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SD30

Precinct analysis: The new Senate map

Mar 22nd, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Previously: New State House map, New Congressional map, new SBOE map.

The good news is that all 31 Senate seats will be on the ballot this year, as it is a post-redistricting year. The bad news is that the only seat likely to flip is the maybe-illegal-but-still-in-effect SD10; the second most likely is SD27, the one now held by Sen. Eddie Lucio. That will be a gain if the Dems hold it, which I think they probably will, but will put the Senate back at 20-11 for the Republicans otherwise. There are some potential opportunities for Dems going forward, but nothing likely to happen this year.

As before, I’m tracking how things changed over the course of the past decade, this time using the new data. You can find the 2012 election results for the new map here and the 2020 results here. I didn’t use the 2016 results in my analysis below, but that data is here if you want to see it. 


Dist   Obama   Romney Obama%Romney%     Biden    Trump Biden% Trump%
====================================================================
06   105,626   52,984  65.8%  33.0%   145,880   72,715  66.1%  32.7%
13   187,437   43,220  80.5%  18.6%   226,746   60,286  78.1%  20.8%
14   191,555  103,810  62.4%  33.8%   345,920  108,857  74.4%  23.4%
15   142,022  106,550  56.2%  42.2%   230,947  119,685  64.9%  33.6%
16   119,834   97,550  54.4%  44.2%   187,870   99,542  64.4%  34.1%
19   109,976   83,451  56.1%  42.5%   175,552  134,463  55.8%  42.7%
20   110,074   71,399  59.9%  38.9%   144,904  118,940  54.3%  44.6%
21   117,376   71,625  60.8%  37.1%   174,822  123,149  57.7%  40.7%
23   204,165   61,090  76.3%  22.8%   264,146   72,143  77.5%  21.2%
26   139,600   92,037  59.2%  39.1%   212,130  109,171  64.9%  33.4%
27   111,764   70,555  60.6%  38.3%   136,710  124,352  51.7%  47.1%
29   120,466   64,673  64.1%  34.4%   185,726   94,771  65.2%  33.3%


Dist   Obama   Romney Obama%Romney%     Biden    Trump Biden% Trump%
====================================================================
02    94,149  177,976  34.1%  64.5%   161,107  220,682  41.6%  57.0%
05    82,888  160,877  33.3%  64.6%   156,179  228,271  39.8%  58.2%
07    79,567  188,133  29.3%  69.4%   168,148  233,850  41.2%  57.4%
08    88,143  185,954  31.6%  66.7%   191,671  245,415  43.1%  55.1%
09    90,737  172,539  33.9%  64.5%   165,645  216,751  42.6%  55.7%
10   110,253  175,089  38.1%  60.6%   155,339  214,676  41.4%  57.2%
11    93,575  181,599  33.5%  65.1%   159,989  228,246  40.6%  57.9%
12   100,021  216,120  31.2%  67.3%   199,086  253,764  43.3%  55.2%
17    86,387  190,448  30.8%  67.9%   159,728  227,577  40.7%  57.9%
18    92,022  166,546  35.2%  63.7%   154,983  232,105  39.5%  59.2%
22    95,398  182,516  33.8%  64.7%   147,821  232,500  38.3%  60.2%
24    91,044  176,436  33.4%  64.7%   156,584  233,635  39.4%  58.7%
25    93,417  215,045  29.7%  68.5%   199,751  290,020  40.1%  58.3%


Dist   Obama   Romney Obama%Romney%     Biden    Trump Biden% Trump%
====================================================================
01    87,651  239,661  26.5%  72.5%    98,697  292,767  24.9%  73.9%
03    96,180  229,714  29.2%  69.7%   102,401  286,961  26.0%  72.9%
04    75,007  202,881  26.7%  72.1%   136,167  260,866  33.8%  64.8%
28    69,681  214,055  24.2%  74.4%    90,616  255,182  25.8%  72.7%
30    73,532  181,183  28.4%  69.9%   159,983  258,982  37.6%  60.8%
31    48,092  193,082  19.7%  79.0%    62,274  239,238  20.4%  78.2%

My analysis for the 2020 election under the old map is here, and my look at the decade shift under the old map is here. You can see the new map in the District viewer, and you might find the District population by county useful.

I split the districts into three groups: Dem seats, which is to say the seats that I’d expect Dems to win in 2022 (in other words, not counting the likely doomed SD10), seats Dems could reasonably think about targeting in a future cycle, and Republican seats. For the first group, SD27 is as discussed a potential problem, in future elections if the trend in 2020 holds, though as previously noted it was more Democratic downballot. I’m actually a little surprised the Republicans didn’t go after SD19, but at least by the numbers they left it more or less as it was. SD20 is mostly Hidalgo and Nueces counties, so I don’t expect too much more movement based on past history, but we’ll keep an eye on it anyway.

The middle group contains a few districts that are mostly optical illusions, where the net voter deficit hasn’t really changed but the percentages have shifted towards the mean, because that’s how math works. It also contains some districts that legitimately moved quite a bit in the Dem direction over the past decade – SDs 02, 07, 08, 09, 12, and 17, with 08 and 12 being on the far outer fringes of competitiveness now. These are all mostly urban/suburban districts, so one would expect the trends to continue, though whether that can happen fast enough to matter is the key. I grouped these together because it’s kind of impressive to see how tightly they cluster in that 55-60% range. We talked several times pre-redistricting about what level of risk the Republicans were willing to tolerate this time around, as they were now dealing with a state that had far fewer surplus Republican voters to slosh around. All of the maps we’ve looked at have had similar clusters, of similar sizes, so I guess we have an answer to that question now.

That leaves a small number of deep red districts, and even that is a tiny bit of a misnomer, as SD30 had a modest net gain in Dem voters. Obviously, Republicans needed to have more not-so-dark-red districts to maximize their membership, but some places are just geographically inclined to be that intensely crimson. I note that SD30 went from being about one-third comprised of pieces of Denton and Collin counties to a bit more than half made up of Denton and Collin. Unlikely to be enough to make it long-term competitive, but it won’t shock me if its topline Republican percentage falls below 60 at some point.

That’s all there is for this series. The next step is to see how the 2022 numbers stack up against 2018 and 2020, and see what trends emerge, continue, and end. The single most likely outcome of this new map is that SD10 flips as it is designed to do, but what to expect after that is up in the air.

Precinct analysis: State Senate district comparisons

May 24th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

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

Let me start with some Twitter:

There’s more to the thread, but those are the bits I wanted to highlight. It’s true, as noted in the previous post, that Dems lost some ground in the Latino districts in 2020. You’ll see that here in a minute. But it’s also very much true that they gained a lot of votes elsewhere, in the more white districts. Some of those are the ones that flipped in 2018 or might have flipped in 2020 had they been on the ballot. Some were in places where Dems were already strong. Some were in districts that actually look to be competitive now, having not been so even four years ago. Why don’t I just show you the data?


Dist   1216R   1216D    1620R   1620D   1220R     1220D	Dem net
===============================================================
14    -9,951  56,887   26,677  97,954   16,726  154,841  138,115
08    -7,593  38,270   32,030  82,158   24,437  120,428   95,991
16   -22,137  35,202   21,611  58,302     -526   93,504   94,030
17   -19,619  38,114   34,892  56,566   15,273   94,680   79,407
25     3,422  37,037   65,613  95,402   69,035  132,439   63,404
07    -6,676  33,604   42,494  60,489   35,818   94,093   58,275
15    -6,708  27,545   28,163  48,882   21,455   76,427   54,972
10    -8,347  13,076   23,099  54,113   14,752   67,189   52,437
26    -2,174  20,179   20,009  44,154   17,835   64,333   46,498
09       -60  17,910   24,193  48,973   24,133   66,883   42,750
12    13,859  30,860   59,095  84,527   72,954  115,387   42,433
23    -3,003   3,751   13,010  43,679   10,007   47,430   37,423
29    -1,674  34,889   29,559  30,398   27,885   65,287   37,402
05    14,069  25,990   54,548  74,087   68,617  100,077   31,460
11     1,957  20,541   46,098  46,384   48,055   66,925   18,870
06    -4,554  20,223   21,712  13,637   17,158   33,860   16,702
13    -2,928      72   16,907  30,419   13,979   30,491   16,512
19    10,638  16,958   45,127  42,821   55,765   59,779    4,014
02    11,532  10,026   35,894  38,391   47,426   48,417      991

As discussed before, the columns represent the difference in vote total for the given period and party, so “1216” means 2012 to 2016, “1620” means 2016 to 2020, and “1220” means 2012 to 2020. Each column has a D or an R in it, so “1216R” means the difference between 2016 Donald Trump and 2012 Mitt Romney for the Presidential table, and so forth. In each case, I subtract the earlier year’s total from the later year’s total, so the “-9,951” for SD114 in the “1216R” column means that Donald Trump got 9,951 fewer votes in 2016 in SD14 than Mitt Romney got, and the “56,887” for SD14 in the “1216D” column means that Hillary Clinton got 56,887 more votes than Barack Obama got. “Dem net” at the end just subtracts the “1220R” total from the “1220D” total, which is the total number of votes that Biden netted over Obama. Clear? I hope so.

