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Elizabeth Frizell

Beto and South Texas

Dec 3rd, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

Brace yourself for a lot of stories like this in the coming months.

Beto O’Rourke

In the first days of his campaign for governor, Beto O’Rourke made a beeline to this southernmost corner of the state, saying it was no mistake he was choosing to start his run in a part of Texas where Democrats have their work cut out for them after the 2020 election.

His supporters know it, too.

“We are being attacked at all ends,” Amanda Elise Salas said as she introduced him here Wednesday night. “This is a Democratic area, and there is no way we are gonna let Republicans come in here and take over.”

“They’re knocking at our door,” Mario Saenz, a Democratic precinct chair from Brownsville, said afterward. “We cannot let them in.”

A lot of Democratic hopes are riding on O’Rourke this election cycle, but few may be more consequential to the party’s future in Texas than his ability to stave off a strong GOP offensive in South Texas. Emboldened by President Joe Biden’s underwhelming performance throughout the predominantly Hispanic region last year, Republicans have been pushing hard to make new inroads there, and O’Rourke faces an incumbent in Gov. Greg Abbott who has been working for years to win Hispanic voters.

But it is not just about halting the GOP’s post-2020 march in South Texas. O’Rourke, who is facing an uphill battle in the governor’s race, has ground to make up after his own less-than-stellar performance with voters there in 2018 when he ran for U.S. Senate — and turning out more Latino voters has long been key to Democratic hopes statewide.

O’Rourke has been candid about the problem. Days after the 2020 election, which cemented Republican dominance across Texas, he told supporters that the fact that the border region “has been ignored for years by the national party, and even many statewide Democratic candidates, hurt us badly.” Last week, he began his campaign for governor with a swing through the region, calling the early itinerary “very intentional” and vowing to return frequently.

“If the great sin committed by Republicans historically has been to disenfranchise voters, including those in the Rio Grande Valley, then that committed by Democrats has been to take those same voters for granted in the past,” O’Rourke told reporters in San Antonio, before heading south to Laredo and the Valley.

O’Rourke got a wake-up call in South Texas during the 2018 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, losing many counties in the region to a little-known and little-funded opponent, Sema Hernandez. While it was not the first time a candidate with a Hispanic surname beat expectations in a statewide Democratic primary, O’Rourke acknowledged afterward that he needed to do more outreach.

Months later, in the general election, O’Rourke failed to make significant gains in South Texas compared to his party’s 2016 presidential nominee, Hillary Clinton, which would have been key to defeating U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz. In the largest South Texas county outside San Antonio — Hidalgo — O’Rourke barely improved on Clinton’s vote share there, getting 68.8% after she got 68.5%.

Then came 2020, when Biden carried South Texas — and the Rio Grande Valley in particular — by a much narrower margin than Clinton did. He outright lost Zapata County, a longtime Democratic stronghold just north of the Valley.

[…]

Beyond any issue, though, South Texas Democrats say O’Rourke needs to show up, especially after a presidential election that left them wanting. Biden never visited Texas, let alone anywhere in South Texas, during the general election, and his running mate, Kamala Harris, visited McAllen only in the final days of the race.

To that end, South Texas Democrats are not particularly concerned about O’Rourke, who is known for his relentless campaigning. He toured all 254 counties during his 2018 race, which included a bus tour specifically focused on the border.

“We’re the poorest region of Texas, maybe one of the poorest regions in the nation, and you know, it was a huge letdown that Kamala and Biden didn’t make a prolonged appearance here in the Valley, but Beto, you know, he’s been recurringly focusing his presence here, especially in his past campaigns,” said Sebastian Bonilla, a 25-year-old from the Valley who came to see O’Rourke speak in McAllen.

Abbott has put an emphasis on South Texas since his first gubernatorial campaign in 2014, and he has been increasingly traveling there in recent months, both in his official capacity and for political appearances.

You get the idea. This kind of story is going to be the “Trump voters in diners” lodestar of 2022.

Because I tend to zero in on any actual numbers that show up in this kind of “collect a bunch of quotes and anecdotes” piece, I wondered about that Hidalgo County comparison. Just for grins, I went back and checked to see what was the best Democratic performance in Hidalgo in recent years:

2004 – JR Molina, 64.08%. For comparison, John Kerry got 54.86% against George W. Bush.

2006 – Bill Moody, 62.54%.

2008 – Linda Yanez, 73.63%.

2010 – Hector Uribe, 67.14%. That sure correlated with good Democratic performance elsewhere, eh?

2012 – Michelle Petty, 70.69%. Barack Obama got 70.40%, an improvement over the 69.02% he got in 2008.

2014 – Leticia van de Putte, 67.57%.

2016 – Dori Garza, 70.98%. Hillary Clinton got 68.50%, as noted in the story.

2018 – Steve Kirkland, 69.34%, with Beto’s 68.81% right behind. Kirkland was in a two-candidate race, while Beto and Ted Cruz also had a Libertarian in their race. Cruz’s 30.64% was actually a tiny bit behind Jimmy Blacklock’s 30.66%, though several other Republicans failed to get to 30% in their three-way races.

Latino Dems, and candidates for statewide judicial positions, were generally the high scorers. Looking at the numbers, I agree with the basic premise that Beto could have done better in South Texas than he did in 2018, and he will need to do better than Joe Biden did in 2020. The new SOS elections result website is trash and doesn’t give you a county-by-county view like it did before, so I went and found the Hidalgo County Elections page, which informed me that Biden got 58.04% in 2020, with Elizabeth Frizell being the high scorer at 61.51%; yes, another judicial candidate.

One could also point out, of course, that Biden came closer to winning Texas than Clinton did, despite doing worse in South Texas. Beto himself came as close as he did mostly by making huge gains in urban and suburban counties – to pick one example, he got 46.53% in Collin County, losing it by 22K votes, after Clinton got 38.91% and lost if by 61K votes. Beto did net 12K fewer votes in Hidalgo than Clinton did (Biden netted 32K fewer than Clinton), and he lost another 10K in Cameron County – that does add up in such a close race, though it wouldn’t have been enough to fully close the gap he still had. Ideally, he’d do better in South Texas and in the big urban and suburban counties. At least we all feel confident he’ll do the work.

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez to switch to CD34

Oct 28th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

And in doing so, he’s probably going to make it harder to hold onto CD15, the swingiest district in the state (as far as we can tell from 2020 data).

Rep. Vicente Gonzalez

U.S. Rep. Vicente Gonzalez, D-McAllen, announced Tuesday he is running for reelection in the 34th Congressional District rather than his current 15th District.

Gonzalez had been considering the move due to redistricting, which made the 15th District more competitive for Republicans — and the 34th District safer for Democrats. U.S. Rep. Filemon Vela, D-Brownsville, is retiring in the 34th District, and he has voiced support for Gonzalez’s switch.

Gonzalez’s decision was made more likely by the final version of the congressional map that Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law Monday. The map redraws the 34th District to include Gonzalez’s residence.

[…]

Gonzalez was staring down a tough race in the 15th District, where he won reelection last year by a surprisingly close margin and his 2020 challenger, Monica De La Cruz, is running again with the support of national Republicans. She reiterated Monday she remains committed to the 15th District.

Under the map that Abbott signed Monday, the 15th District shifts from one that President Joe Biden won by 2 percentage points to one that Donald Trump would have carried by 3 points. The 34th District, meanwhile, goes from a district where Biden had a 4-point margin of victory to one that he would have swept by 16 points.

In the new map, both the 15th and 34th districts remain anchored in the Rio Grande Valley, with the 15th ending in Hidalgo County and the 34th ending in Cameron County. But the 34th District was revised to be more concentrated in the Valley, which is predominantly Democratic, and the 15th District was reconfigured to include fewer blue areas outside the Valley.

Gonzalez’s decision sets off a scramble to fill the Democratic primary in the 15th District. The primary has attracted at least two candidates in recent days: Ruben Ramirez, who ran for the seat in 2016, and Eliza Alvarado, an education advocate.

See here, here, and here for some background. I don’t blame anyone for wanting to be in an easier district, or for not wanting to move, but I imagine there are some teeth being gnashed at the DCCC right now. Rep. Gonzalez has two million bucks in the bank, and now none of that is going to be used to try to hold onto a close district. The Republicans are celebrating this news, and they should. It was exactly what they wanted.

