,300
24    Valenzuela    4,945,025  4,933,058        0     11,967
25    Oliver        2,228,218  2,214,190    2,644     14,027
26    Ianuzzi         121,500    121,500   44,361          0
31    Imam          1,242,218  1,242,218        0          0

I’m not going to spend too much time on this since all these races are over and we know what happened, but a few observations:

– I don’t know what Hank Gilbert has planned for that $233K he has left over, but I hope he intends to do something with it. We’re going to need some dough in a lot of races next year.

– I’d like to see an autopsy done on how all this money was spent. It was a weird year, and a lot of money that would have been spent on field wound up going to other uses, so maybe it will be hard to draw meaningful conclusions, but still. I have no doubt that some candidates spent their money better than others, and that some candidates had much higher overhead costs than others. We should get a better picture of what happened here.

– I say that because I think the 2020s are much more likely to have multiple competitive races throughout the decade, in a way that we didn’t in the 2010s. If so, we’re going to see a much higher baseline of campaign contributions overall than what we were used to. So again, let’s have some confidence that our candidates and their campaigns are spending it well.

– MJ Hegar got off to a slower start than Beto did in raising money for her Senate campaign, but almost $30 million is real money, enough to run a credible statewide race. We’re going to need that kind of money for at least a couple of our statewide candidates next year.

– The 2022 Congressional campaign is going to be much more compressed than the last few have been, since we won’t know until this fall what the districts look like, and that’s without taking any litigation into account. Who even knows when we’ll begin to see potential candidates make themselves known?

That’s about all I have. I’ll check the Q1 2021 reports to see who’s raised what for the May 1 CD06 special, and we’ll see what if anything is interesting after that.

Precinct analysis: Brazoria County

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

Once more around the block, this time in Brazoria County. Let’s just dive in:


Dist    Trump    Biden     Lib     Grn
======================================
CD14   44,480   19,715     823     160
CD22   45,953   42,513   1,037     257
				
HD25   38,939   16,277     727     132
HD29   51,494   45,951   1,133     285
				
CC1    19,383    8,439     407      72
CC2    22,456   17,024     494     106
CC3    24,355   12,614     496     102
CC4    24,239   24,151     463     137

Dist   Cornyn    Hegar     Lib     Grn
======================================
CD14   43,874   18,748   1,440     357
CD22   46,831   40,011   1,579     522
				
HD25   38,413   15,432   1,251     314
HD29   52,292   43,327   1,768     565
				
CC1    19,080    7,985     687     182
CC2    22,849   15,885     742     209
CC3    24,398   11,802     736     228
CC4    24,378   23,087     854     260

Dist   Wright    Casta     Lib     Grn
======================================
CD14   43,325   18,349   1,620     508
CD22   45,672   39,005   1,980     989
				
HD25   37,900   15,098   1,435     434
HD29   51,097   42,256   2,165   1,063
				
CC1    18,727    7,834     791     253
CC2    22,351   15,535     885     399
CC3    23,844   11,430     927     394
CC4    24,075   22,555     997     451

Dist    Trump    Biden     Lib     Grn
======================================
CD14   68.24%   30.25%   1.26%   0.25%
CD22   51.20%   47.36%   1.16%   0.29%
				
HD25   69.44%   29.03%   1.30%   0.24%
HD29   52.09%   46.48%   1.15%   0.29%
				
CC1    68.49%   29.82%   1.44%   0.25%
CC2    56.03%   42.48%   1.23%   0.26%
CC3    64.83%   33.58%   1.32%   0.27%
CC4    49.48%   49.30%   0.95%   0.28%

Dist   Cornyn    Hegar     Lib     Grn
======================================
CD14   68.11%   29.10%   2.24%   0.55%
CD22   52.65%   44.98%   1.78%   0.59%
				
HD25   69.33%   27.85%   2.26%   0.57%
HD29   53.39%   44.23%   1.80%   0.58%
				
CC1    68.30%   28.59%   2.46%   0.65%
CC2    57.58%   40.03%   1.87%   0.53%
CC3    65.65%   31.76%   1.98%   0.61%
CC4    50.18%   47.52%   1.76%   0.54%

Dist   Wright    Casta     Lib     Grn
======================================
CD14   67.91%   28.76%   2.54%   0.80%
CD22   52.11%   44.50%   2.26%   1.13%
				
HD25   69.08%   27.52%   2.62%   0.79%
HD29   52.91%   43.75%   2.24%   1.10%
				
CC1    67.84%   28.38%   2.87%   0.92%
CC2    57.06%   39.66%   2.26%   1.02%
CC3    65.16%   31.23%   2.53%   1.08%
CC4    50.07%   46.91%   2.07%   0.94%

As an extra point of comparison, here are the numbers from the four district races:


Weber     45,245  70.76%
Bell      18,700  29.24%

Nehls     44,332  50.51%
Kulkarni  38,962  44.39%
LeBlanc    4,477   5.10%

Vasut     38,936  71.38%
Henry     15,613  28.62%

Thompson  54,594  56.69%
Boldt     41,712  43.31%

Not really a whole lot to remark upon. Brazoria County has slowly shifted blue since 2012, but not by that much. There’s still a lot of work to be done there, and in the short term the most likely place where any effect would be felt is in the appellate courts. HD29 was a dark horse swing district following the 2018 election, but as you can see Rep. Ed Thompson punches above his weight, so it’s going to take more than some demography to seriously challenge him, and that’s assuming the Republicans don’t touch up his district a bit later on this year. I have no idea what Congressional districts will have a piece of Brazoria County going forward, but I’d bet that at least at the beginning they’re all some shade of red.

The main opportunity for Dems here is at the local level, where Commissioners Court Precinct 4 is pretty close to even. None of the county offices – Commissioners Court, Constable, Justice of the Peace – were challenged in 2020, so there’s the starting point to improve things on the ground and begin construction on a bench. That may change with redistricting as well, of course, but county elections can see change happen quickly under the right circumstances. My wish for Brazoria County is for there to be more activity at this level, starting next year.

Precinct analysis: Fort Bend County, part 3

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

We wrap up our look at Fort Bend County with a look at the three executive offices that were on the ballot – County Attorney, Sheriff, and Tax Assessor.


Dist   Rogers   Lawson Rogers% Lawson%
======================================
CD09   15,023   50,782  22.83%  77.17%
CD22  145,087  127,054  53.31%  46.69%
				
HD26   43,626   39,504  52.48%  47.52%
HD27   24,389   56,616  30.11%  69.89%
HD28   66,099   54,828  54.66%  45.34%
HD85   26,625   26,552  50.07%  49.93%
				
CC1    37,971   37,058  50.61%  49.39%
CC2    17,680   50,002  26.12%  73.88%
CC3    62,634   44,214  58.62%  41.38%
CC4    41,822   46,562  47.32%  52.68%


Dist    Nehls    Fagan  Nehls%  Fagan%
======================================
CD09   14,833   51,165  22.47%  77.53%
CD22  146,932  128,505  53.35%  46.65%
				
HD26   44,560   39,723  52.87%  47.13%
HD27   24,035   57,421  29.51%  70.49%
HD28   66,891   55,267  54.76%  45.24%
HD85   26,899   26,911  49.99%  50.01%
				
CC1    38,247   37,720  50.35%  49.65%
CC2    17,442   50,439  25.69%  74.31%
CC3    63,111   44,910  58.42%  41.58%
CC4    42,964   46,599  47.97%  52.03%


Dist Pressler   Turner  Press% Turner%
======================================
CD09   15,165   50,611  23.06%  76.94%
CD22  147,338  124,999  54.10%  45.90%
				
HD26   44,460   38,767  53.42%  46.58%
HD27   24,799   56,167  30.63%  69.37%
HD28   66,903   54,081  55.30%  44.70%
HD85   26,904   26,301  50.57%  49.43%
				
CC1    38,516   36,606  51.27%  48.73%
CC2    17,829   49,779  26.37%  73.63%
CC3    63,433   43,533  59.30%  40.70%
CC4    42,722   45,692  48.32%  51.68%

The most remarkable thing about these three races is the consistency. There’s less than a point of variance in the three races, in whichever district you look. That was not the case in Harris County, where Sheriff Ed Gonzalez ran well ahead of the pack, and where we often see a fairly wide range of results at the countywide level. Bridgette Smith-Lawson and Eric Fagan had identical percentages overall – there were about 3500 more votes cast in the Sheriff’s race, but the marginal voters broke for each candidate exactly as the overlapping voters had – and they both finished about 0.7 points ahead of Carmen Turner. I’ve often said that blowout races are boring to analyze because they don’t offer much insight into anything, but sometimes the same is true for close races. A few more people voted for James Pressler than for Steve Rogers, but not in a way that demonstrated any strengths or weaknesses on the part of anyone involved. Just one of those things, and it ultimately meant nothing as far as the outcome was concerned.

I’ve mentioned Commissioners Court Precinct 1 a few times, and here I should note that incumbent Commissioner Vincent Morales won with 52.30% of the vote, ahead of the other Republicans here indeed every other Republican in Fort Bend. Judicial candidate Maggie Jaramillo was next best in that district, with 52.17% of the vote. Another piece of evidence for the relative advantage that Latino Republicans had, in this election at least, and perhaps a cautionary tale for the 2024 campaign by Democrats to unseat Morales and cement a 4-1 membership on the Court. Morales’ incumbency and his appeal to independent/soft Dem Latino voters will make it that much harder to oust him. If the plan is to endanger him via the redistricting process, my advice is to add in a bit of buffer, because he will likely overperform the baseline.

That’s it for Fort Bend. I’ll try to work on Brazoria County next. Let me know what you think.

Precinct analysis: Fort Bend County, part 2

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

This post is going to focus on the judicial races in Fort Bend County. There are a lot of them – seven statewide, four appellate, five district and county – and I don’t want to split them into multiple posts because there’s not enough to say about them, nor do I want to present you with a wall of numbers that will make your eyes glaze over. So, I’m going to do a bit of analysis up top, then put all the number beneath the fold for those who want a closer look or to fact-check me. I’ll have one more post about the Fort Bend county races, and then maybe I’ll take a crack at Brazoria County, which will be even more manual labor than these posts were.