These are the districts where Dems gained over the course of these three elections. Lots of Republican turf in there, including the two D flips from 2018 and the two districts that both Biden and Beto carried but didn’t flip in 2018 (SDs 08 and 17), but the big gainer is that Democratic stronghold of SD14, where demography plus population growth plus a heavy duty turnout game led to a vast gain. Really, we Dems don’t appreciate Travis County enough. SD15, my district, has a nice showing as well, while SD26 is there to remind us that not all Latino districts went the way of the Valley.

We have the two 2018 flip districts, SDs 16, now practically a D powerhouse, and 10, which didn’t shift quite as much but was the most Dem-leaning Romney district from 2012 – you may recall, Wendy Davis won re-election there despite it going only 45% for Obama – and we have the two Biden-won Republican in 08 – who knew this one would shift so radically left – and 17. We’ve discussed SD07 before, and how it’s now teetering on swing status and won’t be of much use to the Republicans when they try to shore themselves up, but look at SD25, a district that has moved strongly left despite encompassing Comal County, the I-35 version of Montgomery. Look at the shifts in SD12, which is still not competitive but also not as big a GOP stronghold, and SD05, which has moved along with Williamson County. The key takeaway here is that more of the Senate is going to have to be centered on the Houston-San Antonio-D/FW triangle, and that part of the state is much more Democratic than it was a decade ago. This is the big problem Republicans have to solve.

Dems have some room to improve as well. I discussed SD13 in the Harris County reviews, and I believe there’s untapped potential in this district. It’s 80% Democratic to begin with, so improvements in turnout and voter registration are going to pay off in a big way. SD23 was more like 13 in 2016, but acquitted itself nicely in 2020. I suspect there are a lot of voters here who will need more contact and engagement in 2022. I know there were votes left on the table in 2018, and we need to be conscious of that.

Finally, there are three other Latino districts besides SD26 in this list. We’ve discussed SD06 before, which had a big uptick in Democrats while seeing fewer Republicans in 2016, then saw more Republicans turn out in 2020. In the end, the Dem percentage was basically the same in 2020 as in 2012, with a larger net margin, but the trend needs watching. SD19, which Dems took back in 2020 after that embarrassing special election loss, had a similar pattern as with SD06 except with a smaller net Republican gain in 2020. This district has a lot of border turf, which trended red in 2020, but it also has a good chunk of Bexar County, which got bluer and likely mitigated the overall shift. I feel like this district is more likely to drift in a Republican direction than SD06 is, but that will depend to some extent on how it’s redrawn. SD29, anchored in El Paso, had the same big Dem shift in 2016, then saw roughly equivalent gains by both parties in 2020. I think it’s more likely to get bluer over time, and there’s always room for Dem growth in El Paso, though as with SDs 13 and 23, it will require engagement.

Overall, these 19 districts represent a net gain of over 900K votes for Dems. Joe Biden collected about 600K more votes than 2012 Obama did, so there’s votes going the other way as well. Here are those districts:


Dist   1216R   1216D    1620R   1620D   1220R     1220D	Dem net
===============================================================
18    15,109  19,337   58,614  49,787   73,723   69,124  -4,599
04    10,564  14,667   54,680  39,023   65,244   53,690 -11,554
24    11,125   7,102   51,143  42,472   62,268   49,574 -12,694
21     9,828  13,573   43,738  26,297   53,566   39,870 -13,696
20     7,675  17,839   42,214  18,130   49,889   35,969 -13,920
22    17,969   6,092   48,183  37,910   66,152   44,002 -22,150
27     7,486  15,779   37,504   6,942   44,990   22,721 -22,269
28     6,727  -2,691   33,163  17,453   39,890   14,762 -25,128
31     6,956   3,954   36,050  10,696   43,006   14,650 -28,356
01    11,123  -6,966   34,452  17,623   45,575   10,657 -34,918
30    30,275   7,133   75,839  47,839  106,114   54,972 -51,142
03    20,610  -6,936   48,423  14,385   69,033    7,449 -61,584

Here’s the current Senate map, to remind you of where these districts are. SDs 22 and 24 have the most turf inside the big population triangle, while SD04 has most of its people there. SD22 currently includes Johnson and Ellis Counties, and it’s not too hard to imagine them beginning to trend blue over the next decade, while SD24 includes Bell and Coryell, which also have that potential.

I’m actually a little surprised to see that SDs 04 and 18 got a little bluer in 2016, before snapping back in 2020. I’ll have to take a closer look at them, on a county by county basis, to see what the big factors were. Fort Bend is going our way, and I have hope that we can make progress in Montgomery, and that’s going to be a big key to this decade.

The big Republican gainers, as noted in the last post, are mostly in East Texas and West Texas/the Panhandle, with SD03 including the north part of Montgomery. The main question will be how much of these districts will have to include the faster-growing parts of the state. That’s a calculation that won’t be very friendly to the incumbents, one way or another.

Finally, there are the three Latino districts, SDs 20, 21, and 27. All three followed the same pattern of a Dem gain in 2016 followed by a bigger Republican gain in 2020. SD27 remained solidly Democratic, while 20 and 21 are much closer to swing status though as noted in the previous post the incumbents all ran comfortably ahead of the pack. Republicans could certainly try to make a district more amenable to them out of this part of the state. How that would affect their other priorities, and how much of what we saw in 2020 continues past that year are the big questions. All other Dems carried these three districts as well, more or less at the same level as Biden. The good news for the Republicans then is that the new voters that Trump brought in were there for more than just him.

As you can see, there are fewer districts in which Dems lost ground, and the total number of votes they ceded is about a third of what they picked up elsewhere. You can see how G. Elliott Morris’ tweet thread applies here. As was the case with the State House and Congress, the Republican gerrymander of the State Senate in 2011 was very effective, until it wasn’t. It’s the same story here as it is for the other chambers, which is how do they assess the risk of a strategy that aims to gain them seats versus one that just aims to hold on to what they’ve got.

Next up will be a look at the State House district results from 2020. When the 2020 data for Congress and the SBOE finally show up, I’ll do the same for them as well. Let me know what you think.

Precinct analysis: State Senate districts 2020

May 17th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

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

Hey, look, we now have some 2020 district data. I found it all on the new Texas Legislative Council redistricting landing page. As of last week, when I went digging, only the State Senate and State House have 2020 data, so I’m going to spend a little time with them.

The 2020 State Senate election results by district are here. The first thing you need to know is that Joe Biden carried 15 of the 31 Senate districts. Here they are, in descending order of Biden’s percentage:


Dist    Biden    Trump   Biden%   Trump%
========================================
23    237,533   52,415    80.9%    17.8%
13    208,895   46,896    80.8%    18.1%
14    347,953  132,727    70.8%    27.0%
29    180,899   87,022    66.5%    32.0%
26    191,570   92,307    66.4%    32.0%
06    123,709   61,089    66.1%    32.6%
15    208,552  110,485    64.5%    34.1%
27    125,040   90,758    57.3%    41.6%
16    210,107  159,233    56.0%    42.5%
19    176,256  149,924    53.3%    45.3%
21    155,987  132,733    53.2%    45.3%
10    199,896  170,688    53.1%    45.4%
20    143,598  128,363    52.2%    46.6%
17    212,242  193,514    51.6%    47.0%
08    231,252  211,190    51.3%    46.9%

For the record, Beto carried the same fifteen districts in 2018. I’ll do a separate post on comparisons with other years, but I figured that was a thought many of you might have, so let’s address it here.