All that said, CD15 is hardly a lost cause. Multiple Democrats carried it in 2020, specifically Chrysta Castaneda, Amy Clark Meachum, Gisela Triana, and Elizabeth Davis Frizell. Nearly every Dem carried CD15 by 10-12 points in 2018, with Lupe Valdez the main exception though she still did carry it. Dems had even broader margins in 2016.

Now, we’ve studied this stuff to death, and we know that Latino districts in many places took a hard turn away from Dems in 2020, with CD15 being high on that list. There’s lots of reasons to think this is part of a larger trend, the same trend that is pushing suburbs and more college-educated voters towards the Dems even as some Latinos move away from them. But so far it’s one election, and without Donald Trump on the ballot in 2022 who knows what the many lower-propensity voters who supported Trump last year will do. The main beneficiary here may be the Democrat who wins this primary.

Or maybe not. Maybe even if one of them wins in 2022, it will be super close and they’ll get wiped out in 2024, or they’ll spend however much time they have in Congress doing nothing but fundraising because they’ll always be a top national target. Again, I don’t blame anyone for not welcoming that fate, but it is what it is. It sure would have been nice to take one for the team.

One more thing:

State Rep. Alex Dominguez, D-Brownsville, had been considered a potential candidate for the 34th District, but with Gonzalez switching races, Dominguez may run for something else. His team confirmed Friday that he was instead exploring a primary challenge to state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr., D-Brownsville.

Fine by me!

Precinct analysis: Fort Bend County, part 2

Feb 15th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

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: Statewide judicial

Dec 15th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Introduction
Congressional districts
State Rep districts
Commissioners Court/JP precincts
Comparing 2012 and 2016

We’re going to take a look at the seven statewide judicial races in this post, with all of the districts considered so far grouped together. You’re about to have a lot of numbers thrown at you, is what I’m saying. I’m ordering these races in a particular way, which is to put the contests that included a Libertarian candidate first (there were no Green candidates for any statewide judicial position, or indeed any judicial position on the Harris County ballot), and then the contests that were straight up D versus R next. There were three of the former and four of the latter, and we’ll see what we can determine about the effect that a Libertarian may have had on these races as we go.


Dist    Hecht  Meachum    Lib  Hecht% Meachum%   Lib%
=====================================================
CD02  179,887  154,785  7,979  52.50%   45.17%  2.33%
CD07  154,058  149,348  6,725  49.68%   48.16%  2.17%
CD08   25,686   15,145  1,014  61.38%   36.19%  2.42%
CD09   37,479  119,471  3,516  23.36%   74.45%  2.19%
CD10  101,965   60,290  3,917  61.36%   36.28%  2.36%
CD18   58,684  179,178  5,906  24.07%   73.50%  2.42%
CD22   21,575   20,271  1,140  50.19%   47.16%  2.65%
CD29   48,349  101,662  4,049  31.38%   65.99%  2.63%
CD36   82,593   48,435  3,259  61.50%   36.07%  2.43%
						
HD126  38,883   33,427  1,726  52.52%   45.15%  2.33%
HD127  53,978   35,464  2,040  59.00%   38.77%  2.23%
HD128  48,000   22,103  1,606  66.94%   30.82%  2.24%
HD129  47,867   35,292  2,208  56.07%   41.34%  2.59%
HD130  69,884   32,443  2,440  66.70%   30.97%  2.33%
HD131   9,887   44,240  1,236  17.86%   79.91%  2.23%
HD132  50,149   48,527  2,544  49.54%   47.94%  2.51%
HD133  51,732   35,958  1,730  57.85%   40.21%  1.93%
HD134  50,646   56,804  2,018  46.27%   51.89%  1.84%
HD135  36,285   36,987  1,891  48.28%   49.21%  2.52%
HD137  10,333   20,930    827  32.20%   65.22%  2.58%
HD138  31,730   30,982  1,548  49.38%   48.21%  2.41%
HD139  15,475   44,630  1,365  25.17%   72.60%  2.22%
HD140   9,151   21,719    840  28.86%   68.49%  2.65%
HD141   6,824   35,967    981  15.59%   82.17%  2.24%
HD142  13,637   41,662  1,238  24.12%   73.69%  2.19%
HD143  11,821   24,338    938  31.87%   65.61%  2.53%
HD144  13,535   16,631    867  43.61%   53.59%  2.79%
HD145  14,758   26,918  1,255  34.38%   62.70%  2.92%
HD146  11,363   43,152  1,235  20.38%   77.40%  2.22%
HD147  14,973   53,050  1,799  21.44%   75.98%  2.58%
HD148  22,163   36,851  1,701  36.50%   60.70%  2.80%
HD149  21,616   30,814  1,133  40.36%   57.53%  2.12%
HD150  55,585   39,695  2,339  56.94%   40.66%  2.40%
					
CC1    92,529  278,828  8,580  24.35%   73.39%  2.26%
CC2   149,483  145,171  7,746  49.43%   48.01%  2.56%
CC3   228,402  210,197 10,006  50.91%   46.86%  2.23%
CC4   239,862  214,392 11,173  51.54%   46.06%  2.40%
						
JP1    93,898  163,620  6,237  35.60%   62.03%  2.36%
JP2    33,762   49,003  2,174  39.75%   57.69%  2.56%
JP3    51,276   68,138  2,733  41.98%   55.78%  2.24%
JP4   233,213  185,525  9,970  54.40%   43.28%  2.33%
JP5   204,389  214,695  9,945  47.64%   50.04%  2.32%
JP6     7,834   27,042  1,074  21.79%   75.22%  2.99%
JP7    18,495   99,632  2,600  15.32%   82.53%  2.15%
JP8    67,409   40,933  2,772  60.67%   36.84%  2.49%

Dist     Boyd Williams    Lib   Boyd%Williams%   Lib%
=====================================================
CD02  177,810  155,876  7,349  52.14%   45.71%  2.15%
CD07  149,700  152,887  5,923  48.52%   49.56%  1.92%
CD08   25,674   15,116    894  61.59%   36.26%  2.14%
CD09   37,235  120,311  2,810  23.22%   75.03%  1.75%
CD10  101,850   60,145  3,613  61.50%   36.32%  2.18%
CD18   57,552  180,778  5,054  23.65%   74.28%  2.08%
CD22   21,529   20,300  1,030  50.23%   47.36%  2.40%
CD29   48,900  101,209  3,423  31.85%   65.92%  2.23%
CD36   82,368   48,573  2,879  61.55%   36.30%  2.15% 

HD126  38,664   33,525  1,557  52.43%   45.46%  2.11%
HD127  53,700   35,556  1,891  58.92%   39.01%  2.07%
HD128  48,078   22,019  1,431  67.22%   30.78%  2.00%
HD129  47,371   35,620  2,000  55.74%   41.91%  2.35%
HD130  69,697   32,424  2,234  66.79%   31.07%  2.14%
HD131   9,814   44,580    937  17.74%   80.57%  1.69%
HD132  50,168   48,466  2,311  49.70%   48.01%  2.29%
HD133  49,946   37,393  1,520  56.21%   42.08%  1.71%
HD134  47,593   59,069  1,938  43.82%   54.39%  1.78%
HD135  36,215   37,075  1,607  48.35%   49.50%  2.15%
HD137  10,226   21,044    708  31.98%   65.81%  2.21%
HD138  31,413   31,231  1,372  49.07%   48.79%  2.14%
HD139  15,293   44,932  1,208  24.89%   73.14%  1.97%
HD140   9,270   21,715    677  29.28%   68.58%  2.14%
HD141   6,943   36,106    738  15.86%   82.46%  1.69%
HD142  13,649   41,816  1,006  24.17%   74.05%  1.78%
HD143  11,953   24,211    783  32.35%   65.53%  2.12%
HD144  13,712   16,444    757  44.36%   53.19%  2.45%
HD145  14,749   26,907  1,082  34.51%   62.96%  2.53%
HD146  10,957   43,683    985  19.70%   78.53%  1.77%
HD147  14,628   53,564  1,547  20.98%   76.81%  2.22%
HD148  21,551   37,172  1,616  35.72%   61.61%  2.68%
HD149  21,554   30,949    980  40.30%   57.87%  1.83%
HD150  55,473   39,693  2,090  57.04%   40.81%  2.15%
						