The point of interest at the statewide level is in the vote differentials between the three races that included a Libertarian candidate and the four races that did not. Just eyeballing the totals and bearing in mind that there’s some variance in each group, the Republican candidate got an increase of a bit more than half of the Libertarian vote total in each district, while the Democrats were more or less around the same level. That comports with the general thesis that Libertarians tend to take votes away from Republicans more than Democrats, though the effect here was pretty small. It’s also a small sample, and every county has its own characteristics, so don’t go drawing broad conclusions. For what it’s worth, there wasn’t anything here to contradict that piece of conventional wisdom.

For the appellate court races, the thing I have obsessed over is the incredibly small margin in the election for Chief Justice of the 14th Court of Appeals, which Jane Robinson lost by 1500 votes, or 0.06 percentage points. We saw in Harris County that she trailed the two victorious Democrats, Veronica Rivas-Molloy and Amparo Guerra, who were part of a trend in Harris County where Latino candidates generally out-performed the rest of the ticket. That wasn’t quite the case in Fort Bend. Robinson again trailed Rivas-Molloy by a little – in overall vote total, Robinson trailed Rivas-Molloy by about two thousand votes, while Republican Tracy Christopher did an equivalent amount better than Russell Lloyd. But unlike in Harris, Robinson outperformed Guerra, by about a thousand votes, and Guerra barely beat out Tamika Craft, who was farther behind the pack in Harris County. I don’t have a good explanation for that, it looks to me just like a weird result that has no obvious cause or correlation to what we saw elsewhere. It’s also the case, as we discussed in part one of the Fort Bend results, that if Dems had done a better job retaining voters downballot, none of this would matter all that much.

Finally, in the district court races (there were four of them, plus one county court), the results that grabbed my attention were in a couple of contests that appeared one after the other. Republican Maggie Jaramillo, running for the 400th District Court, was the closest member of Team GOP to win, as she lost to Tameika Carter by ten thousand votes. In the next race, for the 434th District Court, Republican Jim Shoemake lost to Christian Becerra by twenty-two thousand votes. This was the difference between a three-point loss for Jaramillo, and a six-and-a-half point loss for Shoemake. Jaramillo was the top performing Republican candidate in any race in Fort Bend, while Becerra was sixth best among Dems, trailing Joe Biden, three statewide judicial candidates, and Sheriff Eric Fagan. You may have noticed that they’re both Latinos, though the effect appears to have been a bit greater for the Republican Jaramillo. Becerra was the only Dem besides Biden to carry Commissioners Court Precinct 1, though that may not have been strictly a Latino candidate phenomenon – Elizabeth Frizell had the next highest percentage, with Veronica Rivas-Molloy and Tina Clinton close behind. (Amy Clark Meachum and Staci Williams, both in three-candidate races, came closer to carrying CC1 than any other candidates, but their percentage of the vote was lower.) Again, no broad conclusions here, just an observation.

Click on for the race data, and remember I had to piece this together by hand, so my numbers may be a little off from the official state totals when those come out. County races are next. Let me know what you think.

(more…)

Precinct analysis: Fort Bend County, part 1

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

I’ve finally run out of Harris County races from 2020 to analyze, so let’s move over to Fort Bend County. I’ve said before that while Fort Bend provides downloadable Excel files on their county elections page, they format these results in a way that makes it harder for me to do the same analysis I do with Harris County. Basically, Harris County puts all the results on one worksheet, with the totals for every candidate given in each precinct. For district races, that means a blank in the results when the precinct in question is not in that district, but the cell for that district is there. That makes it super easy for me to use Excel functions to add up the vote totals for, say, the Presidential candidates in the precincts where, say, the HD134 voters are. I can do practically every race in a matter of an hour or two, and indeed I spend more time formatting the blog posts than I do the calculations.

Fort Bend, on the other hand, separates each race into its own worksheet, which is fine in and of itself, except that for district races they only include the precincts for that race on the worksheet in question. That completely nullifies the formulas I use for Harris County, and when I went and looked to see how I did it in 2016, I saw that I manually added the relevant cells for each of the countywide races, an approach that is inelegant, labor intensive, and prone to error. But it was the best I could do, so I did it again that way here. I can tell you that my results are not fully accurate, and I know this because the subtotals don’t add up correctly, but they’re close enough to suffice. The one exception is for the County Commissioner precincts, which are fully grouped together in Fort Bend – each precinct number is four digits, with the first digit being a one, two, three, or four, and that first digit is the Commissioner precinct. So those at least are easy to add up correctly. The rest is messy, but I did the best I could. When the official state reports come out in March and they’re off from mine, you’ll know why.

Anyway. That’s a lot of minutia, so let’s get to the numbers.


Dist    Trump    Biden    Lib    Grn
====================================
CD09   15,527   52,998    414    292
CD22  142,191  142,554  2,614    799
				
HD26   42,389   45,097    743    283
HD27   24,191   59,921    576    296
HD28   65,043   61,103  1,212    313
HD85   26,661   29,016    503    197
				
CC1    37,765   40,253    699    261
CC2    18,054   52,525    441    307
CC3    61,437   49,976  1,120    247
CC4    40,460   52,798    768    276

Dist   Trump%   Biden%   Lib%   Grn%
====================================
CD09   22.43%   76.55%  0.60%  0.42%
CD22   49.34%   49.47%  0.91%  0.28%
				
HD26   47.89%   50.95%  0.84%  0.32%
HD27   28.47%   70.51%  0.68%  0.35%
HD28   50.95%   47.86%  0.95%  0.25%
HD85   47.29%   51.47%  0.89%  0.35%
				
CC1    47.82%   50.97%  0.89%  0.33%
CC2    25.31%   73.64%  0.62%  0.43%
CC3    54.48%   44.31%  0.99%  0.22%
CC4    42.90%   55.99%  0.81%  0.29%


Dist   Cornyn    Hegar    Lib    Grn
====================================
CD09   15,345   49,730  1,082    639
CD22  145,632  129,254  4,277  1,473
				
HD26   43,650   40,478  1,264    506
HD27   24,695   55,984  1,308    672
HD28   66,532   55,483  1,859    580
HD85   26,653   26,678    949    355
				
CC1    38,088   37,124  1,318    447
CC2    17,948   49,130  1,123    626
CC3    63,061   45,045  1,614    489
CC4    41,877   47,685  1,304    550

Dist  Cornyn%   Hegar%   Lib%   Grn%
====================================
CD09   22.97%   74.45%  1.62%  0.96%
CD22   51.89%   46.06%  1.52%  0.52%
				
HD26   50.82%   47.12%  1.47%  0.59%
HD27   29.88%   67.73%  1.58%  0.81%
HD28   53.46%   44.58%  1.49%  0.47%
HD85   48.78%   48.83%  1.74%  0.65%
				
CC1    49.48%   48.23%  1.71%  0.58%
CC2    26.08%   71.38%  1.63%  0.91%
CC3    57.22%   40.87%  1.46%  0.44%
CC4    45.81%   52.16%  1.43%  0.60%

Dist   Wright    Casta    Lib    Grn
====================================
CD09   14,727   50,118    923    769
CD22  142,842  125,932  4,794  2,479
				
HD26   42,848   39,268  1,367    860
HD27   23,874   55,827  1,267    850
HD28   65,253   54,232  2,115  1,011
HD85   26,165   26,418    968    521
				
CC1    37,302   36,877  1,341    640
CC2    17,328   49,299    984    776
CC3    61,909   43,760  1,924    863
CC4    41,027   46,114  1,468    969

Dist  Wright%   Casta%   Lib%	Grn%
====================================
CD09   22.13%   75.32%  1.39%  1.16%
CD22   51.75%   45.62%  1.74%  0.90%
				
HD26   50.80%   46.56%  1.62%  1.02%
HD27   29.18%   68.23%  1.55%  1.04%
HD28   53.22%   44.23%  1.72%  0.82%
HD85   48.39%   48.86%  1.79%  0.96%
				
CC1    48.98%   48.42%  1.76%  0.84%
CC2    25.34%   72.09%  1.44%  1.13%
CC3    57.08%   40.35%  1.77%  0.80%
CC4    45.80%   51.48%  1.64%  1.08%

The first number to consider is not about any of the districts. It’s simply this: John Cornyn received 3K more votes in Fort Bend County than Donald Trump did, but MJ Hegar got over 16K fewer votes than Joe Biden. Jim Wright got about as many votes as Trump did, but Chrysta Castaneda got 19K fewer votes than Biden. That trend continued in the district races as well. Troy Nehls got 2K more votes than Trump did in CD22, while Sri Kulkarni got 19K fewer votes. Jacey Jetton got a thousand more votes than Trump did in HD26, while Sarah DeMerchant got 4,500 fewer votes than Biden did. Biden clearly got a few Republican crossover votes, but by far the difference between his performance and everyone else’s on the ballot was that there was a significant number of people who voted for Joe Biden and then didn’t vote in other races. That was just not so on the Republican side.

I don’t have a single explanation for this. It’s a near reverse of what happened in Harris County in 2004, when George Bush clearly got some Democratic crossovers, but by and large there were a lot of Bush-only voters, while the folks who showed up for John Kerry generally stuck around and voted for the other Dems. I don’t think what happened here in Fort Bend is a function of straight ticket voting, or its removal in this case, because there’s a world of difference between someone who picks and chooses what races to vote in and someone who votes for President and then goes home – I just don’t believe that latter person would have selected the “straight Democratic” choice if it had been there. In 2004, my theory was that Bush was a brand name candidate who drew out more casual voters who didn’t really care about the other races, while Kerry voters were more hardcore. I don’t buy that here because if anything I would have expected the Trump voters to be more likely to be one and done. It’s a mystery to me, but it’s one that state and Fort Bend Democrats need to try to figure out. At the very least, we could have won HD26, and we could have elected Jane Robinson to the 14th Court of Appeals if we’d done a better job downballot here.