Only Biden carried the two Republican districts, SD08 and SD17. The range for other Democrats in SD08 was 46.4% (Chrysta Castaneda) to 48.1% (Elizabeth Frizell), and in SD17 from 46.5% (Gisela Triana) to 49.0% (Tina Clinton). Every Democrat got over 50% in each of the 13 Dem-held districts. This is consistent with what we’ve seen in Harris and Fort Bend Counties, where Biden outperformed the rest of the ticket by three or four points. For what it’s worth, we saw a very similar pattern in 2016, when Hillary Clinton ran ahead of other Dems, in some cases by quite a bit more. I’m thinking specifically of CDs 07 and 32, but there are other examples. My big question all throughout the 2018 cycle was whether those voters who voted for Clinton but otherwise generally voted Republican downballot would be inclined to vote for more Democrats that year, and judging by the results I’d say the answer was mostly Yes. We’ll have to see what happens this time around.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the lower-than-expected percentages in the Latino districts. SD20 is Chuy Hinojosa, and he won re-election by a 58.5% to 48.5% margin. SD21 is Judith Zaffirini, and she cruised 60.1% to 39.9%, while our old friend Eddie Lucio took SD27 64.8% to 35.2%. You may recall that in an earlier post on the Latino vote in 2020, one factor put forward for Trump’s better-than-expected performance was incumbency. As you can see, these incumbent Dems all ran comfortably ahead of Joe Biden. Now take a look at SD19, where Roland Gutierrez knocked out incumbent Pete Flores with a seemingly unimpressive 49.9% to 46.7% score. However much stock you put in the overall hypothesis, I’d say Flores’ incumbency helped him here. Not enough, thankfully. As for the two urban districts, SDs 06, 26, and 29, I’ve discussed SD06 before, so I’ll skip it. SD26 is basically on par with 2016, while SD29 slipped a bit from then but improved by a little bit over 2012. Again, I’ll get into more detail in a subsequent post.

Where Democrats really improved is in the whiter urban and suburban districts. SD14 was always a Democratic stronghold, but it really punched above its weight in 2020. No Republican district generated as many votes for Trump as SD14 did for Biden, and only one Republican district had a wider margin for Trump. We Dems maybe don’t appreciate Travis County as much as we should. I’ve discussed SD15 and how it went from a solid Dem district to a powerhouse in 2020. Look at SD16, which was a Dem takeover in 2018, and marvel at how Mitt Romney won it in 2012 with 57% of the vote. This is the kind of voting behavior shift that should have Republicans worried, and as you’ll see there’s more where that came from. Similar story at a lesser scale in SD10, which Trump carried in 2016 by a fraction of a point.

And then we have the two Republican districts that Biden carried. Both were battlegrounds in 2018, and I think the closeness of the race in SD08 was a genuine surprise to a lot of people, myself included. That’s a district that has shifted enormously, but it’s got more company than you might think. To understand that better, let’s look at the districts that Trump won, as above sorted by the percentage that Biden got.


Dist    Biden    Trump   Biden%   Trump%
========================================
09    161,000  166,632    48.3%    50.0%
25    256,178  302,919    45.1%    53.3%
07    188,150  232,201    44.1%    54.5%
05    199,253  250,002    43.4%    54.5%
12    211,292  270,287    43.2%    55.2%
11    161,818  232,156    40.4%    58.0%
02    138,917  208,774    39.4%    59.2%
18    161,933  271,898    36.8%    61.9%
22    128,415  253,102    33.2%    65.4%
04    142,522  281,331    33.2%    65.5%
24    126,340  257,861    32.3%    65.9%
30    121,646  329,601    26.5%    71.9%
01     92,593  265,715    25.5%    73.3%
28     76,925  222,872    25.3%    73.3%
03     77,364  294,559    20.6%    78.4%
31     59,684  229,768    20.3%    78.2%

Biden came within less than six thousand votes of taking a 16th Senate district, which would have been a majority. SD09 was Beto’s nearest miss for a sixteenth as well, though he came a little closer. The top five here for Biden are the same for Beto, with SDs 05 and 07 flipped; indeed, all of these districts are more or less sorted in the same way for both years.

I will have more numbers in the next post to show just how much movement there’s been, but in the meantime feel free to look at the 2012 district results and see for yourself just how uncompetitive these district used to be. The 2011 Senate map gerrymander was extremely effective, until all of a sudden it wasn’t. The Republicans will have some challenges ahead of them this fall.

There is of course some spare capacity for the Republicans to use, but it’s not as simple as it looks. Here’s the current map, to illustrate. None of SDs 01, 28, or 31 is anywhere near a Democratic stronghold. SDs 03 and 30 do border on Dem areas, and of course those other three districts can be sliced and diced to siphon off some Dem support, but it’s not quite that simple. For one thing, shifting the center of gravity in these districts from their rural centers towards the urban and suburban parts of the state means that their rural constituents – the Republican base – get less attention and power. They also increase the risk of a primary challenge from an opponent in a higher population area. I think playing defense will be a more urgent priority for the Republicans – they may try to carve out a more amenable South Texas district to capitalize on the Latino shift, but it’s not clear how persistent that will be, and there are still Voting Rights Act protections in place to guard against that, however tenuously – but maybe they could take a shot at Sen. Powell in SD10. As with the Congressional map, it’s a question of their risk tolerance as well as their appetite for gain. We’ll know in a few months.

HD68 special election set

Dec 30th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Welcome to your first election of 2021.

Sen. Drew Springer

Gov. Greg Abbott has selected Jan. 23 as the date of the special election to fill the seat of state Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, who recently won a promotion to the Texas Senate.

The candidate filing deadline is a week away — Jan. 4 — and early voting begins a week after that.

Springer is headed to the upper chamber after winning the Dec. 19 special election runoff to replace Sen. Pat Fallon, R-Prosper, who is on his way to Congress next month.

Springer’s House District 68 is safely Republican. It covers a rural swath wrapping from north of the Dallas-Fort Worth suburbs up into the Panhandle.

At least two Republicans have already announced campaigns for the House seat. They are Jason Brinkley, who is resigning as Cooke County judge to run for the seat, and David Spiller, a Jacksboro attorney and Jacksboro ISD trustee.

The Jan. 23 date means that Springer’s successor could be sworn in early in the 140-day legislative session, which begins Jan. 12. State law gives Abbott the power to order a sped-up special election when a vacancy occurs within 60 days of the session.

See here for the background. “Safe Republican” is almost an understatement – as noted, Ted Cruz got over 83% of the vote in 2018 in HD68. When Springer’s successor could be sworn in is more a function of whether or not there’s a runoff – that’s the difference between a January swearing-in, and one in March. This is the only special legislative election on the docket at this time. That can vary a lot from cycle to cycle – there were multiple special elections and runoffs in 2015 and 2019, none in 2011 and 2017, and one in 2013. The House will move forward with 149 members until this is resolved in HD68.

Springer defeats Luther in SD30

Dec 20th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Congratulations.

Rep. Drew Springer

State Rep. Drew Springer of Muenster prevailed over fellow Republican Shelley Luther in a special election runoff for a state Senate seat that was animated by Gov. Greg Abbott and his handling of the coronavirus pandemic.

Luther is the Dallas salon owner who was jailed earlier this year over her refusal to close her business due to coronavirus restrictions. Throughout the race, she was an outspoken critic of Abbott, who endorsed Springer in the runoff and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of his own campaign funds to beat back Luther in the race to succeed outgoing state Sen. Pat Fallon, R-Prosper.

[…]

Springer declared victory on social media, posting statements on Twitter and Facebook that said he would “continue advancing the conservative priorities of our district like reducing property taxes, securing the border, and standing up for our law enforcement and first responders who keep our communities safe.”

“I will fight to ensure Texas remains the premier place in the nation to do business, so we can unleash the private sector to create jobs and move us out of this recession,” he wrote.

Luther ran as a political outsider, attacking Springer as a tool of the “Austin swamp” who would go along to get along in the upper chamber. Springer campaigned as a proven conservative, arguing Luther could not be trusted.

When it came to the pandemic, Luther leaned heavily on her experience being sent to jail, labeling Abbott a “tyrant” over the business shutdowns he initiated and calling for a 2022 primary challenge to the governor. While not as bombastic, Springer also expressed disagreement with some of the governor’s coronavirus handling, even after earning Abbott’s endorsement.

See here for the background. Like I said, there were no good choices in this race, but but at least we’ve been spared the hot takes and national attention that a Luther win would have meant. Maybe now Shelley Luther will go back to being an obscure small business owner that none of us had to pay attention to or care about. We can hope for that much.

Springer’s win will also trigger another special election, to fill his seat in HD68. I presume Abbott will call that pretty quickly after Springer gets sworn in, since the session is about to begin. I’d expect it in late January, and any subsequent runoff would be in early March or so. Like SD30, this is a deep red district 83.3% for Ted Cruz in 2018), so the partisan balance is not in doubt. The only question is whether Springer’s replacement will be more like him, or more like Shelley Luther.

It’s runoff day in SD30

Dec 19th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Truly the final election of 2020.

Rep. Drew Springer

Gov. Greg Abbott stayed out of the September special election for a Texas state Senate seat in rural North Texas, content to let his coronavirus response become a flashpoint between two members of his own party.

But now that the race is down to a Saturday runoff, Abbott has gone all in.

The race pits state Rep. Drew Springer of Muenster against fellow Republican Shelley Luther, the Dallas salon owner who went to jail after defying Abbott’s pandemic orders earlier this year. Ahead of the 2021 legislative session — and the 2022 primary season — Abbott is determined to make an example out of Luther, who has become an avatar of his intraparty detractors.