CC1    90,441  281,651  7,183  23.85%   74.26%  1.89%
CC2   149,519  144,951  6,793  49.63%   48.11%  2.25%
CC3   224,732  213,022  8,935  50.31%   47.69%  2.00%
CC4   237,926  215,574 10,064  51.33%   46.50%  2.17%
						
JP1    90,471  166,282  5,724  34.47%   63.35%  2.18%
JP2    33,968   48,891  1,877  40.09%   57.70%  2.22%
JP3    51,567   68,134  2,269  42.28%   55.86%  1.86%
JP4   232,446  185,828  8,942  54.41%   43.50%  2.09%
JP5   201,507  217,080  8,748  47.15%   50.80%  2.05%
JP6     7,848   26,989    935  21.94%   75.45%  2.61%
JP7    17,772  100,858  2,001  14.73%   83.61%  1.66%
JP8    67,039   41,136  2,479  60.58%   37.18%  2.24%

Dist    Busby   Triana    Lib  Busby%  Triana%   Lib%
=====================================================
CD02  180,619  152,062  8,019  53.01%   44.63%  2.35%
CD07  154,593  146,826  6,759  50.16%   47.64%  2.19%
CD08   25,758   14,928    955  61.86%   35.85%  2.29%
CD09   37,362  119,463  3,094  23.36%   74.70%  1.93%
CD10  102,251   59,298  3,908  61.80%   35.84%  2.36%
CD18   58,913  178,629  5,394  24.25%   73.53%  2.22%
CD22   21,575   20,090  1,118  50.43%   46.96%  2.61%
CD29   47,694  102,644  3,275  31.05%   66.82%  2.13%
CD36   82,901   47,695  3,069  62.02%   35.68%  2.30%

HD126  38,980   33,040  1,658  52.91%   44.84%  2.25%
HD127  54,112   34,934  2,025  59.42%   38.36%  2.22%
HD128  48,180   21,765  1,477  67.46%   30.47%  2.07%
HD129  47,955   34,683  2,230  56.51%   40.87%  2.63%
HD130  70,019   31,790  2,447  67.16%   30.49%  2.35%
HD131   9,827   44,382  1,012  17.80%   80.37%  1.83%
HD132  50,189   48,200  2,493  49.75%   47.78%  2.47%
HD133  51,870   35,055  1,814  58.45%   39.50%  2.04%
HD134  51,239   55,036  2,250  47.21%   50.71%  2.07%
HD135  36,361   36,664  1,790  48.60%   49.01%  2.39%
HD137  10,325   20,780    812  32.35%   65.11%  2.54%
HD138  31,761   30,656  1,497  49.69%   47.96%  2.34%
HD139  15,489   44,606  1,222  25.26%   72.75%  1.99%
HD140   8,987   21,995    659  28.40%   69.51%  2.08%
HD141   6,791   36,116    798  15.54%   82.64%  1.83%
HD142  13,605   41,732  1,042  24.13%   74.02%  1.85%
HD143  11,665   24,588    733  31.54%   66.48%  1.98%
HD144  13,471   16,721    744  43.54%   54.05%  2.40%
HD145  14,593   27,092  1,061  34.14%   63.38%  2.48%
HD146  11,412   42,928  1,129  20.57%   77.39%  2.04%
HD147  15,183   52,758  1,661  21.81%   75.80%  2.39%
HD148  22,402   36,229  1,688  37.14%   60.06%  2.80%
HD149  21,574   30,729  1,065  40.42%   57.58%  2.00%
HD150  55,675   39,155  2,284  57.33%   40.32%  2.35%
						
CC1    92,822  277,923  7,778  24.52%   73.42%  2.05%
CC2   149,446  144,793  6,922  49.62%   48.08%  2.30%
CC3   228,849  207,334  9,987  51.29%   46.47%  2.24%
CC4   240,549  211,588 10,904  51.95%   45.70%  2.35%
						
JP1    94,735  161,383  6,127  36.12%   61.54%  2.34%
JP2    33,518   49,255  1,882  39.59%   58.18%  2.22%
JP3    51,327   68,119  2,341  42.14%   55.93%  1.92%
JP4   233,635  183,442  9,668  54.75%   42.99%  2.27%
JP5   204,626  212,437  9,722  47.95%   49.78%  2.28%
JP6     7,711   27,250    875  21.52%   76.04%  2.44%
JP7    18,508   99,518  2,270  15.39%   82.73%  1.89%
JP8    67,606   40,234  2,706  61.16%   36.40%  2.45%

Dist    Bland    Cheng  Bland%   Cheng%
=======================================
CD02  186,706  154,725  54.68%   45.32%
CD07  159,574  149,326  51.66%   48.34%
CD08   26,540   15,186  63.61%   36.39%
CD09   39,465  120,736  24.63%   75.37%
CD10  105,349   60,323  63.59%   36.41%
CD18   62,985  180,105  25.91%   74.09%
CD22   22,415   20,441  52.30%   47.70%
CD29   51,670  102,080  33.61%   66.39%
CD36   85,490   48,367  63.87%   36.13%

HD126  40,209   33,586  54.49%   45.51%
HD127  55,788   35,414  61.17%   38.83%
HD128  49,423   22,087  69.11%   30.89%
HD129  49,640   35,394  58.38%   41.62%
HD130  71,946   32,493  68.89%   31.11%
HD131  10,622   44,674  19.21%   80.79%
HD132  52,183   48,781  51.68%   48.32%
HD133  53,308   35,720  59.88%   40.12%
HD134  52,985   55,899  48.66%   51.34%
HD135  37,544   37,368  50.12%   49.88%
HD137  10,776   21,212  33.69%   66.31%
HD138  32,815   31,243  51.23%   48.77%
HD139  16,488   44,881  26.87%   73.13%
HD140   9,808   21,860  30.97%   69.03%
HD141   7,537   36,159  17.25%   82.75%
HD142  14,573   41,837  25.83%   74.17%
HD143  12,622   24,375  34.12%   65.88%
HD144  14,320   16,647  46.24%   53.76%
HD145  15,721   27,079  36.73%   63.27%
HD146  12,136   43,482  21.82%   78.18%
HD147  16,299   53,306  23.42%   76.58%
HD148  23,760   36,701  39.30%   60.70%
HD149  22,218   31,229  41.57%   58.43%
HD150  57,472   39,861  59.05%   40.95%
				
CC1    98,928  280,012  26.11%   73.89%
CC2   156,101  145,437  51.77%   48.23%
CC3   236,143  210,982  52.81%   47.19%
CC4   249,022  214,861  53.68%   46.32%
				
JP1    99,802  162,942  37.98%   62.02%
JP2    35,454   49,274  41.84%   58.16%
JP3    53,615   68,275  43.99%   56.01%
JP4   241,226  186,223  56.43%   43.57%
JP5   211,577  216,054  49.48%   50.52%
JP6     8,598   27,274  23.97%   76.03%
JP7    20,093  100,384  16.68%   83.32%
JP8    69,829   40,866  63.08%   36.92%

Dist    BertR  Frizell  BertR% Frizell%
=======================================
CD02  182,683  156,878  53.80%   46.20%
CD07  154,962  152,062  50.47%   49.53%
CD08   26,171   15,356  63.02%   36.98%
CD09   38,285  121,530  23.96%   76.04%
CD10  103,856   61,112  62.96%   37.04%
CD18   60,147  182,281  24.81%   75.19%
CD22   22,094   20,602  51.75%   48.25%
CD29   49,588  103,742  32.34%   67.66%
CD36   84,033   49,223  63.06%   36.94%
				