One other possibility I will mention: Sri Kulkarni wrote an article in the Texas Signal that analyzed his loss and cited a large disinformation campaign against him that contributed to his defeat. That may be a reason why the Libertarian candidate did as well as he did in that race. I don’t doubt Kulkarni’s account of his own race, but I hesitate to fully accept this explanation. Dems had a larger dropoff of the vote in CD09 as well – about 3K fewer votes for Hegar and Castaneda, less than 1K fewer for Cornyn and Wright – and the dropoff in CD22 was pretty consistent for other Dems as well, though Kulkarni did generally worse. It may have moved the needle somewhat against him, but it doesn’t explain what happened with other Dems. Again, someone with more time and resources available to them – the TDP, in particular – should do a deeper dive on this. I do believe that disinformation was an issue for Dems last year, and will be an increasing problem going forward, and we need to get our arms around that. I just believe there were other causes as well, and we need to understand those, too.

One more thing: Kulkarni ran a lot closer to the Biden standard in Harris County than he did in Fort Bend. Biden and Trump were virtually tied in CD22 in Harris County, with the vote going 21,912 for Trump to 21,720 for Biden; Nehls defeated Kulkarni 20,953 to 19,743 in Harris. That’s the kind of result that one can easily attribute to Biden crossovers, and doesn’t raise any flags about the level of undervoting. I haven’t looked at Brazoria County yet, but my point here is just that Fort Bend County was very different in its behavior than Harris County was. And again, for the Nth time, we need to understand why. That is the point I’m trying to sledgehammer home.

Moving on, HD28 was a steeper hill to climb than perhaps we thought it would be. Eliz Markowitz got about 1,500 fewer votes than MJ Hegar did, and about 300 fewer than Castanada, while Gary Gates outperformed both Jim Wright and John Cornyn. It should be noted that while Dems in general lost HD28 by 20 points or so in 2016, Markowitz and other Dems were losing it by ten or eleven points in 2020. In total vote terms, a gap of 16-18K votes in 2016 was reduced to 12-13K votes in 2020. The shift is real, and even if it didn’t net us any extra seats, it’s still there.

The other way that shift manifested was in the County Commissioner precincts. In 2016, Republicans won three of the four precincts, with two-term Democrat Richard Morrison in Precinct 1 finally getting unseated after he had won against badly tainted opponents in previous years. There was a lot of movement in the Dem direction in Precinct 4, however, and that came to fruition in 2018 when Ken DeMerchant (yes, Sarah’s husband) flipped that seat. As you can see, there was no retreat in CC4 in 2020, and it probably wouldn’t take too much tinkering to make Precinct 1 a fifty-fifty or better proposition for Dems. It didn’t happen in either county this year, but in 2024, aided by demography and maybe a bit of gerrymandering, both Harris and Fort Bend counties can have 4-1 Democratic majorities on their Commissioners Courts.

I do have totals for the other Fort Bend races, though they’re not dramatically different from what you see here. I will put them together in a future post just to have it on the record. As always, let me know what you think.

Precinct analysis: Presidential results by Congressional district

From Daily Kos Elections, the breakdown of how Presidential voting went in each of Texas’ 36 Congressional districts:

Two districts did in fact flip on the presidential level: Trump lost the 24th District in the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs while recapturing the 23rd District along the border with Mexico. Biden, however, made major gains in a number of other suburban districts and nearly won no fewer than seven of them. Trump, meanwhile, surged in many heavily Latino areas and likewise came close to capturing three, but except for the 24th, every Trump seat is in GOP hands and every Biden seat is represented by Democrats. The 24th, which includes the suburbs north of Dallas and Fort Worth, is a good place to start because it saw one of the largest shifts between 2016 and 2020. The district began the decade as heavily Republican turf—it backed Mitt Romney 60-38—but Trump carried it by a substantially smaller 51-44 margin four years later.

Biden continued the trend and racked up a 52-46 win this time, but the area remained just red enough downballot to allow Republican Beth Van Duyne to manage a 49-47 victory in an expensive open-seat race against Democrat Candace Valenzuela.

Biden fell just short of winning seven other historically red suburban seats: the 2nd, 3rd, 6th, 10th, 21st, 22nd, and 31st, where Trump’s margins ranged from just one to three points and where the swings from 2016 ranged from seven points in the 22nd all the way to 13 points in the 3rd, the biggest shift in the state. However, as in the 24th, Biden’s surge did not come with sufficient coattails, as Republicans ran well ahead of Trump in all of these seats. (You can check out our guide for more information about each district.)

Two seats that Democrats flipped in 2018 and stayed blue last year also saw large improvements for Biden. The 7th District in west Houston, parts of which were once represented by none other than George H.W. Bush from 1967 to 1971, had swung from 60-39 Romney to 48-47 Clinton, and Biden carried it 54-45 in 2020. Democratic Rep. Lizzie Fletcher won by a smaller 51-47 spread against Wesley Hunt, who was one of the House GOP’s best fundraisers. The 32nd District in the Dallas area, likewise, had gone from 57-41 Romney to 49-47 Clinton. This time, Biden took it 54-44 as Democratic Rep. Colin Allred prevailed 52-46.

Biden’s major gains in the suburbs, though, came at the same time that Trump made serious inroads in predominantly Latino areas on or near the southern border with Mexico. That rightward shift may have cost Team Blue the chance to flip the open 23rd District, which stretches from San Antonio west to the outskirts of the El Paso area.

A full breakdown by county and district is here, and a comparison of percentages from 2016 and 2020 is here. CD23 went from being a Romney district to a Clinton district to a Trump district, though in all cases it was close. The red flags are in CDs 15, 28, and 34. In CD15, incumbent Vicente Gonzalez won by only three points, in a district Biden carried by one point, a huge drop from Clinton’s 57-40 win in 2016. Everyone’s least favorite Democrat Henry Cuellar had an easy 19-point win, but Biden only carried CD28 by four points, down from Clinton’s 20-point margin. It’s not crazy to think that Jessica Cisneros could have lost that race, though of course we’ll never know. This wasn’t the scenario I had in mind when I griped that CD28 was not a “safe” district, but it does clearly illustrate what I meant. And Filemon Vela, now a DNC Vice Chair, also had a relatively easy 55-42 win, but in a district Biden carried 52-48 after Clinton had carried it 59-38. Not great, Bob.

We don’t have the full downballot results – we’ll probably get them in March from the Texas Legislative Council – but the Harris County experience suggests there will be some variance, and that other Dems may do a little better in those districts. How much of this was Trump-specific and how much is long-term is of course the big question. The Georgia Senate runoffs, coupled with the 2018 results, suggest that having Trump on the ballot was better for Republicans than not having him on the ballot. On the other hand, 2022 will be a Democratic midterm year, and the last couple of them did not go well. On the other other hand, Trump is leaving office in complete disgrace and with approval levels now in the low 30s thanks to the armed insurrection at the Capitol, and for all the damage he did to the economy and the COVID mitigation effort, Biden is in a position to make big progress in short order. It’s just too early to say what any of this means, but suffice it to say that both Ds and Rs have challenges and opportunities ahead of them.

There are some very early third-party efforts at drawing new Congressional districts – see here and here for a couple I’ve come across. We still need the actual Census numbers, and as I’ve said before, the Republicans will have to make decisions about how much risk they want to expose themselves to. The way these maps are drawn suggests to me that “pack” rather than “crack” could be the strategy, but again this is all very early. There is also the possibility that the Democratic Congress can push through voting rights reform that includes how redistricting can be done, though the clock and potentially the Supreme Court will be factors. And if there’s one thing we should have learned over the last 20 years, it’s that due to Texas’ rapid growth, the districts you draw at the beginning of the decade may look quite a bit different by the end of the decade. We’re at the very start of a ten-year journey. A lot is going to happen, and the farther out we get the harder it is to see the possibilities.

Precinct analysis: Congressional districts

Introduction

All right, let’s get this party started. In the past I’ve generally done the top races by themselves, but any race involving Trump provides challenges, because his level of support just varies in comparison to other Republicans depending on where you look. So this year it felt right to include the other statewide non-judicial results in my Presidential analyses, and the only way to do that without completely overwhelming you with a wall of numbers was to break it out by district types. That seemed to also pair well with a closer look at the competitive districts of interest, of which there were more than usual this year. So let’s begin with a look at the Congressional districts in Harris County. Only CDs 02, 07, 18, and 29 are fully in Harris County – we won’t have the complete data on all Congressional districts until later – so just keep that in mind.


Dist    Trump    Biden    Lib    Grn  Trump%  Biden%   Lib%   Grn%
==================================================================
CD02  174,980  170,428  4,067    969  49.93%  48.63%  1.16%  0.28%
CD07  143,176  170,060  3,416    903  45.09%  53.55%  1.08%  0.28%
CD08   25,484   16,629    520     87  59.65%  38.93%  1.22%  0.20%
CD09   39,372  125,237  1,066    589  23.68%  75.32%  0.64%  0.35%
CD10  101,390   65,714  2,023    431  59.80%  38.76%  1.19%  0.25%
CD18   57,669  189,823  2,382    962  22.99%  75.68%  0.95%  0.38%
CD22   21,912   21,720    522    137  49.47%  49.04%  1.18%  0.31%
CD29   52,937  106,229  1,265    649  32.86%  65.95%  0.79%  0.40%
CD36   83,710   52,350  1,558    402  60.65%  37.93%  1.13%  0.29%

Dist   Cornyn    Hegar    Lib    Grn Cornyn%  Hegar%   Lib%   Grn%
==================================================================
CD02  180,504  157,923  6,215  2,164  52.37%  45.82%  1.80%  0.63%
CD07  152,741  154,670  4,939  2,161  48.90%  49.52%  1.58%  0.69%
CD08   25,916   15,259    846    221  61.67%  36.31%  2.01%  0.53%
CD09   39,404  118,424  2,725  1,677  24.54%  73.76%  1.70%  1.04%
CD10  102,919   60,687  3,168    939  61.71%  36.39%  1.90%  0.56%
CD18   60,111  178,680  4,806  2,468  24.68%  73.35%  1.97%  1.01%
CD22   21,975   20,283    898    377  50.92%  47.00%  2.08%  0.87%
CD29   51,044   99,415  3,022  1,969  33.26%  64.77%  1.97%  1.28%
CD36   83,614   48,814  2,598    913  61.92%  36.15%  1.92%  0.68%