Abbott endorsed Springer earlier this month, making official a preference that many had suspected after Luther spent months lacerating Abbott’s pandemic management. The governor’s campaign has since made over a quarter-million dollars worth of in-kind contributions to Springer. And in the runoff’s final week, his campaign is airing a TV spot attacking Luther, the first time it has spent serious ad dollars against a member of his own party since he sought to defeat a trio of state House Republicans in the 2018 primary.

“What are they so afraid of?” Luther asked during a debate Wednesday, leaning in to the proxy war that was apparent before the September election but has become far more explicit since then.

As Abbott has poured his campaign resources into the runoff, Luther has received even more funding from Tim Dunn, the hard-right megadonor and board chair of the advocacy group Empower Texans who has overwhelmingly bankrolled her campaign. After loaning Luther $1 million during the first round, he has donated $700,000 to her in the runoff, including $200,000 on Monday.

Springer said during the debate that Luther has taken “$1.7 million from a billionaire in West Texas who is trying to buy this seat.”

“He knows he will control Shelley Luther,” Springer said, “and that is why he is willing to spend that kind of money.”

[…]

While at least a couple of new issues have cropped up in the runoff, the race remains animated by Abbott’s coronavirus handling and conservative angst over it. There was a fresh reminder of the state’s restrictions earlier this month when a large part of North Texas had to roll back business reopenings because its hospital region saw coronavirus patients make up more than 15% of its capacity for seven straight days.

When Abbott endorsed Springer, Luther issued a response that reminded supporters that it was the governor’s “unconstitutional orders that put me in jail for opening my business.” (Abbott later updated an order to remove the threat of jail time.) And at the end of the response, Luther attached an illustration depicting the runoff as a choice between Abbott and Springer, both wearing masks, and her and President Donald Trump, both unmasked.

Let’s be clear that neither of these candidates are any good from our perspective. Springer at least has some amount of “normal legislator” about him – the Texas ParentPAC sent out an email on Thursday announcing their support for Springer, so he’s got that going for him – while Luther is both a complete vanity candidate – as in, entirely motivated by her own self interest – and the preferred candidate of the Empower Texans evil empire. The only positive she brings is the poke in Abbott’s eye she would bring. I may get five seconds of grim enjoyment out of that if she wins today, but that’s about it.

The next elections

Nov 11th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Just a reminder, there are two elections on the calendar for December:

See here for the background. The first link in that tweet goes to this County Clerk press release, which came out right after the election was officially set by the court. Doesn’t look like early voting information is available at harrisvotes.com yet, but I expect it will be soon. Oh, and if somehow you or someone you know who lives in the district is not registered to vote, the deadline to do so and vote in this election is tomorrow.

Meanwhile, up north:

Gov. Greg Abbott announced Saturday that Dec. 19 will be the date for the special election runoff to succeed state Sen. Pat Fallon, R-Prosper.

The runoff in Fallon’s solidly red district pits state Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, against fellow Republican Shelley Luther, the Dallas salon owner who was jailed earlier this year over her refusal to close her business due to coronavirus restrictions.

Early voting for the runoff will start Dec. 9, Abbott said.

Luther and Springer finished close together in the Sept. 29 special election, which included three other Republicans and a Democrat. Luther edged out Springer, 32.17% to 31.93%, ahead by 164 votes out of 68,807 total.

That story is from October – there were just too many other things happening around then to blog about a two-months-out special State Senate election, but now is a better time for that. If Rep. Springer wins, then there will be another special election to fill his seat. Some years we get a fair bit of shuffling after the November election. In 2019, we had a special election to fill SD06 after now-US Rep. Sylvia Garcia was elected in CD29, then another special election to fill HD145 after now-Sen. Carol Alvarado won that race. Specials were also needed in HDs 79 (Joe Pickett resigned due to health issues) and 125 (Justin Rodriguez was appointed to Bexar County Commissioners Court). You never know what may happen this year. One way or another, it’s always election season somewhere.

When Republicans fight

Oct 6th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Such a sight to see.

Gov. Greg Abbott’s most exasperating allies sure chose an awkward time to act up.

In the face of a momentous election, with an array of issues that includes the pandemic, the recession, climate change, racial justice, law enforcement and the next appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court, the chairman of the Texas GOP and a gang of lawmakers and activists have instead picked a fight with Abbott, who isn’t even on the ballot, over his response to the pandemic.

On the surface, they’re asking the courts to tell the governor that adding six more days of early voting to the calendar was outside of his powers. Abbott made the move under emergency powers he has claimed during the pandemic — the same powers he has used at various times to shut down schools, limit crowd sizes and limit how many customers businesses can serve at a time, or in some cases, to close businesses altogether.

The timing is connected to the Nov. 3 general election; even with the arguments over emergency powers, opponents of the governor’s action would be expected to grab for a remedy before early voting starts on Oct. 13. One might say the same about other lawsuits challenging the governor’s orders — that they’re tied not to politics, but to current events. Bar owners want to open their bars, for instance, and are not in the financial condition or the mood to stay closed until after the elections just to make the current set of incumbents look good.

What’s unusual is to see so many prominent Republican names on the top of a lawsuit against the Republican governor of Texas this close to an election.

In a gentler time, that might be called unseemly or distracting. Speaking ill of another Republican was considered out of bounds for a while there. Those days are over. What’s happening in Texas illustrates how the pandemic, the economy and other issues have shaken political norms.

As the story notes, this is also playing out in the SD30 special election, where Shelley Luther – supported by a million dollars from one of the Empower Texans moneybags – is busy calling Abbott a “tyrant”. There’s talk of various potential primary challengers to Abbott in 2022 – see the comments to this post for a couple of names – but I don’t see any serious threat to him as yet. If Dan Patrick decides he wants a promotion, then we’ve got something. Until then, it’s all talk.

But let me float an alternate scenario by you. What if the nihilist billionaires behind Empower Texans decide that Abbott and the Republican Party have totally sold out on them, and instead of finding someone to take Abbott out in a primary, they bankroll a petition drive to put some pet wingnut on the November ballot, as an independent or the nominee of some new party they just invented? It’s crazy and almost certain to hand the Governor’s mansion over to the Democratic nominee, but no one ever said these guys were strategic geniuses. It’s been said that there are three real political parties in Texas – the Democrats, the establishment Republicans, and the far right whackadoo Republicans. This would arguably be an outgrowth of that, and in what we all hope is a post-Trump world, there may be similar splits happening elsewhere.

How likely is this? As I said, it makes no sense in the abstract. It’s nearly impossible to see a path to victory for either Abbott or the appointed anti-Abbott. It’s instructive to compare to 2006, where Carole Keeton Strayhorn and Kinky Friedman were taking votes away from both Rick Perry and Chris Bell. Nobody who considers themselves remotely a Democrat is going to be wooed by whoever Empower Texans could vomit onto the ballot. Maybe they would consider a victory by Julian Castro or whichever Dem to be preferable to another Abbott term, in their own version of “the two parties are the same, we must burn down the duopoly to get everything we want”. Just because it makes no sense doesn’t mean it can’t happen. For now, if I had to bet, my money would be on some token but not completely obscure challenger to Abbott in the primary – think Steve Stockman against John Cornyn in 2014, something like that. But a lot can happen in a year, and if the Dems do well this November, that could add to the pressure against Abbott. Who knows? Just another bubbling plot line to keep an eye on.

Luther and Springer advance to SD30 runoff

Oct 1st, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

By the way, that special election in SD30 to succeed Pat Fallon was on Tuesday, and the two presumed leading contenders were basically tied at the top.

Sen. Pat Fallon

Republicans Shelley Luther and Drew Springer are advancing to a runoff in the special election to replace state Sen. Pat Fallon, R-Prosper, according to unofficial election returns.

Each was getting about 32% of the vote late Tuesday in the six-way special election, with all polling locations reporting. Luther is the Dallas salon owner who was jailed earlier this year after refusing to close her business due to coronavirus restrictions, and Springer is the state representative from Muenster. The runoff has yet to be scheduled.

The sole Democratic candidate, Jacob Minter, was trailing in third with 21% of the vote. None of the other three candidates broke double digits.

Tensions were already running high between Luther and Springer, and the runoff is poised to be even more contentious. Addressing supporters shortly after 10 p.m. in Aubrey, Luther sought to prepare them for a brutal second round.

“I refuse to act like a politician,” she said. “I refuse to sling personal mud and lies … so when we go to this runoff, no matter how dirty they get, no matter how disgusting they are, we will rise above that because we don’t need to be that way.”

Springer briefly thanked his supporters on social media a short time later. “On to the runoff!” he wrote.