HD126  39,527   33,961  53.79%   46.21%
HD127  54,907   35,913  60.46%   39.54%
HD128  48,755   22,498  68.43%   31.57%
HD129  48,845   35,746  57.74%   42.26%
HD130  71,099   32,881  68.38%   31.62%
HD131  10,143   45,055  18.38%   81.62%
HD132  51,129   49,476  50.82%   49.18%
HD133  51,832   36,580  58.63%   41.37%
HD134  50,395   57,371  46.76%   53.24%
HD135  36,941   37,669  49.51%   50.49%
HD137  10,540   21,336  33.07%   66.93%
HD138  32,162   31,590  50.45%   49.55%
HD139  15,861   45,360  25.91%   74.09%
HD140   9,330   22,296  29.50%   70.50%
HD141   7,087   36,609  16.22%   83.78%
HD142  14,019   42,335  24.88%   75.12%
HD143  12,089   24,821  32.75%   67.25%
HD144  13,871   17,022  44.90%   55.10%
HD145  15,087   27,539  35.39%   64.61%
HD146  11,553   43,886  20.84%   79.16%
HD147  15,480   53,890  22.32%   77.68%
HD148  22,624   37,382  37.70%   62.30%
HD149  21,970   31,301  41.24%   58.76%
HD150  56,572   40,268  58.42%   41.58%
				
CC1    94,471  283,329  25.01%   74.99%
CC2   152,430  147,946  50.75%   49.25%
CC3   231,007  213,789  51.94%   48.06%
CC4   243,911  217,725  52.84%   47.16%
				
JP1    94,825  166,188  36.33%   63.67%
JP2    34,572   49,950  40.90%   59.10%
JP3    52,322   69,282  43.03%   56.97%
JP4   237,425  188,270  55.77%   44.23%
JP5   207,011  218,653  48.63%   51.37%
JP6     8,115   27,625  22.71%   77.29%
JP7    18,911  101,267  15.74%   84.26%
JP8    68,638   41,554  62.29%   37.71%

Dist    Yeary  Clinton  Yeary% Clinton%
=======================================
CD02  181,198  157,995  53.42%   46.58%
CD07  151,549  154,946  49.45%   50.55%
CD08   26,274   15,252  63.27%   36.73%
CD09   38,213  121,550  23.92%   76.08%
CD10  103,978   60,908  63.06%   36.94%
CD18   59,656  182,560  24.63%   75.37%
CD22   21,975   20,676  51.52%   48.48%
CD29   50,071  103,069  32.70%   67.30%
CD36   83,847   49,311  62.97%   37.03%

HD126  39,406   34,008  53.68%   46.32%
HD127  54,799   35,974  60.37%   39.63%
HD128  48,866   22,330  68.64%   31.36%
HD129  48,336   36,186  57.19%   42.81%
HD130  71,143   32,784  68.45%   31.55%
HD131  10,107   45,059  18.32%   81.68%
HD132  51,349   49,189  51.07%   48.93%
HD133  50,252   37,973  56.96%   43.04%
HD134  47,809   59,740  44.45%   55.55%
HD135  36,998   37,557  49.63%   50.37%
HD137  10,513   21,328  33.02%   66.98%
HD138  31,954   31,731  50.18%   49.82%
HD139  15,775   45,409  25.78%   74.22%
HD140   9,482   22,099  30.02%   69.98%
HD141   7,189   36,455  16.47%   83.53%
HD142  14,134   42,173  25.10%   74.90%
HD143  12,173   24,673  33.04%   66.96%
HD144  13,989   16,866  45.34%   54.66%
HD145  15,119   27,441  35.52%   64.48%
HD146  11,410   43,976  20.60%   79.40%
HD147  15,255   54,067  22.01%   77.99%
HD148  22,154   37,759  36.98%   63.02%
HD149  21,889   31,344  41.12%   58.88%
HD150  56,659   40,145  58.53%   41.47%
				
CC1    93,178  284,268  24.69%   75.31%
CC2   152,526  147,534  50.83%   49.17%
CC3   228,374  215,887  51.41%   48.59%
CC4   242,683  218,581  52.61%   47.39%
				
JP1    92,164  168,445  35.36%   64.64%
JP2    34,638   49,779  41.03%   58.97%
JP3    52,563   68,943  43.26%   56.74%
JP4   237,318  188,099  55.78%   44.22%
JP5   205,042  220,128  48.23%   51.77%
JP6     8,132   27,549  22.79%   77.21%
JP7    18,576  101,549  15.46%   84.54%
JP8    68,328   41,778  62.06%   37.94%

Dist   Newell    Birm  Newell%    Birm%
=======================================
CD02  183,283  155,303  54.13%   45.87%
CD07  154,445  151,554  50.47%   49.53%
CD08   26,375   15,075  63.63%   36.37%
CD09   39,055  120,306  24.51%   75.49%
CD10  104,616   60,043  63.53%   36.47%
CD18   61,174  180,645  25.30%   74.70%
CD22   22,249   20,322  52.26%   47.74%
CD29   51,148  101,583  33.49%   66.51%
CD36   84,501   48,451  63.56%   36.44%

HD126  39,784   33,498  54.29%   45.71%
HD127  55,127   35,497  60.83%   39.17%
HD128  49,062   22,055  68.99%   31.01%
HD129  48,920   35,437  57.99%   42.01%
HD130  71,414   32,353  68.82%   31.18%
HD131  10,424   44,586  18.95%   81.05%
HD132  51,878   48,536  51.66%   48.34%
HD133  51,273   36,800  58.22%   41.78%
HD134  49,412   57,931  46.03%   53.97%
HD135  37,337   37,104  50.16%   49.84%
HD137  10,697   21,067  33.68%   66.32%
HD138  32,371   31,165  50.95%   49.05%
HD139  16,204   44,873  26.53%   73.47%
HD140   9,722   21,767  30.87%   69.13%
HD141   7,342   36,259  16.84%   83.16%
HD142  14,466   41,754  25.73%   74.27%
HD143  12,491   24,246  34.00%   66.00%
HD144  14,227   16,561  46.21%   53.79%
HD145  15,377   27,059  36.24%   63.76%
HD146  11,707   43,563  21.18%   78.82%
HD147  15,713   53,487  22.71%   77.29%
HD148  22,748   37,026  38.06%   61.94%
HD149  22,175   30,953  41.74%   58.26%
HD150  56,974   39,704  58.93%   41.07%
				
CC1    95,668  281,099  25.39%   74.61%
CC2   154,203  145,222  51.50%   48.50%
CC3   231,571  211,887  52.22%   47.78%
CC4   245,404  215,077  53.29%   46.71%
				
JP1    94,960  165,091  36.52%   63.48%
JP2    35,233   48,975  41.84%   58.16%
JP3    53,108   68,215  43.77%   56.23%
JP4   238,952  185,854  56.25%   43.75%
JP5   208,027  216,365  49.02%   50.98%
JP6     8,409   27,151  23.65%   76.35%
JP7    19,213  100,651  16.03%   83.97%
JP8    68,944   40,983  62.72%   37.28%

Another word about the order in which these races appeared. On the Harris County election returns page, they appeared in the order you’d expect: first was the Supreme Court Chief Justice race, then Places 6, 7, and 8, followed by Court of Criminal Appeals Places 3, 4, and 9. In other words, the order a random person off the streets might have put them in if they had been tasked with it. For whatever the reason, on the Secretary of State election returns page, the order is different: Chief Justice, then Supreme Court Places 8, 6, and 7, followed by CCA Places 4, 9, and 3. I have no idea why they did it this way.

What difference does it make? The answer is in the total number of votes cast. The generally accepted wisdom is that the farther down the ballot, the more likely it is that a voter will skip the race, presumably because they thought “well, that’s all the voting I have in me, I’m going to call it quits now”. This was the underpinning of the many breathless articles about the effect of not having straight ticket voting, which came with the implicit assumption that Democratic voters would have less endurance in them, thus giving Republican candidates farther down the ballot an advantage. You know how I felt about that.

That said, the dropoff effect was there, albeit in a small amount. Here are the turnout totals for each race, going by the order on the Harris County ballot, which I’m taking as the proper order for elsewhere in the state. (You can check other county election sites to check this, I’ve already spent too much time on it.)