Dist   Wright    Casta    Lib    Grn Wright%  Casta%   Lib%   Grn%
==================================================================
CD02  176,484  153,628  7,631  4,122  51.62%  44.94%  2.23%  1.21%
CD07  149,114  149,853  6,276  3,974  48.22%  48.46%  2.03%  1.29%
CD08   25,558   14,796    992    394  61.23%  35.45%  2.38%  0.94%
CD09   37,090  117,982  2,764  2,570  23.12%  73.55%  1.72%  1.60%
CD10  101,414   58,873  3,758  1,793  61.15%  35.50%  2.27%  1.08%
CD18   57,783  177,020  5,021  3,846  23.71%  72.65%  2.06%  1.58%
CD22   21,026   20,231  1,007    675  48.97%  47.12%  2.35%  1.57%
CD29   46,954  102,354  2,802  2,334  30.40%  66.27%  1.81%  1.51%
CD36   81,424   48,619  2,880  1,300  60.66%  36.22%  2.15%  0.97%

Dist      GOP      Dem    Lib    Grn    GOP%    Dem%   Lib%   Grn%
==================================================================
CD02  192,828  148,374  5,524         55.61%  42.79%  1.59%
CD07  149,054  159,529  5,542         47.75%  50.79%  1.76%
CD08   25,906   15,212    926         61.62%  36.18%  2.20%
CD09   35,634  121,576  4,799         22.00%  75.04%  2.96%
CD10  103,180   60,388  3,496         61.76%  36.15%  2.09%
CD18   58,033  180,952  4,514  3,396  23.51%  73.29%  1.83%  1.38%
CD22   20,953   19,743  2,291         48.74%  45.93%  5.33%
CD29   42,840  111,305  2,328         27.38%  71.13%  1.49%
CD36   84,721   46,545  2,579    985  62.84%  34.52%  1.91%  0.73%

The first three tables are the Presidential, Senate, and Railroad Commissioner results, in that order. Subsequent presentations with State Rep and JP/Constable precincts will be done in the same fashion. For this post, I have also included the actual Congressional results – each Congressional race had both a Dem and a Republican, which doesn’t always happen, so they provide a good point of comparison. The candidate labeled as “Green” in CD18 was actually an independent – only CD36 had an actual Green Party candidate. In the other Congressional races, there were only three candidates.

How competitive CD02 looks depends very much on how you’re looking at it. On the one hand, Joe Biden came within 1.3 points, with Trump failing to reach fifty percent. On the other hand, Dan Crenshaw won by almost thirteen points, easily exceeding his marks from 2018 while clearly getting some crossover support. In between was everything else – MJ Hegar and Chrysta Castaneda trailed by about six and a half points each, with third-party candidates taking an increasing share of the vote. As we’ll see, most of the time the spread was between seven and nine points. That doesn’t tell us too much about what CD02 will look like going forward, but it does tell us that it doesn’t have a large reserve of Republican votes in it that can be used to bolster other Republicans. One possible outcome is that the map-drawers decide that Crenshaw will punch above his weight – he certainly fundraises at a very high level – which will allow them to leave him in a seemingly-narrow district while tending to more urgent matters elsewhere. The downside there is that if and when Crenshaw decides he’s made for bigger things, this district would be that much harder to hold with a different Republican running in it.

Another possibility is that Republicans will decide that they’re better off turning CD07 into a more Dem-friendly district, and using the space Republican capacity from CD07 to bolster CDs 02 and maybe 10. Lizzie Fletcher didn’t win by much, though I will note that Wesley Hunt’s 47.75% is a mere 0.28 points better than John Culberson in 2018. (There was no Libertarian candidate in 2018; do we think that hurt Hunt or Fletcher more in this context?) But other than Biden, no Dem came close to matching Fletcher’s performance – Hegar and Castaneda were among the top finishers in CD07, as we will see going forward. Like Crenshaw, Fletcher got some crossovers as well. It’s a big question how the Republicans will approach CD07 in the redistricting process. In years past, before the big blue shift in the western parts of Harris County, my assumption had been that the weight of CD07 would continue to move west, probably poking into Fort Bend and Waller counties. I’m less sure of that now – hell, I have no idea what they will do. I have suggested that they make CD07 more Democratic, which would enable them to shore up CD02, CD10, maybe CD22. They could try to add enough Republicans to tilt CD07 red, and at least make Fletcher work that much harder if not endanger her. Or who knows, they could throw everything out and do a radical redesign, in which case who knows what happens to CD07. Harris is going to get a certain number of full and partial Congressional districts in it no matter what, and there are Republican incumbents who will want to keep various areas for themselves, and the Voting Rights Act is still in effect, so there are some constraints. But there’s nothing to say that CD07 will exist in some form as we now know it. Expect the unexpected, is what I’m saying.

None of the other districts had as large a variance in the Trump vote. He trailed Cornyn and Wright in total votes in every district except CDs 29 and 36 (he also led Wright in 22). He trailed the Republican Congressional candidate in every district except 09, 18, and 29, the three strong D districts. Conversely, Joe Biden led every Democratic candidate in every district except for Sylvia Garcia in CD29; Garcia likely got about as many crossover votes as Lizzie Fletcher did. I’m amused to see Trump beat the designated sacrificial lamb candidate in CD18, partly because he was one of the co-plaintiffs on the state lawsuit to throw out all of the drive-through votes, and partly because I saw far more yard signs for Wendell Champion in my mostly-white heavily Democratic neighborhood (*) than I did for Trump. Maybe this is what was meant by “shy Trump voters”.

One more point about redistricting. Mike McCaul won the Harris County portion of CD10 by 43K votes; he won it by 46K in 2012 and 47K in 2016. He won overall by 30K, after squeaking through in 2018 by 13K votes. He had won in 2012 by 64K votes, and in 2016 by 59K votes. Now, a big driver of that is the ginormous growth in the Travis County Dem vote – he went from a 14K deficit in Travis in 2012 to a 57K deficit in 2020. The point I’m making is that there’s not a well of spare Republican votes in CD10 that could be used to redden CD07, not without putting CD10 at risk. Again, the Republicans could throw the current map out and start over from scratch – there will be new districts to include, so to some extent that will happen anyway – it’s just that Harris County is going to be of limited, and decreasing, use to them. They have to work around Harris, not with it. It’s going to make for some interesting decisions on their part.

I’ll have a look at the State Rep districts next. Let me know what you think.

(*) The two main precincts for my neighborhood went for Biden over Trump by a combined 68-28.

A closer look at county races, Part 2

Part One is here. As before, this is about taking a closer look at the counties where Democrats made gains from 2016.

Collin County: Our reach may have exceeded our grasp, but it’s important to note that progress was made. A quick recap, comparing 2016:


CD03: 61.2% - 34.6%
Statewides: GOP 59-62%, Dem 32-35%
HD33: 62.6% - 34.1%
HD66: 57.4% - 38.7%
HD67: 56.6% - 39.7%
HD70: 67.1% - 28.5%
HD89: 63.5% - 32.7%

No candidates for District Court, Commissioner’s Court, countywide offices, or Constable. One candidate for Justice of the Peace.

To 2020:


CD03: 55.1% - 42.9%
Statewides: GOP 54-57%, Dem 42-44%
HD33: 59.0% - 41.0%
HD66: 49.6% - 48.9%
HD67: 51.7% - 48.3%
HD70: 61.8% - 38.2%
HD89: 59.4% - 38.5%

Candidates for seven of nine District Court benches (all in the 42-44% range), County Tax Assessor (41%), and both Commissioners Court seats (41% and 39%).

Still no candidates for any of the four Constable races. Hard to say how competitive any of them might have been, at least until a full canvass is available, but in Constable Precinct 3, the unopposed Republican got 115K votes, with 88K undervotes. Given that unopposed candidates always get more votes than candidates with major party opponents, this was probably not far from a 50-50 race. I’d be eyeing this office in 2024 if I’m a Collin County Democrat. Overall, a shift of about six or seven points down for the GOP and up for the Dems.

Denton County: Same basic story as Collin, except that we held the one State Rep race we won in 2018. Here’s the same presentation, for 2016:


CD24: 53.7% - 42.0%
CD26: 65.2% - 30.7%
Statewides: GOP 60-62%, Dem 32-34%
HD63: No Dem
HD64: 61.6% - 38.4%
HD65: 56.3% - 43.7%
HD106: No Dem

One candidate for District Court (36.3%), no candidates for any county race.

And 2020


CD24: 45.9% - 50.4%
CD26: 59.5% - 38.4%
Statewides: GOP 55-58%, Dem 40-43%
HD63: 67.4% - 32.6%
HD64: 54.9% - 45.1%
HD65: 48.5% - 51.5%
HD106: 58.5% - 41.5%

Still just one candidate for District Court, getting 42.6%. Both County Commissioner races were challenged, but still no candidates for any of the six Constable spots. Here I can’t say which if any may have been competitive, as the election night returns don’t tell me the undervotes. No matter how you look at it, you want to get some Dem candidates in these races, to help with downballot turnout.

Hays County: Like Williamson, a flip to Dems, with some downballot success as well. The big prize here was HD45, where Rep. Erin Zwiener knocked off incumbent Jason Isaac in 2018, two years after Isaac had been unopposed for re-election. Rep. Zwiener easily held on against Carrie Isaac, winning with 53.3% of the vote. In 2016, Lamar Smith took the CD21 portion of Hays 53-39, Roger Williams won the CD25 portion of Hays 60-35, and statewide Republicans won with 47-49% over Dems with scores in the 40-44% range. Rebecca Bell-Metereau lost in SBOE5 49-46. There was one District Court race, with an unopposed Republican, the Democratic candidate for Sheriff lost by 13 points, and there was no Dem running for Tax Assessor. There were a mix of Dem and GOP winners, some unopposed, for Commissioners Court, Justice of the Peace, and Constable.