See here for the background. The runoff will be scheduled by Greg Abbott after the vote has been officially cannvassed; my best guess is it will be in early December. The choice, such as it is, is between standard issue conservative Republican Drew Springer and Empower Texans-backed Abbott-bashing loose cannon Shelley Luther. May God have mercy on the souls of everyone who will be subjected to another sixty days or so of advertising in this race.

Six file in SD30

Aug 30th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

One of these folks will be a State Senator.

Sen. Pat Fallon

The most prominent contenders for the solidly red seat are state Rep. Drew Springer of Muenster and fellow Republican Shelley Luther,the Dallas salon owner who was jailed earlier this year over her refusal to close her business due to the coronavirus pandemic. Both Springer and Luther had announced their campaigns ahead of Friday’s filing deadline.

Here are the four other candidates who filed to compete in the Sept. 29 special election:

  • Republican Craig Carter, who ran against Fallon in the 2018 primary for the state Senate seat and got 15% in the three-way contest
  • Republican Andy Hopper, a Decatur engineer and member of the Texas State Guard
  • Democrat Jacob Minter, recording secretary for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 20
  • Republican Chris Watts, mayor of Denton

The special election is happening because Fallon is poised to join Congress after party insiders picked him earlier this month to replace former U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath, on the November ballot. Fallon is likely to win the general election because the congressional district is overwhelmingly Republican.

See here for the background. It’s nice to see a Democrat in the race, but as I said before this is a super-red district, so keep your expectations very modest. Early voting begins September 14, and Election Day is September 29. Rep. Springer has the support of outgoing Sen. Fallon and a significant portion of the Republican House cancus, but expect this to go to a runoff anyway.

Special election set for SD30

Aug 24th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Can’t wait till November, apparently.

Sen. Pat Fallon

Gov. Greg Abbott on Sunday announced the special election to replace state Sen. Pat Fallon, R-Prosper, will be Sept. 29, setting off a sped-up race to fill his seat ahead of the next legislative session now that he is likely headed to Congress.

Minutes after Abbott’s announcement, state Rep. Drew Springer, R-Muenster, announced his campaign for the safely red seat in Senate District 30. Springer also said he had Fallon’s endorsement.

“I bring my conservative record & hard work to the race, along with a life of being raised, educated, & working in SD30,” Springer tweeted.

The filing deadline for the special election will be less than a week away — Friday — and early voting begins Sept. 14, according to Abbott’s proclamation.

Abbott invoked what is known as an “emergency special election” to schedule the contest on a tighter timeline than usual. He cited the need for SD-30 to have representation when the Legislature returns in January, particularly in light of the coronavirus pandemic.

[…]

The timing of the special election had been up in the air in recent days because Fallon had not vacated the seat yet and said as recently as Wednesday he was still figuring out when to give it up. Fallon ended up resigning in a letter to Abbott dated Saturday, saying the resignation would be effective at midnight Jan. 4.

The winner of the special election will finish Fallon’s term, which goes until January 2023.

I mean, okay, sure, but I can’t help but feel a little bitter about the nickel-and-dime treatment Abbott gave Sylvia Garcia’s resignation, in July of 2018. He did eventually set a short date for a special election when Garcia resigned again, with language that wasn’t nitpick-able. Maybe I’m making too big a deal over something that was ultimately more petty than meaningful, but here I am anyway.

In the meantime, Rep. Springer’s main opponent will be this person.

Shelley Luther, the Dallas salon owner who was jailed over reopening her business amid the coronavirus pandemic, said Saturday that she is running for Texas Senate.

Luther, who lives in Denton County, had been considering a run to replace state Sen. Pat Fallon, R-Prosper, in a yet-to-be-called special election now that he is poised to head to Congress.

“You better bet I’m putting my hat in the ring,” Luther said during a “Back the Blue” rally supporting law enforcement in Denton County.

[…]

At the rally, Luther touted herself to a cheering crowd as someone who would “stand up and go to jail for you,” saying she would “do it again and again because I’m gonna fight to keep our Texas values.” She made the remarks in a video from the rally posted to her Twitter account.

Earlier this month, county and precinct chairs picked Fallon to replace former U.S. Rep. John Ratcliffe, R-Heath, on the fall ballot now that Ratcliffe is the director of national intelligence. While there is a Democratic nominee, Russell Foster, Fallon is likely to win in November because the congressional district is overwhelmingly Republican.

The special election to finish Fallon’s term in safely red Senate District 30 has not been set yet — and it cannot be scheduled until he vacates the seat. He could do that automatically by taking office in January as a congressman or by resigning early.

Fallon said Wednesday he is still figuring out when to vacate the seat but that he was intent on ensuring there is “not gonna be a gap where there’s no senator.”

See here for the background. Denton Mayor Chris Watts is also a potential candidates for this race. There may be a Democrat at some point, but this is a district that voted 72% for Ted Cruz in 2018, so don’t expect much. We’re rooting for the least worst Republican here, and who that is may be hard to tell at a glance. Shelley Luther has a lot of notoriety and a fine grasp of the kind of blonde-suburban-lady grievance politics that elevated another blonde lady named Shelley to prominence some years ago. Stock up on the Maalox now, you’re going to need it.

Most likely, the timing of this special election to some extent takes care of any concerns Republicans may have about the House being down a member if Springer wins and there needs to be a special to replace him. You can probably have a runoff for this seat by early November, and thus a special for Springer’s House seat in December, with a runoff in January. Still could possibly get dicey if there’s a tight Speaker’s race, but one can only do so much. The set of circumstances where this all matters is fairly limited, though if it does matter it will matter a lot. We’ll see how it goes.

Fallon fallout

Aug 12th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Of interest.

Sen. Pat Fallon

After Sen. Pat Fallon’s impressive though not unexpected victory this weekend in the insider’s race to be the GOP nominee for Congressional District 4 – being vacated by Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe – rumors are flying and announcements are expected quickly in the coming race to succeed him in the Texas Senate.

If the early buzz is any indication, it’ll perhaps be more of a rural versus suburban fight than a “conservative versus moderate” one.

But there are other fault lines developing and there’s some chatter about whether House members considering a promotion could put the GOP House majority at risk when it comes time to vote for a new speaker.

This is a Quorum Report story, so the rest is behind their paywall, but what I quoted is what you need to know. Fallon, who became the Republican nominee for CD04 over the weekend and is sure to win in November in this deep red district, has not yet said when he plans to resign from the Senate. There could be a special election in SD30 in November if he steps down in the next week or two, but after that it will be post-November. As you may recall from 2018, the SD06 special election was held on December 11th following now-Rep. Sylvia Garcia’s resignation from the Senate, which came after she was officially elected in CD29. That’s one path Fallon could follow, but the complications set in if the winner of the SD30 special election is a sitting member of the State House, because then there would have to be a special election for that seat. Again, going back to 2018, the special election in HD145 that was necessitated after now-Sen. Carol Alvarado won that race was held on January 29, with a runoff on March 5.

So what? Well, as the QR story suggests, we could have a very closely divided House this session. Indeed, it could wind up being 75-75, which would surely make for an entertaining Speaker’s race. But then remember the SD30 special election, in which an elected State House member moved up to that chamber. Now all of a sudden it’s 75-74 in favor of the Dems, and you have a whole new ballgame. And remember, it’s quite common for a newly-elected veteran member of the House to resign following the November election. That also happened in 2018, when Joe Pickett resigned, citing health concerns. It’s not out of the question that a 76-74 GOP majority turns into a 74-74 tie with the SD30 election and some unexpected retirement throwing a spanner into the works. Crazy things do happen.

Another potential chaos factor: Carol Alvarado won the SD06 special in 2018 in the first round, which allowed the HD145 special to take place when it did. If there had needed to be a runoff, it would have happened in late January instead of the HD145 special. But if that had been the case, Alvarado would have still been in her House seat. What that means is that if there’s a runoff in SD30, the Republicans might not actually be down a seat at the time that a Speaker is chosen, but would be later on, possibly stretching into April. They’d have a Speaker but they might not have a functional House majority, especially if the Speaker continues the tradition of not voting on most bills. (And of course, on any given day, some number of members will be absent.) Again, the potential for Weird Shit to happen is non-trivial.

This is ultimately why Rep. Eddie Rodriguez made the decision to withdraw from the SD14 special election runoff, to ensure that his seat was occupied in January. Would every State House member whose district overlaps with SD30 make the same selfless decision if the GOP doesn’t have a clear majority in the lower chamber? That’s the $64,000 question. Of course, there would need to be a non-legislative candidate to rally around. There are many variables, is what I’m saying.

Anyway. This is super inside baseball, but this is also the kind of year where these esoteric considerations need to be taken seriously. I will of course be keeping an eye on this.