Position      Statewide     Harris
==================================
President    11,315,056  1,640,818
Senate       11,144,040  1,614,525
RRC          11,000,982  1,594,345
SC Chief     10,997,978  1,596,369
SC Place 6   10,954,061  1,591,486
SC Place 7   10,961,811  1,590,486
SC Place 8   10,948,768  1,588,895
CCA Place 3  10,918,384  1,584,608
CCA Place 4  10,898,223  1,583,031
CCA Place 9  10,879,051  1,580,131

I included the other statewide races here for comparison. There is some dropoff, but it’s pretty small – at both the statewide and Harris County level, the last race still got more than 96% of the vote total of the Presidential race. The dropoff among just the state offices is much more minimal, which I can understand – if all you care about is who’s running the country, you’ll probably stop after President, Senate, and Congress, which will be the third race on your ballot. Note also that with one exception in each column, the totals comport with their order on the ballot. Someday I might like to meet the person who decides to get off the bus after voting in three of the four Supreme Court races, or one of the three CCA races. Today is not that day, however.

The other thing to talk about here is how the candidates in races with a Libertarian candidate did versus the ones in races without a Libertarian. My eyeball sense of it is that the Republican candidates in two-person races picked up more of the erstwhile Libertarian voters in the redder districts, and the effect was more diffuse in the Dem districts, but I can’t say that with any level of rigor. There are too many factors to consider, including the gender and race of the candidates and their campaign finances and tenure in office and who knows what else. Maybe someone with a PhD can create a viable model for this.

Beyond that, what we see in these numbers is what we’ve been seeing all along. CD07 was a slightly tougher environment than it was in 2018, with three of the seven Democratic candidates carrying it. CD02 is basically a seven- or eight-point Republican district. HD135 leaned slightly Democratic, while HDs 132 and 138 leaned slightly more Republican, and HD134 completed its journey to becoming a Democratic district. Commissioner Precincts 2, 3, and 4 were all slightly to slightly-more-than-slightly red, but it won’t take much in redistricting to flip that around, at least for precincts 2 and 3. Everyone carried Constable/JP precinct 5, while precinct 4 remains a bit of a stretch. Lather, rinse, repeat.

If you’re wondering why I haven’t included SBOE and State Senate districts in these reports before now, wonder no more. I’ll be delving into those next. Let me know what you think.

UH-Hobby: Trump 50, Biden 45

Oct 27th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
29 comments

Here’s a poll result that stands in contrast to the others we have seen lately.

President Donald Trump is leading Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden by more than five points among likely voters in Texas, according to a poll released Monday by the Hobby School for Public Affairs at the University of Houston.

The poll, conducted between Oct. 13 and Oct. 20, found 50% of voters said they already had or will vote for Trump, while 44.7% said they had or will vote for Biden.

Trump and running mate Mike Pence carried Texas by nine points in 2016.

The Republican edge held for statewide contests down the ballot, including for U.S. Senate, Texas Railroad Commission and three statewide judicial races covered by the poll.

“Record turnout in early voting clearly shows the state’s Democrats are energized, but at least at the top of the ticket, that enthusiasm appears unlikely to overcome the Republican advantage among men, Anglos and older voters,” said Renée Cross, senior director of the Hobby School. “In fact, we found the Republican candidate leading by wider margins in statewide races farther down the ballot.”

Among the findings:

  • More than 40% had already voted at the time of the poll. Biden held a substantial edge among those voters, leading Trump 59% to 39%. Almost two-thirds of those who plan to vote on Election Day said they will vote for Trump.
  • Incumbent U.S. Sen. John Cornyn leads Democratic challenger MJ Hegar 48.9% to 41.6%.
  • Republican Jim Wright is leading in the race for an open seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, with 46.8% of the vote; Democrat Chrysta Castañeda has 38.4%.
  • Biden holds a slight edge among women, 49.5% to 46%. Trump is preferred among men by a notably larger margin, 54.3% to 39.5%.
  • While 63% of Anglos support Trump, and 87% of African-American voters back Biden, the gap is narrower among Latino voters: 56% support Biden, and 38% back Trump.
  • Republican Nathan Hecht leads Democrat Amy Clark Meachum 47.5% to 40% for Texas Supreme Court chief justice. For Supreme Court Justice Place 6, Republican Jane Bland leads Democrat Kathy Cheng 49.2% to 40.1%.
  • Republican Bert Richardson leads Democrat Elizabeth Davis Frizell 48.2% to 38.3% for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Judge Place 3.

The full report is available on the Hobby School website.

The Hobby School did a primary poll in February and one Trump-Clinton poll around this time in 2016; they also did a couple of polls of Harris County in 2016. As noted in their introduction, this was a YouGov poll, so similar in nature to the UT/Texas Tribune polls. As I alluded to in the headline, this is the first poll we’ve had in awhile that was this positive for Trump, and it especially stands in contrast with that UT-Tyler poll that came out over the weekend. What does one make of this?

You can peruse the poll data as you wish. I’m going to note one thing that really stood out to me. The following is a list of how Independent voters went in each of the last nine polls over the past month for which that data was available (in other words, skipping the Morning Consult polls). See if you can see what I saw:


Poll      Biden   Trump
=======================
UH-Hobby     34      51
UTT/DMN      51      29
Q'piac Oct   50      39
DFP          40      36
PPP          60      35
UT-Trib      45      37
UML          43      39
NYT/Siena    41      37
Q'piac Sep   51      43

Yeah, that’s a very different result for independent voters than for basically every other poll we’ve seen. Note that the UT-Trib poll had Trump up by five, as did the Quinnipiac poll from September (both were 50-45 for Trump, in fact), and that UMass-Lowell poll had Trump up 49-46. As the song goes, one of these things is not like the others.

There are other things that can be said about this poll – I appreciate the “who has voted” versus “who has yet to vote” distinction, and I appreciate the inclusion of downballot races though I tend to discount those results because of the increase in “don’t know” responses – but this is the main thing I wanted to cover.

Links to the cited polls, and their data or crosstabs page where the numbers I included can be found:

UT-Tyler/DMN – data
Quinnipiac – data
Data for Progress – data
PPP – data
UT-Trib (data about indies in quoted excerpt)
UMass-Lowell – data
NYT/Siena – data
Quinnipiac – data

I will also note that Jim Henson and Joshua Blank have observed a shift in independents’ preferences in Texas towards indies this cycle. And now I will stop beating this horse.

Endorsement watch: Judicial races

Oct 13th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The Chron endorses two Dem challengers and one Republican incumbent for the Court of Criminal Appeals.

Judge Tina Clinton

A court’s legitimacy derives in part from its capacity to inspire trust in the minds of those who live by its rulings. “There cannot be a trust among the African American community that the system is fair when the judges dispensing that justice are all represented by just one group,” Judge Tina Yoo Clinton, a Dallas County district court judge whom we recommend for Place 4, said last month at a virtual forum organized by the Innocence Project of Texas. She was noting that there are currently no Black justices on the court, and just one of nine members is Latino.

It’s a valid point, but it’s also true that in the context of the Court of Criminal Appeals, diversity must also include a broader range of ideological perspective and of life experience. That’s because how a judge sees the law — and how he or she applies it to a particular case — is far more complex than sound bites about “activist judges” or labels such as conservative and liberal.

[…]

Place 4, Tina Yoo Clinton (D)
Tina Yoo Clinton, 50, has more than 14 years experience as a judge and 10 more as a prosecutor. She brings a combination of a veteran judge’s experience and the enthusiasm and fresh perspective of a newcomer. It’s exactly the mix the court needs.

For that reason, we recommend her over Justice Kevin Yeary, who has been on the court since 2014.

“Clearly when you look at what is going on in the United States within the criminal justice system, we have to recognize that even though we want justice to be colorblind, it is not colorblind,” Clinton said during last month’s candidate forum.

That’s a starting point that will help shape the discussions among the nine justices in ways that keep fairness at the center of the debate. Matched with her long experience and commitment to follow the law, we believe she will help render justice in which all Texans can have faith.

Place 9, Brandon Birmingham (D)
We recommend voters elect Dallas County criminal district court Judge Brandon Birmingham, 43, in Place 9, even at the high cost of losing Justice David Newell, whose voice on questions of actual innocence has been reasoned and refreshing.

But he adheres to the court’s overall emphasis on textualism, and approaches each case within a narrower view of what justice requires than would his opponent. The court’s nine members urgently need new perspectives, new sets of life experiences, and new vantage points from which to see the law and the facts in order to render decisions that have credibility with an increasingly skeptical public.

Birmingham would stretch the boundaries of that debate — and would do so using experience as a judge, a prosecutor and a change agent.