In 2020, Wendy Davis took the CD21 piece 49-46, while Julie Oliver held Roger Williams to a 57-41 edge. (There’s also a piece of CD35 in Hays County. Pound for pound, Hays is at least as sliced up at the Congressional level as Travis County is.) Statewide Dems were now universal winners in Hays, ranging from Chrysta Castaneda’s 49.8% to Elizabeth Frizell’s 53.1%. Rebecca Bell-Metereau won in SBOE5 50.5% to 44.8%. Hays County now had a second District Court seat, won by a Democrat, and a new County Court at Law seat, also won by a Dem. The same Republican judge who was unopposed in 2016 was unopposed in 2020 as well. Dems now had challengers for both Sheriff and Tax Assessor, and while they both lost it was 51-49 in each. Dems had a challenger for Commissioners Court in Precinct 3, losing 52-48 after not contesting the position in 2016. The Dem Constable who won Precinct 2 by 110 votes in 2016 was re-elected by 2,500 votes in 2020. I’d say Hays is a bit like Harris County in 2012, where Dems are the majority but they do better at the top of the ticket, and aren’t quite able to knock out Republican countywide officeholders. There are definitely opportunities here going forward.

Brazoria County: This is more a story of stasis than progress. Trump carried Brazoria County by 29K votes in 2016, and he carried it by 28K votes in 2020. I’d rather go this direction than the other one, but we’re not getting anywhere at that rate. If we pull the curtain back a little farther, here’s the margin of victory in Brazoria County for the Republican Presidential candidate in each election since 2004: 34,758 (04), 29,035 (08), 36,441 (12), 29,591 (16), 28,159 (20). The long-term arc is fine, it’s just slow.

Republican statewides won the county with leads in the 30-34K range in 2016, and roughly the same in 2020. The percentages are closer, because that’s how ratios work, but the absolute difference in votes is more or less the same. That’s why I always aim to report both figures in posts like this, because you need both dimensions to understand what is really happening. For what it’s worth, Sri Kulkarni lost the CD22 portion of Brazoria by 6K votes after Mark Gibson lost it by 14K in 2016, but in the end that didn’t amount to much. I see Brazoria as being similar to Fort Bend twenty years ago, with a lot of work needed to move it in the same direction that Fort Bend has gone.

That’s all I’ve got for this exercise. There are some opportunities out there, but nothing can be taken for granted. Broadly speaking, the key is to run candidates in these downballot races – for one, there’s winnable contests out there, and for two, this is a key component to building a bench of future candidates. And not to put too fine a point on it, but as we have seen in Harris County, having a good county government is a big win on its own.

A few observations from the final unofficial countywide data

This is still unofficial, and there will still be some overseas/military ballots to be counted as well as some provisional ballots to be cured, but the count of the votes cast by Election Day is over, and we have the current final totals, broken down by vote type for each race. So let’s have a stroll through the data and see what we come up with.

– While Republican voting strength increased on Election Day compared to mail and early in person voting, Democrats still won Election Day. As far as I can tell, every Democrat who was on the whole county’s ballot beat their Republican opponent on Election Day, except for one: Genesis Draper, the appointed and now elected Judge of County Criminal Court #12, who lost Election Day by about 6,000 votes. She still won her election by 78,000 votes, so no big deal. Te’iva Bell, now the elected Judge of the 339th Criminal District Court, won Election Day by fourteen (yes, 14) votes out of 183,492 ballots cast in that race. She won by just over 100K votes overall.

– Democrats did especially well in mail ballots – in the judicial races, the number was usually around 60% for the Democratic candidate. That staked them to an initial lead of 27-40K, with usually a bit more than 160K mail ballots being cast. It’s amazing to realize how much that has shifted from even the recent past – remember, Republicans generally won the mail ballots in 2018, though they lost them in 2016. I don’t know if they quietly walk back all the hysterical “MAIL BALLOT FRAUD” hyperbole and go back to using this tool as they had before, or if that’s it and they’re all about voting in person now.

– As far as I can tell, no one who was leading at 7 PM on November 3, when the early + mail ballot totals were posted, wound up losing when all the votes were in. No one got Ed Emmett’ed, in other words. Gina Calanni and Akilah Bacy led in mail ballots, but lost early in person votes by enough that they were trailing going into Election Day. Lizzie Fletcher, Ann Johnson, and Jon Rosenthal lost the Election Day vote, but had won both mail and early in person voting, and that lead was sufficient to see them through.

– As noted, a very small percentage of the vote was cast on Election Day – 12.28% of all ballots in Harris County were Election Day ballots. That varied by district, however:


Dist     Total   E-Day   E-Day%
===============================
CD18   251,623  33,109    13.2%
CD29   161,673  30,274    18.7%

SD04    89,122   8,385     9.4%
SD06   187,819  34,996    18.6%

HD133   91,137   8,650     9.5%
HD134  111,639   9,389     8.4%
HD137   33,344   5,035    15.1%
HD140   33,614   7,325    21.8%
HD143   39,153   6,693    17.1%
HD144   32,522   6,989    21.5%
HD145   44,514   7,774    17.5%

Definitely some later voting by Latinos. Note that Sarah Davis won Election Day with 66% of the vote. There just weren’t enough of those votes to make a difference – she netted less than 3K votes from that, not nearly enough to overcome the 10K vote lead Ann Johnson had.

– There’s a conversation to be had about turnout in base Democratic districts. Countywide, turnout was 67.84% of registered voters. Of the strong-D districts, only HD148 (68.58%) exceeded that. Every strong-R or swing district was above the countywide mark, while multiple strong-D districts – HDs 137, 140, 141, 143, 144, and 145 – were below 60%. HD140 had 51.36% turnout, with HD144 at 51.81%. Harris County is strong blue now because Democrats have done an outstanding job of expanding out into formerly deep red turf – this is how districts like HDs 132, 135, and 138 became competitive, with HD126 a bit farther behind. As we discussed in 2018, deepest red districts are noticeably less red now, and with so many votes in those locations, that has greatly shifted the partisan weight in Harris County. But it’s clear we are leaving votes on the table – this was true in 2018 as well, and it was one reason why I thought we could gain so much more ground this year, to make the state more competitive. The focus now, for 2022 and 2024 and beyond, needs to be getting more votes out of these base Democratic districts and precincts. For one thing, at the most basic level, these are our most loyal voters, and we need to pay them a lot more attention. At a practical level, we need more out of these neighborhoods and communities to really put the state in play. We’ve figured out a big part of the equation, but we’re still missing some key pieces. That needs to change.

(Yes, I know, we have just talked about how perhaps some low-propensity Latino voters are much more Republican than their higher-propensity counterparts. We do need a strategy that has some thought and nuance to it, to make sure we’re not committing a self-own. But to put this in crass marketing terms, your strongest customers are the ones who have already bought your product in the past. We need to do better with them, and we start by doing better by them.)

– I’ll have more data going forward, when I get the full canvass. But in the meantime, there was one other group of people who had a propensity for voting on Election Day – people who voted Libertarian. Get a load of this:


Race         E-Day%  Total%
===========================
President     1.89%   1.03%
Senate        3.33%   1.81%
CD02          3.18%   1.59%
CD07          3.57%   1.77%
CD09          5.82%   2.97%
CD22          8.23%   5.33%
RRC           3.62%   2.08%
SCOTX Chief   4.50%   2.35%

You can peruse the other races, but the pattern holds everywhere. Seems to be the case for Green candidates as well, there are just far fewer of them. Not sure what that means, but it’s a fun fact. By the way, the Libertarian candidate in CD22 got 3.87% overall. Not sure why he was so much more popular in Harris County.

Once again with Asian-American voters

Long story in the Trib, on a topic that could use more focus.

Rep. Gene Wu

When Debbie Chen temporarily closed her Houston restaurant in March due to the coronavirus, she was worried about her health and her financial livelihood.

But as a Chinese American, she was also worried about vandalism and her physical safety, given how President Donald Trump and others were blaming China for the pandemic and using racist monikers for the virus.

Seven months later, as Texans head to the polls in the 2020 elections, she hasn’t forgotten. Chen works on Asian American and Pacific Islander voter turnout every year, but this year she feels even more motivated.

“I was so afraid someone would get attacked,” Chen said. Trump’s rhetoric “perpetuates this stereotype that Asians are foreigners or something.” [Read more about Chen’s experience during the coronavirus here.]

Voters who share Chen’s feelings could have a major impact on the 2020 elections. The share of Asian Americans nationwide remains less than 5% of the total electorate. But it’s the fastest growing racial or ethnic voting group in the country, according to the Pew Research Center.

In Texas, there are sizable Asian American communities in districts that hold an outsized importance this year. Democrats are hopeful that they can flip nine seats in the state House to gain a majority in the lower chamber ahead of next year’s legislative session. Key among those efforts are nine seats held by Republicans in which former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, received more votes than U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, in 2018. In two-thirds of those districts, the Asian share of the population is more than double the statewide share. Multiple U.S. House seats targeted by Democrats have large Asian American populations, too.

“There are some districts where there’s a significant enough level of organization and voters that can make a difference if it’s a matter of turnout and the races are close enough,” said Madeline Hsu, a history professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

Asian American voters are hardly a monolith. While the Indian American population has leaned reliably Democratic for years, Vietnamese Americans tend to lean Republican. And Filipino Americans are more evenly divided.

Since 2016, Trump has made small inroads with Vietnamese and Indian Americans but lost support among Chinese Americans, according to polls from the Asian American Voter Survey.

But recent polling also suggests that Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders, who are sometimes referred to collectively as the AAPI community, overall may turn out in higher numbers for Democrats in 2020.

“You had this ‘Chinese Americans for Trump’ phenomenon in 2016 and it looked like that was a group that was maybe going to go conservative over time,” said Karthick Ramakrishnan, a University of California, Riverside political science professor who runs a survey on Asian American voters. “But his support has actually gotten worse among Chinese Americans. It’s not just the anti-China rhetoric, but all the bigotry he unleashed during the coronavirus is hurting.”

There’s more, so go read the rest. I’ve covered this topic before, so there’s not much to add. (There was also an earlier story in the Trib that I didn’t get around to.) I wish there was some Asian-American voter-specific polling done in Texas, the way Latino Decisions does the same for that community, but for now I need to keep waiting. As with Latino voters, the key here is engagement – these folks will vote more Democratic than Republican, but you have to make an effort to get them to vote. They’re just not used to candidates and campaigns speaking to them, which is something that those of us who always vote sometimes have a hard time understanding. Sri Kulkarni made a point of doing that in his 2018 campaign, and it’s a key to 2020 as well. Whatever happens, I hope there’s an effort made after the election to figure out how it went with this community.