July 2018 campaign finance reports: State Senate

Aug 7th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

In addition to having a full slate of Congressional candidates for the first time since the 90s, we have a nearly-full slate of contenders for the State Senate as well. Of the twelve Republican-held Senate seats up for election this cycle, eleven of them attracted Democratic contenders. Many of those districts are not particularly competitive, but some of them are, and a pickup of even one or two seats would be a big deal. Here’s a look at how those eleven have been doing. I did not do a report on the January finances, mostly because there were so damn many primary candidates and I just couldn’t get to it. But here we are now.

Kendall Scudder
Shirley Layton
Meg Walsh
David Romero
Mark Phariss
Gwenn Burud
Beverly Powell
Nathan Johnson
Rita Lucido
Steven Kling
Kevin Lopez


Dist  Name             Raised    Spent    Loans   On Hand
=========================================================
02    Scudder          60,060   28,143        0    18,115
03    Layton           11,828   12,040    2,000     1,174
05    Walsh            25,403   31,016    8,500    34,671
07    Romero            1,735      244        0     1,735
08    Phariss         220,043   86,019        0   128,981
09    Burud            14,544    8,910        0     1,389
10    Powell          265,807  136,025   20,000   140,749
16    Johnson         362,581  153,825    5,000   261,567
17    Lucido          178,869  128,663    3,000    71,355
25    Kling            60,617   23,015   18,000    19,974
30    Lopez            43,867   16,488        0     8,660

First things first: Congressional finance reports follow the same schedule, with reports due every quarter. There are 30-day reports due before elections as well, but every report is cumulative, so the quarterlies are always comparable. In Texas, reports are semi-annual – January and July – with 30-day and 8-day reports before elections. These reports are not cumulative – they just show what happened since the last reporting period. Things can get a little dicey during primary season, because not everyone will have the same reporting requirements. Kendall Scudder, for example, was unopposed in March, which exempted him from 30-day and 8-day reports, so his July report shows all activity for the first six months of the year. Most of the others were in two-candidate primaries. Beverly Powell’s report is from February 25, which is to say all activity since eight days before the March election. Rita Lucido is the only one who was in a May runoff, so the report linked above for her is all activity for the much shorter period from May 14 onward. Because of that, I added the Raised and Spent numbers from each of her reports this year to present the numbers in the table. She’d have shown half as much raised otherwise, which would not have been a fair reflection of her funding.

The top fundraisers are who you’d expect, as they represent four of the five districts that can be classified as competitive; Gwen Burud in SD09 is the outlier. Powell’s SD10 is the district formerly held by Wendy Davis and the most purple of them all. It’s hotly contested with a lot of outside Republican money going to Sen. Konni Burton. Expect to see even bigger numbers on the 30-day reports.

Nathan Johnson did a great job. His SD16 is the only one to have been carried by Hillary Clinton, though that includes a lot of crossovers. Still, Dallas County has seen a steady drain of Republican support, and there was one poll released that showed a very tight race there. Johnson is up against Don Huffines, who can write his own check and will surely spend whatever he needs to.

I was rooting for Mark Phariss to be the nominee in SD08, which is an open seat as Van Taylor departed to run in CD03. As one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit that eventually toppled Texas’ anti-same sex marriage law, he’s both a compelling figure and (I hoped) someone with good fundraising potential. I’m glad to be proven correct, but boy howdy is that district drenched in money.

The Republican primary for state Senate District 8 between Angela Paxton and Phillip Huffines was one of the most bitter in recent memory — and now the state’s most expensive. The two candidates spent more than $12 million in the Collin County race.

According to reports filed Monday, McKinney educator Paxton, wife of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, spent $3.7 million in her campaign against Huffines, a Richardson real estate developer who spent $8.4 million. Paxton’s campaign included a $2 million bank loan from her husband’s campaign.

Despite being outspent by more than 2-1, Paxton secured her party’s nomination in March, with 54.4 percent of the vote.

[…]

State senators in Texas make only $7,200 a year, or $600 per month, plus a daily stipend of $190 for every day the Legislature is in session. That adds up to $33,800 a year for a regular session.

Daron Shaw, a government professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said candidates don’t decide to run for the legislature for the financial rewards, but for the career boost if they have their sights set on higher office.

“If you’re a Democrat or a Republican and you want to work your way up the food chain,” he said, “you look for opportunities, (like) open districts or to contest against an incumbent that you see is vulnerable.”

To put the District 8 primary numbers in perspective, the seat’s price tag even rivals spending for some competitive Dallas-area congressional seats in the general election.

There probably won’t be as much spent in the general, if only because of the lack of a Huffines brother, but still. Keep raising that dough, Mark.

Beyond that, Scudder, Steve Kling, and Kevin Lopez have all raised a few bucks in some super tough districts. As with the Congressional candidates in similar districts, anything they can do to give Democrats a reason to get out and vote will help. I’ve got more reports in the works, so stay tuned.

2018 primary results: Legislative

Mar 7th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Rep. Sarah Davis

Statewide Dem totals
Statewide GOP totals

Harris County Dem totals
Harris County GOP totals

(Please note that all results were coming in very slowly. I expect there will still be some precincts not yet reported by the time this publishes. So, I’m going to be less specific than usual, and may have to make a correction or two by Thursday.)

I’m gonna lead with the Republicans this time. Sarah Davis and Lyle Larson, both viciously targeted by Greg Abbott, won their races easily. Sarah, here’s that picture I mentioned before. Also, too, the anti-vaxxers can suck it (in this race; they unfortunately appear to have claimed a scalp elsewhere). Abbott did manage to unseat the mediocre Wayne Faircloth, who was the most conservative of his three targets. Party on, Greg!

Back to the good side: Rita Lucido was leading Fran Watson in SD17, but was short of a majority. Beverly Powell won in SD10, Wendy Davis’ old district. Mark Phariss was leading in SD08, but it was too close to call. On the Republican side, Rep. Pat Fallon destroyed Sen. Craig Estes in SD30, but Sen. Kel Seliger beat back the wingnuts again in SD31. Sen. John Whitmire won easily. Joan Huffman easily held off Kristin Tassin on her side of SD17. And Angela Paxton won in SD08 over the lesser Huffines brother. Apparently, two Paxtons are better than one, and also better than two Huffineses.

Other incumbents in both parties had more trouble. On the D side, longtime Rep. Robert Alonzo lost to Jessica Gonzalez in HD104; her election increases the number of LGBT members of the Lege by one. First term Rep. Diana Arevalo lost to former Rep. Trey Martinez-Fischer in HD116, and first-term Rep. Tomas Uresti, no doubt damaged by his brother’s legal problems, lost to Leo Pacheco. And Dawnna Dukes’ odyssey came to an end as challengers Sheryl Cole and Chito Vela both ran way ahead of her. Other Dems, including (sigh) Ron Reynolds hung on, though Rep. Rene Oliveira was headed to a runoff with Alex Dominguez in HD37. For the Rs, Rep. Jason Villalba was going down in HD114 – he was an anti-vaxxer target, though there were other factors in that race, so it sure would be nice for Dems to pick that one off in November. Rep. Scott Cosper was headed to a runoff in HD54. Other incumbents, including those targeted by the extreme wingnut coalition, made it through.

For Harris County, the following challengers won: Natali Hurtado (HD126; she celebrated by going into labor, so double congratulations to her), Gina Calanni (HD132), Adam Milasincic (HD138). Sandra Moore was briefly above 50% in HD133, but ultimately fell back below it to wind up in a runoff with Marty Schexnayder. Allison Lami Sawyer had a slightly easier time of it, collecting over 90% of the vote against the idiot Lloyd Oliver. Maybe, just maybe, this will be enough to convince Oliver that his run-for-office marketing strategy has come to the end of its usefulness. Sam Harless was on the knife’s edge of a majority in HD126 on the R side; if he falls short, Kevin Fulton was in second place.

There will be a few runoffs in other races around the state. I’ll get back to that another day.

Filing roundup: State Senate

Dec 19th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

In 2014, Democrats contested five of the eleven Republican-held State Senate seats on the ballot, plus the seat that was vacated by Wendy Davis, which was won by Republican Konni Burton. This year, Democrats have candidates in eleven of these twelve districts. I wanted to take a closer look at some of these folks. For convenience, I collected the filing info for Senate and House candidates from the SOS page and put it all in this spreadsheet.