They also endorsed Justice Bert Richardson, who I will agree is a good judge, over challenger Elizabeth Frizell. At least here, the Chron did more than just nod in the direction of increasing the diversity of this court, as they did with the Supreme Court.

In the other judicial races, the Chron endorsed all four Republican incumbents on the First and Fourteenth Courts of Appeals, and five Dems and five Republicans (plus one abstention) for the district courts. I’m just going to say this: If there’s one thing we should take away from the Merrick Garland/Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett experiences, it’s that the judiciary is to Republicans (with a huge push from the professional conservative movement) nothing but an expression of political power. Gorsuch was given, and Barrett almost certainly will be given, a lifetime tenure on the US Supreme Court, where they will consistently rule in favor of Republican and conservative positions, because the Republican-held Senate had the power to block Garland and install the other two.

Here in Texas, where we elect judges as part of the regular electoral process, there has been a call to move away from partisan elections of judges and towards some other, as yet undefined system, which may involve appointments or bipartisan panels or who knows what else. This push has emerged and grown as Democrats have begun to assert more political power in Texas – I’ve been documenting it since 2008, when we elected Democratic judges for the first time since the early nineties. What the voters want is more Democratic judges, and so it has become Very Important for the Republicans that still retain full power in this state to make sure they don’t get them.

As a matter of abstract principle, I would agree that we could do a better job picking judges than the current system we have, where judges are voted on by people who mostly have no idea who they are and what they do. I’m sure if we put a few sober and learned types in a room for a few hours, they would emerge with a perfectly fine system for selecting judges on pure merit. But we’ve had this imperfect system for a long time, and when it benefitted the Republicans it was just fine. It certainly benefits them right now, when questions about voting rights are being litigated. If more Democratic judges get elected this cycle, I consider that just to be some balance on the scales. When we get to a point of having solid Democratic majorities on the Supreme Court and the CCA, and there’s a Democratic Governor and Lt. Governor and Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, then come back with a fully-formed plan for non-partisan meritocratic judicial selections, and we can talk. Until then, I say elect more Democrats, including and especially Democratic judges. Politics has been a key part of this process from the beginning. The fact that the politics are slowly starting to favor the Democrats is not a compelling reason to change that. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Statesman overview of the statewide judicial races

Feb 20th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

It’s good to have a full slate of qualified candidates.

After years of trouble scraping together enough candidates to run for seats on both statewide courts, Texas Democrats have the opposite situation in 2020 — contested primaries in almost every race.

In all four races for the Texas Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil court, two Democrats are vying to challenge Republican incumbents.

And for the state’s top criminal court, multiple Democrats are running in two of three available races for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals.

The renewed Democratic interest comes after the party’s court candidates lost by 6 to 8 points in 2018 — defeats that seem strong after the party’s judicial candidates were drubbed by an average of 24 points in 2010.

As an added incentive, Democratic judicial candidates tend to do better in presidential election years like 2020.

Contested primaries are a mixed blessing, offering an opportunity to improve name recognition but depleting campaign coffers, particularly in Supreme Court races in which GOP incumbents can raise more than $1 million in contributions, largely from civil lawyers and law firms. In contrast, races for the Court of Criminal Appeals tend to be low-cost affairs.

Let me start by saying once again that the “contested primaries are resource drains” narrative continues to be tiresome, and in a year where a lot of people will be voting in the primary it’s very much a good thing for voters to have some idea of who you are ahead of November. There are brief writeups of each candidate, not much more than that, but it’s a start. I have Q&A responses from a couple of the candidates, Judge Amy Clark Meachum (Supreme Court, Chief Justice) and Steve Miears, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 4. Texas Lawyer has Q&As with nearly all of these candidates as part of their judicial race coverage. Their Supreme Court candidate Q&As are here and for the Court of Criminal Appeals here. The Erik Manning spreadsheet shows everyone’s endorsements, and as you can see there were a lot of split decisions.

One race has drawn a bit more heat than the others, the Supreme Court Chief Justice primary.

Judge Amy Clark Meachum

Jerry Zimmerer, a Houston appeals court justice running for Texas Supreme Court, said his Democratic primary opponent, Amy Clark Meachum, has “selfish” motivations for running, pointing to the fact that she has cast her campaign to be the first woman elected chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court as a historic one.

“I just think somebody who wants to try to break barriers for their own benefit is not going to be successful,” Zimmerer told The Texas Tribune in an interview Thursday. “I just don’t think that’s what voters are looking for. … I just think that’s a goal she wants to achieve for herself.”

He said his campaign is different because “I actually want the best candidate to win.”

“I may not be the first anything, but I’m going to be the best,” he said.

Meachum said Zimmerer “should run on his own record instead of attacking mine.” Throughout her campaign, Meachum has said she hopes to restore balance to the all-Republican court and champion women in the legal profession.

“If he chooses to disparage a more qualified and experienced judge because of her gender, he’ll find himself on the wrong side of history,” she said. “These sorts of sexist comments are straight from the 1950s.”

[…]

In a state bar poll that gauges Texas attorneys’ support for judicial candidates, Meachum won more favor than Zimmerer, with 1,779 votes to his 326. The Republican incumbent, Chief Justice Nathan Hecht, won 2,706 votes.

Meachum has said she is the Democrats’ best chance at winning a seat on the high court for the first time in more than two decades.

“I don’t exactly look like or sound like my primary opponent, my general election opponent, or any of the men who have previously been elected Chief Justice,” she said in a Houston Chronicle questionnaire. “I am making an important statement for women in the law and women in our party in 2020 and I would appreciate your support!”

Reached Friday for comment, Zimmerer said, “As someone who has traveled the state trying to pull together all the different groups that make up the Texas Democratic Party into a cohesive coalition, I have concerns with those who would seek to divide us.”

Yeah, put me down in support of Judge Meachum on this one. I know both of these candidates and I like them both, but I disagree with Justice Zimmerer’s argument. We’ll see what the voters think.

Endorsement watch: Sri again

Feb 20th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The Chronicle endorses Sri Kulkarni in the CD22 primary.

Sri Kulkarni

We see Kulkarni as the strongest possible candidate for Democrats hoping to turn the seat blue. A former Foreign Service officer with the U.S. Department of State, Kulkarni is the son of an immigrant father and a mother whose family descends from Sam Houston. That mix of insider and outsider perspectives has served him well in a career that involved compromise and dialogue with hostile parties all over the world. He seems to prioritize civility and is open to finding common ground with those who differ from him ideologically.

He said he quit his post in the Foreign Service in 2017 when it became difficult to defend positions adopted by President Trump on race and immigration and decided to run for Congress. But for all his global perspective – he says he speaks six languages well – Kulkarni impressed us with his commitment to help people in his district. He wants Congress to remove marijuana as a Schedule 1 narcotic so it can more readily be used as medicine for veterans and others whom it can help. He also promised to help area residents reduce the flood risk along the Gulf Coast region.

Given his close finish against Olson two years ago, Democrats can be optimistic about Kulkarni’s prospects for flipping the seat. He’s raised enough money for his campaign to contest even the best-financed Republican opposition in November. We recommend Democrats take advantage of that head start and vote for him in the primary.

The Chron endorsed Kulkarni in 2018, so this is not a huge surprise. They also had some nice things to say about Derrick Reed and Nyanza Moore despite the recent unpleasantness between them. Maybe they wrote this before that happened, or maybe they just decided not to clutter up their endorsement of Kulkarni with that side issue, I dunno. They also endorsed the latest Bush progeny in the Republican primary, if anyone cares.

Also in their meandering path to finishing off the endorsements, the Chron recommends Elizabeth Frizell for Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3.

As a criminal defense attorney, Elizabeth Frizell has seen defendants who are wrongfully convicted and others who receive the death penalty in cases where a life sentence would have been more appropriate. She has seen higher courts rule verdicts in criminal trials must stand, even when lawyers or judges made significant errors in the trials that produced them.

Frizell, who is running in the Democratic primary for the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals Place 3, says those issues would be among her top priorities in reviewing cases if elected.

The former Dallas County Criminal District Court judge, who has 26 years of legal experience, has also served as a municipal court judge and county family law judge. She narrowly lost her 2018 bid to be the Democrats’ nominee for Dallas County District Attorney. Prior to becoming a judge, she was a criminal defense attorney for 13 years and handled death penalty and court-appointed cases.