DFP: Biden 47, Trump 46

From Twitter:

What’s interesting about this is that the full sample of 933 voters includes 180 who have already voted. That subgroup is incredibly Democratic – Biden leads Trump 57-41 (!) among those 180 voters, taking 98% of the Democratic vote (zero to Trump), winning indies 63-33, and even getting eleven percent of Republicans (!!). MJ Hegar leads with this same crowd 54-44, with a one percent Dem vote for John Cornyn and only four percent of Republicans. If Cornyn does outperform Trump, that will be the reason. The combination of these two groups gives the 47-46 topline result.

Of the other 753 respondents, Trump leads 46-44, and he does better with Republicans (93-5) than Biden does with Dems (92-7) while also winning indies 33-30. Cornyn leads Hegar with this same crowd 43-36. It’s a much bigger group, and the could suggest a gradual shift in the vote totals in the direction of the Republicans as we go forward, but then maybe some of these folks wind up not voting. In the Senate race, there’s a bigger “Don’t know” contingent among Dems (16%, compared to 7% for the GOP), which gives Hegar some room to grow, though these folks would seem to be more likely than anyone in the sample to not vote, or at least not vote in that race.

You can make of this what you will. Data For Progress, like PPP, has generally had better results for Dems than some other pollsters, which may be their house effect. I’m more interested in the split between those who have voted and those who have not yet voted.

On a related note, there was also a poll released in the CD22 race, an internal poll from the Sri Kulkarni campaign. That poll has Kulkarni up 48-43, with Biden leading Trump 52-43 in the district. I didn’t have enough to say about this to make it a standalone post, so I’m including it here as bonus content. You’re welcome.

October 2020 campaign finance reports: Congress

This is it, the last quarterly finance report roundup for the cycle. It’s been quite the time, hasn’t it? Let’s do this and see where we are as voting continues. The January 2019 roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle, the April 2019 report is here, the July 2019 report is here, the October 2019 report is here, the January 2020 report is here, the April 2020 report is here, and the July 2020 report is here. For comparison, the January 2018 report is here, the April 2018 report is here, and the July 2018 report is here. The FEC summary page for Congress is here and for the Senate is here.

MJ Hegar – Senate

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Hank Gilbert – CD01
Sima Ladjevardian – CD02
Lulu Seikaly – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Elizabeth Hernandez – CD08
Mike Siegel – CD10
Adrienne Bell – CD14
Rick Kennedy – CD17
Wendy Davis – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
Julie Oliver – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Donna Imam – CD31


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Hegar        20,579,453 12,121,009        0  8,505,926

07    Fletcher      5,673,282  4,115,705        0  1,599,643
32    Allred        5,060,556  3,477,172        0  1,686,828  

01    Gilbert         595,890    321,193   50,000    274,697
02    Ladjevardian  3,102,882  2,373,600   50,000    729,282
03    Seikaly       1,143,345    580,360    3,000    562,985
06    Daniel          558,679    396,453        0    162,225
08    Hernandez
10    Siegel        1,994,611  1,712,734        0    285,368
14    Bell            226,601    196,623        0     35,078
17    Kennedy         190,229    161,093    8,103     30,563
21    Davis         7,917,557  6,035,908        0  1,881,649
22    Kulkarni      4,663,288  2,941,745        0  1,749,310
23    Jones         5,893,413  3,877,366        0  2,107,566
24    Valenzuela    3,589,295  2,601,580        0    987,715
25    Oliver        1,599,523  1,102,297    2,644    497,225
26    Ianuzzi         129,145     91,293   53,335     37,852
31    Imam          1,000,764    620,512        0    380,251

These totals are just off the charts. Remember how in the 2018 cycle I was freaking out as one candidate after another topped $100K? Here we have nine challengers to incumbent Republicans that have topped one million, with the tenth-place challenger still exceeding $500K. For that matter, nine out of those ten outraised their opponents in the quarter, though several still trail in total raised and/or cash on hand. I’ve run out of synonyms for “unprecedented”. All this is without accounting for DCCC and other PAC money being spent. Who could have imagined this even as recently as 2016?

The one question mark is with the incumbent Dems, as both Rep. Lizzie Fletcher and Rep. Colin Allred were outraised for the quarter. Both took in over $1.2 million apiece, so it’s not like they slacked, and they both maintain a cash on hand lead while having spent more. I don’t know what to make of that, but I’m not terribly worried about it. Republican money has to go somewhere.

MJ Hegar raised $13.5 million this quarter, and there’s some late PAC money coming in on her behalf. I wish she had been able to raise more earlier, and I wish some of the excess millions that are going to (very good!) Senate candidates in much smaller and less expensive states had come to her instead, but she’s got what she needs to compete, and she’s got a competitive race at the top of the ticket helping her, too. We don’t have a Senate race in 2022, and someone will get to run against Ted Cruz in 2024. All I can say is I hope some folks are thinking about that now, and taking some initial steps to build on what Beto and MJ have done before them.

I don’t have a whole lot to say otherwise, because these numbers speak for themselves. I mean, remember when we were a little worried about the ability of candidates like Lulu Seikaly and Julie Oliver and Donna Imam to raise enough money? Seems like a long time ago now.

Let me end with a thought about the future. Will what we saw in 2018 and 2020 carry forward? 2022 is the first post-redistricting election, so with new districts and the likelihood of some open seats, there should be plenty of action. We did see a fair amount of cash being raised in 2012, after all. If there are many more Dem incumbents, it’s for sure there will be more money flowing in. We’ll have to see how many competitive races there are beyond that. What I do know is that we have definitively proven that this can be done, that quality candidates can be found and they will be supported. We had the power, and we figured out how to use it. Hard to believe that will go away.

Endorsement watch: A Congressional four-pack

Going once again in numerical order…

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher, CD07.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher

Two years after her first-ever run for public office resulted in the defeat of a nine-term Republican incumbent, Democratic U.S. Rep. Lizzie Fletcher faces re-election with a solid record of accomplishment and a reputation for working across the aisle and serving constituents.

She has kept her promises.

We recommend that voters in Texas’ 7th Congressional District let her continue the job she has started.

[…]

Although a political novice, Fletcher, 45, hit the ground running in her first term, authoring a bill to cut federal red tape and speed disaster recovery funding that was much needed in the Houston area.

The measure passed the House with just seven votes against as Fletcher teamed with Fort Bend Republican Rep. Pete Olson and even pulled in conservative North Carolina Republican Mark Meadows as a co-sponsor. Meadows is now President Donald Trump’s chief of staff.

Fletcher also smartly sought spots on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure and Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, where she is chair of the energy subcommittee. Other panels might be more glamorous or attention-grabbing but they are not as crucial to the interests of the region NASA calls home and where the oil and gas industry and the Houston Ship Channel mean jobs, commerce and development.

Rep. Fletcher has been exactly the member of Congress I expected she would be. Smart, hard-working, very present in the district, getting stuff done. I feel good about her re-election, and I will be very interested to see what happens with CD07 in redistricting. In a world where John Culberson was still in that seat, I had figured it would continue to be moved west, to shed the blue urban-core precincts and chase red areas out in Fort Bend and Waller and wherever else. Now maybe it absorbs more blue precincts in an effort to shore up or win back any or all of CDs 02, 10, and 22. It’s going to be an exciting time. I have an interview with Rep. Fletcher coming up that will run on Monday, so look for that.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, CD18.

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

Even her opponents acknowledge that U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has earned every bit of her reputation as “a fighter.”

In the 25 years that she has represented central Houston’s 18th Congressional District, Jackson Lee, 70, has never been shy about expressing her opinion or battling for her causes.

Whether it’s bringing billions of dollars to the region for high-speed rail, pushing for disaster relief, financing a state-of-the-art automotive training center at the Houston Community College North Forest Campus, championing the placement of COVID-19 testing sites in her district, or intervening in deportation cases, Jackson Lee has a record of getting things done.

“I take advantage of the opportunities of power,” she told the editorial board. “Not to use for myself but to use for others. That is what a congressperson does.”

That’s why district residents have sent her to Washington for 13 terms with never less than 70 percent of the vote.

And it’s a major reason we recommend Jackson Lee be returned to Congress to use her experience, seniority and determination to continue delivering for her district and the state of Texas.

Well, the fact that this is a deep blue district is a good reason why voters re-elect her every two years by fifty points or so. The fact that she has rarely faced a serious primary challenger and easily bats aside the challenges she has had is due to her hard work and good results. I’ve been her constituent for nearly all of those 25 years, and I’m happy to vote for her each time. And by the way, her Republican opponent is one of the plaintiffs in the attempted assault on Harris County early voting and mail ballot dropoff locations. I’m sure the Chron would have noted that in their endorsement editorial if they had known about it in time.

Sri Kulkarni, CD22.

Sri Kulkarni

Changing demographics and a narrow escape in the 2018 elections helped persuade longtime Republican Congressman Pete Olson not to run for reelection in U.S. House District 22 this year.

The six-term incumbent’s departure sets up a showdown that mirrors the presidential race with Sri Preston Kulkarni representing the moderate approach of Democrat Joe Biden and Fort Bend County sheriff Troy Nehls aligned with the positions of President Donald Trump and the Republican Party.

The ballot also includes Libertarian Joseph LeBlanc who is running on the party’s platform of protecting individual rights and limiting government overreach.

Kulkarni, 41, a former foreign service officer with the U.S. Department of State, made his mark two years ago by running within 5 points of Olson and establishing himself as a candidate with the intelligence and cooperative attitude necessary to build coalitions and bring people together for common goals.

That makes Kulkarni our choice in this racially diverse district, which includes most of Fort Bend County, a section of Harris County and the cities of Friendswood, Missouri City, Needville, Rosenberg, and Sugar Land.

Kulkarni is one of several repeat candidates from 2018, and like the others he’s exceeded his strong fundraising from last time. He put this district on the national map in 2018, and it was there from the beginning this cycle. He’ll make a terrific member of Congress.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia, CD29.