Kendall Scudder

SD02 – Kendall Scudder (Facebook)

SD03 – Shirley Layton

SD05 – Brian Cronin (Facebook)
SD05 – Glenn “Grumpy” Williams
SD05 – Meg Walsh

SD07 – David Romero

SD08 – Brian Chaput
SD08 – Mark Phariss

SD09 – Gwenn Burud

SD10 – Allison Campolo (Facebook)
SD10 – Beverly Powell (Facebook)

SD16 – Joe Bogen (Facebook)
SD16 – Nathan Johnson (Facebook)

SD17 – Fran Watson (Facebook)
SD17 – Rita Lucido (Facebook)
SD17 – Ahmad Hassan

SD25 – Jack Guerra (Facebook)
SD25 – Steven Kling (Facebook)

SD30 – Kevin Lopez

I skipped SDs 14, 15, and 23, which are held by Democrats Kirk Watson, John Whitmire, and Royce West. Whitmire has two primary opponents, the others are unopposed. Let’s look at who we have here.

Kendall Scudder is a promising young candidate running in a tough district against a truly awful incumbent. First-term Sen. Bob Hall is basically Abe Simpson after a couple years of listening to Alex Jones. If he runs a good race, regardless of outcome, Scudder’s got a future in politics if he wants it.

Shirley Layton is the Chair of the Angelina County Democratic Party, which includes Lufkin. Robert Nichols is the incumbent.

All of the contested primaries look like they will present some good choices for the voters. In SD05, Brian Cronin, who has extensive experience in state government, looks like the most polished candidate to take on Charles Schwertner. Grumpy Williams is easily the most colorful candidate in any of these races. There wasn’t enough information about Meg Walsh for me to make a judgment about her.

I’ve previously mentioned Mark Phariss’ entry into the SD08 race at the filing deadline. He doesn’t have a website or Facebook page up yet, but you could read this Texas Monthly story about him and his husband for a reminder of who Phariss is and why he matters. This seat is being vacated by Van Taylor, and the demonic duo of Angela Paxton and Phillip Huffines are running for it on the GOP side.

I couldn’t find much about either David Romero or Gwenn Burud, but in searching for the latter I did find this Star-Telegram story, which tells me that the Tarrant County Democratic Party did a great job filling out their slate. The incumbent here is Kelly Hancock.

Elsewhere in Tarrant County, the primary for SD10, which is overall the most closely divided district, ought to be salty. Powell is clearly the establishment candidate, having been endorsed by folks like Wendy Davis and Congressman Mark Veasey. Campolo identifies herself as a Bernie Sanders supporter. I expect there will be some elbows thrown. The winner gets to try to knock out Konni Burton.

Joe Bogen and Nathan Johnson seem pretty evenly matched to me. They’re battling for the right to take on the awful Don Huffines, whose SD16 is probably the second most vulnerable to takeover.

In SD17, Fran Watson, who is a former President of the Houston GLBT Political Caucus, has been in the race for a few months. Rita Lucido, who was the candidate against Joan Huffman in 2014, filed on deadline day. The presence of perennial candidate Ahmad Hassan means this one could go to a runoff.

Both Jack Guerra and Steven Kling look like good guys in SD25. No doubt, both would be a big improvement over the zealot incumbent Donna Campbell.

Last but not least, Kevin Lopez is a City Council member in the town of Bridgeport. He joins Beverly Powell, who serves on the Burleson ISD Board of Trustees, as the only current elected officials running for one of these offices. The incumbent in SD30 is Craig Estes, and he is being challenged in the Republican primary.

Winning even one of these seats would be great. Winning two would bring the ratio to 18-13 R/D, which would be a big deal because the old two thirds rule is now a “sixty percent” rule, meaning that 19 Senators are enough to bring a bill to the floor, where 21 had been needed before. Needless to say, getting the Republicans under that would be a big deal, though of course they could throw that rule out all together if they want to. Be that as it may, more Dems would mean less power for Dan Patrick. I think we can all agree that would be a good thing. None of this will be easy – Dems are underdogs in each district, with more than half of them being very unfavorable – but at least we’re competing. National conditions, and individual candidates, will determine how we do.

Two GOP State Reps seek Senate promotions

Sep 8th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Item One:

Rep. Cindy Burkett

State Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Sunnyvale, launched a challenge Tuesday to state Sen. Bob Hall of Edgewood, setting up a Republican primary clash in North Texas.

“I am proud of what I have accomplished for Texas and for all people who share my conservative values,” Burkett said in a news release. “Serving in the Texas Senate will allow me to continue and expand this work.”

Burkett is serving her fourth term in the House, where she chairs the Redistricting Committee. She first won election to House District 101 in 2010. After HD-101 was altered by redistricting in 2011, Burkett successfully ran for House District 113, which she currently represents.

Hall, a Tea Party activist, won the Senate District 2 seat three years ago in an upset victory over Bob Deuell, the Republican incumbent from Greenville. Burkett was once an aide to Deuell in the Senate.

[…]

At least two candidates are already running for Burkett’s seat in HD-113. They include Garland Republican Jonathan Boos and Rowlett Democrat Rhetta Bowers, both of whom unsuccessfully challenged Burkett in 2016.

This race is of interest for several reasons. First and foremost, HD113 is a top target next year. Like all Dallas County districts, it was carried by Hillary Clinton, but it was also very close at the downballot level. Having it be an open seat is likely to be better for the Democrats, and may possibly be a signal that the Republicans don’t like their prospects. Bob Hall is a dithering fool, but much of SD02 is outside Dallas County, and some of that turf may not be very hospitable to a suburban establishment type, especially one who is already talking about playing well with others. If Burkett means what she says, she could be a marginal improvement on Hall – the bar is pretty low here, as Hall is awful – but Burkett was the author of the regular session omnibus anti-abortion bill, so don’t expect much.

Item Two:

State Rep. Pat Fallon, R-Frisco, is making it official: He is challenging state Sen. Craig Estes, R-Wichita Falls.

“They just desperately want somebody new,” Fallon said of voters in Senate District 30, which Estes has represented since 2001. “It’s been 16 years — it’s going to be 18 years. They want a change. They don’t see him around.”

Fallon had been seriously mulling a Senate bid for months, crisscrossing the 14-county district in North Texas since at least the end of the regular legislative session in May. He first shared his decision to run Tuesday with a newspaper in SD-30, the Weatherford Democrat.

In an interview with the Tribune, Fallon said he was “shocked” to learn in his travels how many local officials view Estes as an absentee senator. Fallon, who loaned his campaign $1.8 million in June, also said he was prepared to “spend every dime and then some” to get his message out in the race.

“It’s a moral obligation,” he said. “We simply need in this district to close one chapter and open up a new one.”

Not much to be said about this one. Estes is basically a waste of space, while Fallon is more of a new school jackass. Neither district is competitive. Someone will win the race, but no one will truly win.

Finally, along those same lines, Angela Paxpn – wife of you-know-who – has officially announced her candidacy for SD08, where she will face off against Phillip Huffines, brother of Sen. Don Huffines. We first heard about this a couple of weeks ago. With any luck, Huffines will spend a bunch of his money attacking Angela Paxton by attacking Ken Paxton. Surely that’s not asking for too much.

The numbers in the “deal”

Feb 7th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
9 comments

As I start to type this I have no idea if the “deal” that was announced earlier today will be in effect or on the trash heap. I think it’s instructive to look at the numbers in the proposed maps anyway, since they give a good idea of how much the state was willing to concede. Let’s start with Congress. From a strictly Democratic perspective, here’s how I see it:


Dist  Incumbent  McCain  Obama  Wainwright  Houston
===================================================
09     A. Green   23.42  76.12       22.06    76.33
15     Hinojosa   41.84  57.30       37.30    60.00
16        Reyes   34.59  64.39       30.15    66.55
18  Jackson Lee   22.89  76.57       21.61    76.71
20    Gonzalez+   40.64  58.23       37.70    58.60
23     Canseco*   49.27  49.88       44.99    51.68
28      Cuellar   40.97  58.28       35.27    61.28
29     G. Green   37.04  62.22       30.34    67.66
30      Johnson   21.07  78.33       19.74    78.58
33         Open   30.64  68.57       27.18    70.54
34         Open   39.06  60.00       32.84    63.62
35         Open   35.47  63.18       32.55    63.10


06      Barton*   57.03  42.19       53.58    43.75
10      McCaul*   56.17  42.59       53.10    43.23
14       Paul*+   57.03  42.12       49.70    47.52
25      Doggett   56.05  42.73       52.14    43.54
27  Farenthold*   58.95  40.12       50.85    45.75
31      Carter*   55.80  42.54       53.26    42.40
32    Sessions*   55.05  43.83       53.36    43.82

* = Republican incumbent
+ = Not running for re-election

For comparison sake, here’s my analysis of the original interim map and of the Lege-drawn map. What was originally 26-10 in favor of the GOP, then briefly became 23-13, is now either likely somewhere between 25-11 and 23-13, depending on if Rep. Quico Canseco can hold on and if Nick Lampson can win CD14. Note that this is more or less the screw-Doggett map with new Dem districts in the D/FW area and in South Texas, which if it stands might put the kibosh on Joaquin Castro’s assignment for the DCCC and would leave Roger Williams in the cold while bringing Michael Williams back into the game. Smokey Joe Barton gets a little help, Blake Farenthold no longer has to worry about a Harris County challenger, and the heir apparent to Charlie Gonzalez is up in the air.