Frizell would bring a much-needed voice to the Court of Criminal Appeals, long an all-Republican bench. Her experience as a lawyer gives her insight into the flaws of the legal system, something that would help her weigh the life-and-death decisions that come before Texas’s highest criminal court. In the last fiscal year, for instance, the Court of Criminal Appeals reviewed eight death penalty cases.

Frizell has also been endorsed by the Dallas Morning News and San Antonio Express News, according to the invaluable Erik Manning spreadsheet. William Demond has collected most of the group endorsements. Make of that what you will.

January 2020 campaign finance reports: Statewide

Jan 24th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

There’s a whole lot of candidates of interest for state offices. I’m going to break them down into several groups, to keep things simple and the posts not too long. Today we will look at the candidates for statewide office. This will include the statewide judicial races, and both Republicans and Democrats. I have previously done the Harris County reports.

Roberto Alonzo, RRC
Chrysta Castaneda, RRC
Kelly Stone, RRC
Mark Watson, RRC

Ryan Sitton, RRC

Amy Clark Meachum, Supreme Court, Chief Justice
Jerry Zimmerer, Supreme Court, Chief Justice

Nathan Hecht, Supreme Court, Chief Justice

Kathy Cheng, Supreme Court, Place 6
Lawrence Praeger, Supreme Court, Place 6

Jane Bland, Supreme Court, Place 6

Brandy Voss, Supreme Court, Place 7
Staci Williams, Supreme Court, Place 7

Jeff Boyd, Supreme Court, Place 7

Peter Kelly, Supreme Court, Place 8
Gisela Triana, Supreme Court, Place 8

Brett Busby, Supreme Court, Place 8

William Demond, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3
Elizabeth Frizell, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3
Dan Wood, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3

Gina Parker, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3
Bert Richardson, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3

Tina Clinton, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 4
Steve Miears, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 4

Kevin Yeary, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 4

Brandon Birmingham, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 9

David Newell, Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 9


Candidate     Raised     Spent     Loan     On Hand
===================================================
Alonzo         1,500     8,458    7,340       3,840
Castaneda     46,297    42,196   26,000      46,297
Stone         25,331    23,465    3,875       3,018
Watson           750     3,762        0         750

Sitton       480,850   154,832  378,899   2,514,759

Meachum      139,370    42,854        0     119,067
Zimmerer      10,680    22,213   20,000      45,251

Hecht        296,168   146,575        0     531,660

Cheng          1,315    41,200   84,167       8,129
Praeger        1,280     5,227   10,000       1,280

Bland        335,707    73,945        0     277,965

Voss         100,696   135,076  100,000     169,470
Williams      55,154   105,936        0      59,074

Boyd         134,844   100,193      177     562,533

Kelly         30,527     7,037        0      50,963
Triana       100,970    39,710        0     106,577

Busby        260,378   129,825        0     542,918

Demond        4,250      5,050    5,000       3,599
Frizell       1,000        988        0          11
Wood          6,490     68,592        0      41,291

Parker       58,195     82,247   25,000      21,055
Richardson   52,975     21,690    4,500      35,207

Clinton           0     10,216   25,000       4,944
Miears            0      3,750        0           0

Yeary        14,355     11,203    3,004       6,245

Birmingham   29,770     16,375   10,960      25,003

Newell        8,879      7,370        0       1,391

Railroad Commissioner is not a high profile office and not one for which a bunch of money is usually raised, though Ryan Sitton has clearly made good use of his five-plus years on the job. If you’ve listened to my interviews with Chrysta Castañeda and Kelly Stone, you know that I’m a little scarred by goofy results in some of our statewide primaries in recent cycles. Strange things can and do happen when people have no idea who the candidates are, as the likes of Grady Yarbrough and Jim Hogan can attest. On the plus side, I’d say three of the four candidates running in this primary would be fine – Castañeda and Stone are actively campaigning, Roberto Alonzo is a former State Rep, you can have confidence they’ll do their best. As for Mark Watson, at least I could identify him via a Google search. It’s a low bar to clear, you know?

I don’t often look at finance reports for judicial candidates – there’s just too many of them, for one thing, and they usually don’t tell you much. None of what I see here is surprising. The Republican incumbents have a few bucks, though none of their totals mean anything in a statewide context. I’m guessing the Dems with bigger totals to report had cash to transfer from their existing accounts, as District Court or Appeals court judges. It’s possible, if we really do see evidence of the state being a tossup, that some PAC money will get pumped into these races, for the purpose of making sure people don’t skip them. Everyone has to be concerned about the potential for undervotes to have an effect on the outcome, in this first year of no straight ticket voting.

As for the Court of Criminal Appeals, well, the money’s on the civil side of the house. It is what it is. I’ll be back with the Lege next, and then the SBOE and State Senate after that.

After-deadline filing review: Courts

Jan 3rd, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Let’s return to the wonderful world of scoping out our candidates. Today we will concentrate on judicial races. Previous entries in this series are for the greater Houston area, Congress, state races, and the Lege.

Supreme Court and Court of Criminal Appeals

I’ve actually covered all of these races, and given bits of info about the candidates, here and here. Go read those posts for the details, and here as a reminder are the candidates’ names and Facebook pages:

Supreme Court, Position 1 (Chief Justice) – Amy Clark Meachum
Supreme Court, Position 1 (Chief Justice) – Jerry Zimmerer

Supreme Court, Position 6 – Brandy Voss
Supreme Court, Position 6 – Staci Williams

Supreme Court, Position 7 – Kathy Cheng
Supreme Court, Position 7 – Lawrence Praeger

Supreme Court, Position 8 – Gisela Triana
Supreme Court, Position 8 – Peter Kelly

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3 – William Demond
Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3 – Elizabeth Frizell
Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3 – Dan Wood

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 4 – Brandon Birmingham

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 9 – Tina Yoo Clinton
Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 9 – Steve Miears

First and 14th Courts of Appeals

Covered to some extent here, but there has been some subsequent activity, so let’s get up to date.

Veronica Rivas-Molloy – 1st Court of Appeals, Place 3
Dinesh Singhal – 1st Court of Appeals, Place 3
Jim Sharp – 1st Court of Appeals, Place 3

Rivas-Molloy and Singhal were mentioned previously. Jim Sharp is the same Jim Sharp that won in 2008 and lost in 2014.

Amparo Guerra – 1st Court of Appeals, Place 5
Tim Hootman – 1st Court of Appeals, Place 5

Both candidates were also previously mentioned. This is the seat now vacated by Laura Carter Higley.

Jane Robinson – 14th Court of Appeals, Place 1, Chief Justice
Jim Evans – 14th Court of Appeals, Place 1, Chief Justice

Jane Robinson has been mentioned previously. Jim Evans was a candidate for Family Court in 2014, and was appointed as an associate judge on the 507th Family Court in 2017, making him the first openly gay family court judge in Texas. He doesn’t have a campaign presence yet as far as I can tell.

Wally Kronzer – 14th Court of Appeals, Place 7
Tamika Craft – 14th Court of Appeals, Place 7
Cheri Thomas – 14th Court of Appeals, Place 7
V.R. Faulkner – 14th Court of Appeals, Place 7
Dominic Merino – 14th Court of Appeals, Place 7
Lennon Wright – 14th Court of Appeals, Place 7

Not sure why this court has attracted so many contestants, but here we are. Kronzer was the only candidate I knew of in that previous post; Cheri Thomas came along a bit later, and the others were all later in the filing period. Texas Judges can tell you some more about the ones that don’t have any campaign presence.

Harris County District Courts

The following lucky duckies have no opponents in the primary or the November general election:

Kristin Hawkins (11th Civil)
Kyle Carter (125th Civil)
Mike Englehart (151st Civil
Robert Schaffer (152nd Civil)
Hazel Jones (174th Criminal)
Kelli Johnson (178th Criminal)
Ramona Franklin (338th Criminal)

The next time you see them, congratulate them on their re-election. The following almost-as-lucky duckies are in a contested primary for the 337th Criminal Court, with the winner of the primary having no opponent in November:

Brennen Dunn, who had been in the primary for the 185th Criminal Court in 2018; see his Q&A here.
Colleen Gaido.
Veronica Sanders.
David Vuong
John A. Clark, whom I cannot positively identify. I hope everyone sends in Q&A responses, but I’m not voting for any candidate I can’t identify. I hope you’ll join me in that.