Rep. Sylvia Garcia

Long before Sylvia Garcia was thrust into the national spotlight as a manager in President Donald Trump’s impeachment hearings, the first-term congresswoman had carved out a big name in Houston politics.

The former social worker and legal aid lawyer served five terms as director and presiding judge of the Houston Municipal System, as Houston city controller and on Harris County Commissioner’s Court before being elected to represent District 6 in the Texas Senate.

That experience gave Garcia, 70, an understanding of how government can help people — something she carried with her to Washington D.C. when in 2018 she became one of the first two Texas Latinas elected to Congress.

Her first term has been busy, and included Garcia being tapped by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to serve as a manager in Trump’s Senate impeachment hearing. That a freshman representative was recruited to fill such a visible and critical role speaks to Garcia’s knack for forming alliances and maneuvering the halls of politics.

Those skills earn Garcia our recommendation in the 29th Congressional District race. They also help her serve her district, a mostly working class swath of Harris County that includes Pasadena, Jacinto City, Baytown, Galena Park and South Houston and is home to the Houston Ship Channel and one of the nation’s largest petrochemical complexes.

I will say the same thing about Rep. Garcia as I said about her fellow first-term colleague Rep. Fletcher: She’s exactly the member of Congress I expected her to be, and basically for the same reasons. Long may she serve.

Still to be addressed by the Chron: CDs 02, 08, 09, 10, and 36. Obviously, 02 and 10 are the ones of greatest interest.

Trib overview of CD24

The focus of this story is mostly on Democrat Candace Valenzuela, as it should be.

Candace Valenzuela

She experienced homelessness at a young age. She worked several odd jobs throughout high school and college to make ends meet. A high school car accident left her with a chronic health condition.

Now she’s running for Congress hoping to flip a red seat blue, and Candace Valenzuela thinks her story as a political outsider who overcame hardships will win over voters.

“My story does resonate,” Valenzuela said in an interview with The Texas Tribune. “As soon as my constituents hear my story, it’s incredibly easy for them to relate.”

Seemingly overnight, Valenzuela has become a new face of Democrats’ optimism for 2020. Six months ago, she was an underdog in the Democratic primary for Congressional District 24, a mostly suburban North Texas district that straddles parts of Dallas, Denton and Tarrant counties. Now, she’s being touted as a potential future star — someone who could win a seat long held by U.S. Rep. Kenny Marchant, a retiring Tea Party Republican, and become the first Black Latina elected to Congress.

That Valenzuela is considered a viable candidate is another sign of the changes in Texas politics that have spurred a wave of Democratic optimism. Until recently, suburban areas like Congressional District 24 had been viewed as weak spots for the Texas Democratic Party. Now those sites are key to Democrats’ big plans for Texas in 2020. All 10 of the congressional districts Democrats hope to flip in the state are at least partially suburban — and the voters in suburban neighborhoods could decide whether the party can truly compete for the state’s Electoral College votes and win control of the Texas House.

“We need to make our Texas delegation look more like the Texans they’re designed to serve,” Valenzuela said. “We’re seeing record participation and engagement, and folks looking at what they want to see out of their representatives. If we see a win here, it’ll be the people stepping up and saying we want someone from our community who’s going to work for the community.”

There’s more, so go read the rest. I’ll be honest, I would have voted for Kim Olson in the CD24 primary based on her strong candidacy for Ag Commissioner in 2018 and her excellent fundraising. Valenzuela started out more slowly in that department but had caught up by the time of the July finance reports, and she prevailed by a convincing margin in the runoff. CD24 was a Beto-majority district, and the early polling is good. It seems very likely to me that Biden will carry CD24 by several points, and Valenzuela’s opponent is a major Trump shill, which should help. I have felt for a long time that not flipping CD24 would be a huge disappointment. I’m excited about the possibility of getting a Rep. Candace Valenzuela.

I should note, by the way, that Valenzuela has some company in the category of “would be the first person of this type elected to Congress from Texas”. (In her case, from the entire country as well.) Sima Ladjevardian and Lulu Seikaly would be the first people of Middle Eastern/North African descent to be elected to Congress from Texas. Sri Kulkarni and Gina Ortiz Jones would be the first Asian-Americans elected to Congress from Texas. We really do have a diverse state. This year we have a unique opportunity to better reflect that diversity in our elected leaders.

Is the GOP punting CD07?

That’s one possible interpretation of this, though probably not the most likely.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher

The National Republican Congressional Committee has canceled about $2 million worth of advertising it had reserved for campaigning in the Houston television market, according to several Democratic and Republican sources tracking Houston media advertising who were not authorized to discuss the issue on the record.

The Houston region is home to several contested congressional elections, including the 7th Congressional District, which is represented by U.S. Rep. Lizzie Pannill Fletcher, a Democrat. Fletcher unseated Republican John Culberson in 2018, and she is one of two Democratic incumbents who Republicans have been targeting in Texas this year.

The $2 million was intended to cover advertising in the last two weeks of the election, according to the sources.

One source, a national Republican operative, said the money has been moved to the San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth media markets. The San Antonio market includes parts of Congressional District 23, where Republicans are trying to hold on to a seat held by retiring U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes. The Dallas-Fort Worth market includes multiple districts that Democrats are trying to flip, and one district held by U.S. Rep. Colin Allred, D-Dallas, that Republicans are targeting.

[…]

There is other national GOP money coming to the region. A Republican leadership aligned group, the Congressional Leadership Fund, is expected to spend about $6.25 million in Houston between media advertising and a field operation. The group’s television ad campaign is set to begin on Sept. 23.

In the absence of any further evidence, it’s probably best to read this as the NRCC making a strategic decision, which was almost certainly affected by the knowledge that the CLF was still spending big bucks in the Houston area. I can imagine them pulling out of CD07 in favor of other districts, but not if that means that CD22 and CD02 and CD10 were also left on their own. I really don’t think there’s all that much to this story, at least based on what we know now, but if there are further pullbacks then we’ve got something. And it should be noted, that canceling an ad buy now doesn’t mean there can’t be a new ad buy made later, though the rates will likely be higher in that instance. We need more data, that’s the main takeaway here.

DCCC expands the field in Texas again

This is as wide as it goes.

Lulu Seikaly

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is adding three more districts to its Texas target list, expanding an already ambitious battlefield in the state.

The new targets of the House Democratic campaign arm are Republican Reps. Van Taylor of Plano, Roger Williams of Austin and Ron Wright of Arlington. The DCCC is now targeting 10 districts across Texas, or nearly half the GOP-held seats in the state’s congressional delegation.

“Democrats are on offense across Texas, campaigning on access to quality, affordable health care and protections for those with pre-existing conditions,” DCCC spokesperson Avery Jaffe said in a statement. “That consistent message and our 16-month long investment in Texas have put fast-changing districts like these ones in play and Democratic candidates in strong position to deliver in November.”

Julie Oliver

Taylor, Williams and Wright all won their races in 2018 by margins ranging from 8 to 10 percentage points. However, Beto O’Rourke, that year’s Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate, came closer in each district, giving some Democrats hope that they could come into play this fall with the right candidates and environment.

Taylor is being challenged by Plano lawyer Lulu Seikaly, Wright by Waxahachie attorney Stephen Daniel and Williams by Julie Oliver, who was the 2018 nominee against him and lost by 9 points.

The DCCC’s interest in the races has not been a secret. The committee polled in at least two of them earlier this summer, finding single-digit leads for the Republican incumbents — and dramatic swings in the presidential race in favor of the Democratic nominee, Joe Biden.

Still, the Democrats face an uphill battle. Taylor and Williams have large cash-on-hand advantages, and Taylor has demonstrated significant self-funding capacity. And while Wright is a weak fundraiser, he has the support of the deep-pocketed Club for Growth, which backed him in 2018 and endorsed him for reelection last week, calling him the “right candidate to represent the district and beat his radical liberal challenger, Stephen Daniel.”

See here for more on the CD25 poll, here for CD03, and here for CD06. As noted before, if Joe Biden really is in position to win Texas or come very close to it, then Dems really are in position to win a bunch of Congressional seats here as well. It’s certainly possible that Biden runs a couple of points ahead of most or all of these Dem challengers, much as Beto did in 2018, with the result that Biden carries several more than are won by the Congressional candidate. The best way to minimize that, and thus maximize the number of seats Dems win, is to boost all of the viable Democratic candidates. It’s true that some of the Dem challengers aren’t in great fundraising shape, but overall the Dems are carrying the day, so maybe the DCCC can afford to spend a bit less on the Wendy Davises and Gina Ortiz Joneses and more on the Lulu Seikalyes. Just a thought. I actually don’t know what this announcement means in real terms – it may mean little more than the DCCC telling its donors who are looking for new places to park their money that these are approved by them – but it should have some positive effect. We’ll certainly know more when the next finance reports are in. In the meantime, let us all pause for a moment and marvel at the realization that the DCCC is playing offense in ten Congressional districts in Texas. Who had that on their 2020 Bingo card?

Once again with female Congressional candidates

This is another post that was drafted in the Before Times, specifically right after the March primary. I went through the runoffs and assessed all of the races that could or would contain a female candidate or incumbent against a male opponent or open seat with a retiring male incumbent, mixed in the likelihood of said female candidate winning, and presented a range of possibilities for the number of female members of Congress in Texas in 2021, a number that now stands at six. That’s six female members of Congress out of 36 total – five Democrats (out of 13 total) and one Republican (out of 23). With the lineups for November settled, let’s do a quick review, then you can click on to see what I had written originally.

First of all, the next member of Congress in CD24 will be a woman, either Democrat Candace Valenzuela or Republican Beth Van Duyne. It would be nice to say that this means the number of women in Congress from Texas will go up, but Rep. Lizzie Fletcher could lose her race to Wesley Hunt, which would leave us at six as before. I think as things stand right now Fletcher is a clear favorite to win, but we have to allow for the possibility.

Other than Van Duyne, the only Republican running in a competitive district is Genevieve Collins in CD32 against Rep. Colin Allred, who like his fellow freshman Fletcher is the favorite to win but could lose if things go poorly from here. CD24 is one of the more Dem-leaning seats that are currently held by Republicans, but since it’s Republican-held I’d say it has slightly better odds of staying red than CD07 or CD32 have of flipping to red. Republicans can add up to two women to their caucus, and they can subtract one from the Democratic caucus, but I think the single most likely outcome is that Rep. Kay Granger remains the only Republican woman in Congress, and Rep. Lizzie Fletcher gets another term.