And here’s the State House:


Dist  Incumbent  McCain  Obama  Wainwright  Houston
===================================================
 22    Deshotel   34.77  64.73       30.66    67.92
 23      Eiland   51.35  47.77       42.99    54.22
 27    Reynolds   29.88  69.63       28.96    69.55
 30  Morrison*+   50.26  48.99       42.24    54.74
 31     Guillen   22.12  77.42       15.75    81.00
 34      Scott*   46.93  52.17       38.90    57.76
 35   Aliseda*+   35.74  63.30       31.87    64.99
 36       Munoz   26.39  72.85       23.01    75.08
 37    Oliveira   31.33  67.52       25.82    69.67
 38       Lucio   34.01  64.67       28.74    67.02
 39  M.Martinez   26.86  72.35       23.17    74.63
 40      Pena*+   24.43  74.81       20.13    77.42
 41    Gonzales   42.16  57.05       37.83    59.68
 42     Raymond   28.91  70.56       20.00    76.31
 43      Lozano   48.82  50.51       40.00    56.79
 46       Dukes   21.51  77.04       20.50    74.99
 48      Howard   37.53  60.77       37.52    56.86
 49    Naishtat   24.26  73.67       24.04    69.21
 50      Strama   38.01  60.27       36.95    57.51
 51 E.Rodriguez   17.84  80.40       16.47    77.69
 54     Aycock*   51.20  47.93       47.97    49.01
 74    Gallego+   41.15  57.91       34.93    61.32
 75  Q'tanilla+   25.14  74.13       21.64    75.42
 76  N.Gonzalez   23.86  75.15       19.18    78.00
 77     Marquez   34.56  64.25       30.18    66.08
 78      Margo*   43.64  55.31       39.57    56.84
 79     Pickett   34.62  64.52       29.83    67.13
 80      T.King   48.65  50.76       41.30    55.87
 90      Burnam   29.89  69.40       25.82    72.00
 95     Veasey+   23.57  75.90       22.30    76.09
100   E.Johnson   22.13  77.18       20.29    77.50
101        Open   37.82  61.59       35.63    62.19
103      Anchia   31.44  67.47       28.78    68.04
104      Alonzo   30.25  68.76       25.88    71.39
109    Giddings   19.84  79.62       18.78    79.79
110  M-Caraway+   12.02  87.55       10.55    88.19
111     Y.Davis   24.18  75.24       22.81    75.60
116   M-Fischer   38.80  59.89       36.27    59.67
117      Garza*   47.71  51.33       44.69    51.76
118      Farias   42.57  56.36       37.44    58.81
119   Gutierrez   40.30  58.59       35.77    60.38
120   McClendon   36.12  62.95       34.14    62.49
123  Villarreal   39.13  59.58       36.30    59.35
124    Menendez   39.17  59.79       36.40    60.05
125     Castro+   40.69  58.14       37.58    58.56
131       Allen   17.92  81.66       16.59    81.92
136          Vo   34.89  64.47       32.15    65.73
137        Open   43.64  55.47       42.22    55.26
139      Turner   23.99  75.55       22.65    75.85
140       Walle   33.16  66.24       27.42    71.02
141    Thompson   14.35  85.29       13.25    85.61
142      Dutton   21.32  78.28       19.31    79.43
143        Luna   35.22  64.14       27.89    70.22
144     Legler*   51.04  47.95       43.02    54.53
145    Alvarado   41.99  57.13       35.76    61.73
146       Miles   21.32  78.15       20.74    77.63
147     Coleman   18.94  80.34       18.16    79.68
148      Farrar   41.43  57.49       37.68    59.18


 12        Open   59.77  39.38       50.77    46.67
 17   K'schmidt   58.23  40.31       49.95    45.43
 52 L.Gonzales*   51.93  46.18       50.33    45.01
 85        Open   58.68  40.68       52.81    45.22
102     Carter*   52.18  46.64       50.17    46.75
105    H-Brown*   52.69  46.14       48.72    48.18
107     Sheets*   52.25  46.71       48.72    48.46
113    Driver*+   53.00  46.05       49.53    47.87
114  Hartnett*+   52.36  46.57       51.71    45.66
134    S.Davis*   54.39  44.59       56.95    40.36
149        Open   51.81  45.92       51.20    42.93

* = Republican incumbent
+ = Not running for re-election, at least as of last report

Here’s my analysis of the interim map, in which I didn’t specify a likely number of Dem seats but estimated it to be about 60, assuming nothing horrible happened, and here’s my series of posts analyzing the Lege-drawn map: non-urban 1; non-urban 2; Travis, Bexar, El Paso; Metroplex; and Harris County. In this map, Harris County remains with 24 seats, with Hubert Vo’s district being drawn as HD136, so the so-far four-way primary in HD137 remains on. Sarah Davis and Ken Legler get some help, though the latter remains an underdog as I see it. Jimmie Don Aycock in HD54 also gets some help, while Geanie Morrison and Aaron Pena likely stay retired. As Greg noted, the more compact HD26 is gone, replaced by the snowflake-like red-hued earlier version. By my count, this map probably delivers 55 to 60 Dem seats, about what the original interim map was likely to provide; the Lege-drawn map was probably good for 55 at most. Again, while this does represent an improvement, it’s still a long way back to parity for Dems, meaning that even in conceding all this ground, the Republicans would still come out well-placed, at least to begin with.

As for the State Senate map, there’s not much to say. SD10 remains a lean-R district, SD09 is slightly redder, and three other districts were tweaked as well. The main news here is the request by State Sen. Craig Estes, whose SD30 was one of those tweaked districts, to intervene. Sen. Wendy Davis, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuits, did not sign on to the deal.

So looking at it strictly politically, Dems would do a little better than they were slated to do under the original legislatively-drawn maps, though not quite as well as they would have under the original court-drawn ones. These maps do fix some of the egregious problems and increase Latino opportunities a little, but potentially at the cost of Lloyd Doggett, and without addressing the question of coalition districts. That’s a big deal, and it’s likely the reason why the rest of the plaintiffs refused to sign off on Abbott’s proposal, and why the ultimate resolution of the litigation has the potential to produce maps more like the original interim ones, at least if the plaintiffs prevail. Michael Li, the man behind the great Texas Redistricting blog, wrote a sharp op-ed last week that laid the reasoning out. He focused on the claims for Davis’ SD10, for which the trial on her claims begins tomorrow, as the crux of the issue:

As urban Texas becomes more diverse — and compartmentalized neighborhoods that are the exclusive preserve of one ethnic group disappear — more and more districts like Davis’ will emerge naturally. The competitive state House seats that have arisen in recent years in places like Irving and Grand Prairie are a product of the same phenomena.

That may be why Texas Republicans have fought so hard to take apart Senate District 10 and shove its minority population into far-flung districts where forming winning coalitions is much harder if not impossible.

The crux of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott’s court argument has been that the only districts protected under the Voting Rights Act are districts where, unlike Senate District 10, a single minority group, by itself, controls outcomes in elections. In other words, in his view, Hispanic and African-American voters only get protected by the Voting Rights Act if they live in neatly defined ethnic barrios of the type that are becoming more and more rare in a multi-ethnic Texas.

Abbott’s argument is a one-two power grab. On the one hand, the state argues it can’t draw more African-American or Hispanic seats because the populations are too spread out across the region. Then it argues that it can fracture the coalitions that minority groups manage to forge because “coalitions” aren’t protected by voting rights laws.

Accept his argument, and Texas would be free to do what it did to Senate District 10 when it put a strip of the district where the population is more than 78 percent African-American and Latino into an Anglo-dominated district stretching past Waco.

As Li notes, the DC panel rejected the state’s claims that coalition districts were not protected, though that doesn’t mean these particular coalition districts will get redress. This is why the majority of the plaintiffs were not interested in Abbott’s “deal”: It didn’t address their issues, and they have a reasonable hope that the DC court will. If that means the primary can’t be held in April, well, they weren’t the ones that asked for a stay from SCOTUS. Unless something happens to change this calculus, I think we’re back to waiting for the DC court to rule.

UPDATE: I should note that I’m only paying attention to the 2008 numbers in these maps because any interim maps are only going to be in effect for this year. We are certain to have a new set of maps for 2014, after all of the current litigation has concluded in the federal courts, and may well have yet another set for 2016 depending on when SCOTUS does its thing. As such, I consider looking at the 2010 numbers for these maps to be even more of an academic exercise than looking at the 2008 numbers is.