The following do not have a primary opponent, but do have a November opponent:

Fredericka Phillips (61st Civil).
RK Sandill (127th Civil), who in 2018 was a candidate for the Supreme Court.
Michael Gomez (129th Civil).
Jaclanel McFarland (133rd Civil)
Elaine Palmer (215th Civil).

Natalia Cornelio is currently unopposed in the primary for the 351st Criminal Court following the rejection of incumbent Judge George Powell’s application. That may change pending the outcome of Powell’s litigation in the matter.

The following races are contested in both March and November:

Larry Weiman (80th Civil, incumbent).
Jeralynn Manor (80th Civil).

Alexandra Smoots-Thomas (164th Civil, incumbent). Formerly Smoots-Hogan, now dealing with legal issues of her own.
Cheryl Elliott Thornton (164th Civil), who has run for Justice of the Peace and County Civil Court at Law in the past.
Grant Harvey (164th Civil).

Ursula Hall (165th Civil, incumbent).
Megan Daic (165th Civil).
Jimmie L. Brown, Jr. (165th Civil).

Nikita Harmon (176th Criminal, incumbent).
Bryan Acklin (176th Criminal).

Randy Roll (179th Criminal, incumbent).
Ana Martinez (179th Criminal).

Daryl Moore (333rd Civil, Incumbent).
Brittanye Morris (333rd Civil).

Steven Kirkland (334th Civil, incumbent). It’s not a Democratic primary without someone challenging Steve Kirkland.
Dawn Rogers (334th Civil).

Te’iva Bell (339th Criminal).
Candance White (339th Criminal).
Dennis Powell (339th Criminal), whom I cannot positively identify.
Lourdes Rodriguez (339th Criminal), whom I also cannot positively identify.

Julia Maldonado (507th Family, incumbent).
Robert Morales (507th Family).
CC “Sonny” Phillips (507th Family).

That about covers it. I should do a separate entry for JPs and Constables, and I did promise a Fort Bend entry. So there will likely be some more of this.

UPDATE: I missed Robert Johnson, the incumbent Judge of the 177th Criminal District Court (the court that now has Ken Paxton’s trial), in the first go-round. Johnson had an opponent file for the primary, but that application was subsequently rejected. He has no November opponent, so you can add him to the list of people who have been re-elected.

We should have a full statewide slate

Nov 17th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Nice.

Judge Gisela Triana

For Brandon Birmingham, a state district judge in Dallas, the 2020 race for Texas Court of Criminal Appeals started on election night 2018.

As he watched Beto O’Rourke win more votes than any Texas Democrat ever had in a statewide race, Birmingham — who himself won reelection that night with 100% of the vote in his countywide district — began to mull his own chances at winning Texas. Within weeks, he’d reached out to the state Democratic Party. By December, he’d sat down with party officials over breakfast in Dallas to discuss a possible run.

Now, as the 2020 election season begins in earnest after the start of the filing period Nov. 9, Birmingham is one of 14 Democrats seeking one of seven seats on the state’s two high courts — an unusually crowded and unusually qualified field for races that have over the past two decades plus proved suicide missions for Democrats. This year, with a controversial Republican president on the ballot and sky-high stakes for Texas Democrats, candidates are hoping the races look more like heroes’ journeys.

“In 2018, 2016, 2014, 2012, the last four cycles, the month of October was spent talking and begging people to come to us, to run for these kinds of offices,” said Glen Maxey, a former Texas House member who is coordinating statewide judicial races for the Texas Democratic Party. “That’s what’s different about 2020. We did not make a single phone call. … We have not twisted a single arm about doing this.”

In past years, Maxey said, the party was often scrambling to find “any qualified attorney” to put on the ballot. This year, nearly every race involves at least one sitting judge or justice with years of experience.

[…]

Strategists sometimes consider statewide judicial races the best measure of the state’s true partisan split: Whom do voters pick when they know little or nothing about either party’s candidate?

Statewide judicial races are “important to watch in terms of partisan vote behavior,” said Mike Baselice, a GOP pollster. They show a “good reflection of base Democratic and base Republican vote in the state.”

That also means that judicial candidates typically rise and fall as a slate: Most likely, either all of them will win or none of them will, strategists acknowledge. It’s a blunt theory, but it offers clear strategic guidance: A rising tide lifts all boats.

“We won’t have them each deciding to be at the same chicken fry in Parker County on the same Friday,” Maxey said. Instead, he said, they’ll tell nominees: “We need you to travel. We need you to be making appearances as seven people in seven different media markets every day, so that people are hearing a Democratic message about equal justice, all over, everywhere.”

I agree with Mike Baselice that judicial races do indeed do a good job of measuring partisan vote behavior. As you know, I’ve been using CCA races across the years as my point of comparison. I like judicial races at the county level even more because they are almost always straight up R-versus-D contests, but a lot of these go uncontested in counties that have strong partisan leans, so the statewides are the best overall proxy.

By that measure, 2018 was easily the most Democratic year in recent memory. The Supreme Court and CCA Democratic candidates ranged from 45.48% (in a race that included a Libertarian) to 46.83%, the best showing since Sam Houston got 45.88% in 2008 and Margaret Mirabal got 45.90% in 2002. I’d quibble slightly with the assertion that all the Dems will win or none of them will – there is some spread in these races, so if the state is basically 50-50, you could have a couple Dems sneak through while others just fall short. That’s basically what happened in Harris County judicial races in 2008 and 2012, after all. The presence or absence of third party candidates could be a factor as well, as more candidates in the race means fewer votes, and only a plurality, are needed to win. Again, this is only relevant if the state is truly purple, and the range of outcomes that include a split in the judicial races is narrow, but it could happen.

My one complaint here is that the story only names one Democratic CCA candidate, while teasing that there are many more. So I asked some questions, of reporter Emma Platoff and Patrick Svitek, reporter and proprietor of the Patrick Svitek spreadsheet of announced candidates, and now that Statewide tab is full. Here. for your perusal, are your Democratic statewide judicial candidates:

Amy Clark Meachum – Supreme Court, Position 1 (Chief Justice)
Jerry Zimmerer – Supreme Court, Position 1 (Chief Justice)

Supreme Court, Position 6 – Brandy Voss
Supreme Court, Position 6 – Staci Williams

Supreme Court, Position 7 – Kathy Cheng
Supreme Court, Position 7 – Lawrence Praeger

Supreme Court, Position 8 – Gisela Triana
Supreme Court, Position 8 – Peter Kelly

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3 – William Demond
Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3 – Elizabeth Frizell
Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3 – Dan Wood

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 4 – Brandon Birmingham

Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 9 – Tina Yoo Clinton
Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 9 – Steve Miears

Kelly is a Justice on the First Court of Appeals, elected in 2018. He doesn’t appear to have an online campaign presence yet, but a search for “peter kelly texas supreme court” yielded this.

William Demond is a “constitutional rights attorney” in Houston. Elizabeth Frizell is a former County Criminal Court judge in Dallas who ran for Dallas County DA in 2018 but lost in the primary. This story in The Appeal has some information about her candidacy from that year. Dan Wood is a criminal appellate lawyer who ran for the Fifth Court of Appeals in 2012 and for CD05 in 2018.

Brandon Birmingham, the one candidate named in the story, was elected to the 292nd Criminal District Court in Dallas in 2014, re-elected in 2018.

Tina Clinton serves as Criminal District Judge Dallas County Number 1, which is a felony court. I don’t know why the nomenclature is different from the other District Courts as I had not heard of this kind of court before, but similarly-named courts exist in Tarrant and Jefferson counties as well. She was elected to this court after serving eight years as a County Criminal Court judge, and you can scroll down the 2018 election results page to see more judges like her. Steve Miears is a criminal and criminal appellate attorney from Grapevine.

And now we’re as up to date as we can be The Secretary of State is now providing candidate filing information, which tells me that as of Friday Lawrence Praeger was the only one to have formally filed. More are to follow, and I’ll keep an eye on it.