If that’s the case, then Dems will add at least one woman to their caucus, but given the bigger picture it’s nearly impossible to imagine that it would be one and only one. I can’t envision a scenario in which Candace Valenzuela wins but Gina Ortiz Jones does not. Wendy Davis is a notch behind those two, and then a little further behind we have Sima Ladjevardian, Lulu Seikaly, Julie Oliver, and Donna Imam. A gain of two Democratic women feels like the single most likely possibility, followed very closely by a gain of three. Four or more is more remote, but not at all out of the question.

That’s the nickel summary. More recently, The 19th wrote about this from a national perspective, with a focus on Republican efforts to recruit more and better female candidates for Congress. They all pretty neatly avoid the Donald Trump-shaped elephant in the room, but that’s their problem. Read on for my original post, which included all of the candidates who are now out of the race or who are running for seats that are not competitive.

(more…)

Congressional Dems winning the money race in Texas

The times, they have definitely changed.

Early this election cycle, U.S. Sen. John Cornyn publicly worried about complacency within the Texas Republican political class — even after Democratic gains made in 2018.

So in early 2019, the state’s senior senator encouraged Texas Republicans in the U.S. House to bolster their fundraising and think twice about sending money out of the state.

“There’s an attempt by the leadership to extract as much money as possible out of the state as they can and use that wherever they need it, and I understand that,” he told The Texas Tribune in June 2019. “But we need to make sure our Texas races — from the president and all the way down to the courthouse — are adequately financed and resourced. And that’s going to require us to raise a significant amount of money.”

More than a year later, a Texas Tribune analysis of recent campaign finance reports shows that Cornyn’s fears of a funding problem have come to life. Democratic U.S. House candidates in Texas have millions more aggregate cash on hand than their Republican counterparts. It marks an extraordinary six-year shift within the Texas delegation.

In 2016, U.S. House Republican candidates in Texas had $32.3 million on hand in July of that year. Their Democratic counterparts reported $11.4 million.

The next cycle, boosted by a backlash to President Donald Trump, Democrats saw a jump in fundraising. In 2018, Texas Republican U.S. House candidates had $34.8 million in cash on hand, compared with $21.8 million on the Democratic side.

Newly filed campaign finance reports show a complete shift this year. Republicans running for the U.S. House in Texas reported $19.2 million. Democrats had $26.7 million.

[…]

And the money affects more than just the seven or so competitive U.S. House races on the ballot.

Take the state’s 3rd Congressional District. Situated entirely in North Texas’ Collin County, it has been a longtime undisputed GOP stronghold. Mitt Romney won the district in 2012 with 64% of the vote to Barack Obama’s 34%. But in 2018, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, carried the county by only six percentage points, and U.S. Rep. Van Taylor of Plano saw the district’s margin narrow from 27 points in 2016 to 10 points during his first run for the seat in 2018.

Taylor took that race seriously, advertising on broadcast television, and he has over $1 million in cash on hand this year. His opponent, attorney Lulu Seikaly, only had about $40,000 on her last financial report, but the way she is spending that money is noteworthy. That same report revealed she had hired a national direct mail consultant. Additionally, her campaign said in a news release that it had raised $100,000 since the mid-July runoff and has had a well-regarded polling firm conduct an internal poll of the race.

Should a Democratic wave hit the state in the fall, Seikaly will already have poll-tested messaging and located vendors to potentially take advantage of the environment. If not, her efforts to bring Democrats in her district to the polls could still help others in her party above and below her on ballot. Taylor’s district overlaps considerably with that of state Rep. Jeff Leach, R-Plano, who is one of more than a dozen GOP incumbents Democrats are targeting in an effort to flip the state House.

You can see the July finance reports for Democratic Congressional candidates here. As this story notes, much of the difference comes from the two freshman Dems who knocked off Republican incumbents in 2018, Reps. Lizzie Fletcher in CD07 and Colin Allred in CD32, plus the challengers in CDs 21, 22, and 23. Sri Kulkarni in CD22 is the laggard of the bunch, with $2.5 million raised and $1.2 million on hand; the others all have at least $3.8 million raised and $2.9 million on hand. Wendy Davis has practically lapped Rep. Chip Roy in CD21. Mike Siegel in CD10 and Candace Valenzuela have less cash on hand after having to compete in the primary runoffs, but both had raised a lot as of the Q2 report and I expect they will keep it up. Sima Ladjevardian may not be able to keep up with the moneybags Dan Crenshaw, but she’s still hauled in $1.6 million.

It’s not just about what the candidates themselves have raised. Republican Congressional incumbents have been asked to kick in a bunch of money to the RNC, but their on requests to get a little help coming back have fallen on deaf ears. Usual suspects like the Club for Growth will spend big to protect their own, but the list that needs defending keeps getting longer. If there are three takeaways from all this, they’re 1) Dems should have all the resources they need to make a maximum push this November; 2) expect to be bombarded with ads like you’ve never been before – seriously, live sports is going to be a wasteland of political ads, if there are live sports this fall; and 3) Dems have no excuse for not raising a ton of money to win statewide elections in 2022.

A slightly less rosy view of Democratic prospects

Here’s the latest race ratings from Texas Elects:

Texas Election Source has updated 27 race ratings based on the latest polling, July campaign finance reports and primary runoff results. Twenty of those races moved one column toward the Democrats’ advantage. Our complete ratings are located here. Thirteen Republican-held seats in the legislature or congressional delegation are rated Toss-up or Lean Democratic. No Democrat-held seat is rated below Lean Democratic after several seats formerly in the Toss-up column were shifted into the Lean Democratic column.

The most significant impact of the new ratings on our projections is in the Texas House. Democrats need a net of nine seats to retake a majority in the chamber. We project they will get six, up three from our April ratings, which would cut the Republicans’ advantage to 77-73 entering the 2021 legislative session. Seven more Republican-held seats are projected to be within 1.5 percentage points of the range we consider a toss-up race. Only two Democrat-held seats are projected to be within 1.5 percentage points of a toss-up.

Four Republican-held seats are rated Lean Democratic, listed from greatest to least lean:

  • HD134 – Rep. Sarah Davis (R-Houston) vs. Ann Johnson (D)
  • HD138 open – Lacey Hull (R) vs. Akilah Bacy (D)
  • HD108 – Rep. Morgan Meyer (R-Dallas) vs. Joanna Cattanach (D); and
  • HD66 – Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-Plano) vs. Sharon Hirsch (D).

Since 2010, the four House seats on the list have drifted an average of 7.3 percentage points bluer, relative to the state as a whole. Two seats in other chambers – CD23 and SD19 – are also rated Lean Democratic. They have gotten relatively redder but remained 3.9 and 9.1 percentage points bluer than the state as a whole in 2018. We are projecting SD19 to get another 1.4 percentage points redder, but even that keeps it just .07% from being labeled as Likely Democratic.

Incidentally, HD134 would rate as Likely Democratic but for Davis’s consistent over-performance of other Republicans in the district. In 2018, the average Democrat received 55% of the vote in her district measured head-to-head against the Republican, but Davis survived thanks to ticket-splitting voters. Longtime political observers will remember former Rep. Jim McReynolds (D-Lufkin) who held onto his district by finishing as much as 19 points better than the rest of the Democratic slate. He was overwhelmed by rising Republican leanings in 2010 but still over-performed the rest of the ticket by 12 points. We project Davis’s ability to win over ticket-splitting voters will not be enough this year.

Dallas Co. was the epicenter of the Democratic surge in 2018. Only two Republicans represent the county in the state House currently, and we project that number will be zero after November. Tarrant Co., home to five races rated Toss-up or Lean Republican, and Fort Bend Co., with three seats in the Lean and Likely Republican columns, are expected to be the chief battleground counties in the House this year.

There’s more, so go read the rest. Texas Elects has a lot of premium content, but the free stuff is worth checking regularly.

Unlike the exuberant Capitol Inside projections, Texas Elects has the Dems falling short of a majority in the House, though it does expect three Congressional seats and SD19 to flip, and it has all of the statewide races as “Lean Republican”. You might be wondering about the inclusion of some Dem-held seats on the table, but as noted before, HDs 31, 34, and 74 are three of the four most purple districts out there that were held by Dems prior to 2018. They could be vulnerable in a bad year for Dems, though I don’t think this is that kind of year. As for HD41 and HD144, I can’t say I’m worried about them.

As that Capitol Inside projection was ebullient for Dems, this one is more sober. It sounds a little crazy to say when you think of the decade in total, but a six-seat pickup by Dems in the Lege would feel disappointing. It’s well within the range of possibility, and if all we ever think about is the best case scenario we’re not being honest with ourselves. All projections are art as well as science, in that you have to decide which factors are the most important and by how much. Individual candidates and fundraising prowess mean a lot, but so does the national environment, and so do demographic trends.

As far as candidates mattering goes, read that analysis of the HD134 race carefully. I come back to this a lot, but the key thing that happened in HD134, and in CD07 (which includes almost all of HD134) is exactly that the Democratic shift from 2016 to 2018 went much deeper than the top of the ticket. The average Republican judicial candidate won CD07 by thirteen points in 2016, and won HD134 by eight. In 2018, the average Republican judicial candidate barely won CD07. I didn’t do the exact same analysis for the State House districts, because I spent so much time talking about straight tickets and undervoting, but in service of that analysis I did this sample of judicial races, and as you can see each Dem was over fifty percent in HD134, by varying amounts. The point is, the fundamental nature of HD134 has shifted from “a Republican district that will sometimes support specific Democrats” to “a Democratic district that has – at least till now – supported Sarah Davis”. That’s what she’s up against this year, not just her November opponent but the baggage of the entire Republican Party and the prospect of a Democratic Speaker. She could hang on, and for sure she should not be underestimated, but this year, for the first time, she’s the underdog.

Anyway. I love this kind of analysis because it makes me think about my own assumptions and expectations for the year. Go take a look and see what you think.