Senate

SD14 special election date set

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Sen. Kirk Watson

Gov. Greg Abbott has postponed the special election for the Austin area’s Texas Senate District 14 due to the spreading coronavirus pandemic.

The election to replace retiring state Sen. Kirk Watson, an Austin Democrat leaving office at the end of April, has been moved to July 14, Abbott announced Monday evening. It ordinarily would have been held May 2.

Two candidates have already announced they’re running for the historically Democratic seat: State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, and Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt, who announced last week that she would resign from her position to run for the Senate. Several others have been eyeing a potential run at the seat.

Abbott’s office said postponing the election “is another step the state is taking to protect health and mitigate the spread of COVID-19,” noting that it was consulting with the secretary of state’s office “on additional strategies to ensure public health in relation to any upcoming election.” It’s unclear whether additional action will be taken to delay municipal elections across the state, which are also slated for May 2.

See here for the announcement of Watson’s resignation, and here and here for the declarations by Rodriguez and Eckhardt. I had been assuming that Abbott would not set a date until after Watson’s resignation was official. Perhaps I was overly influenced by the Sylvia Garcia “intent to resign” saga from 2018, I don’t know. Be that as it may, if there had been a previous announcement of a May 2 special election date, I didn’t see it, and I looked at Greg Abbott’s news releases going back to the date of Watson’s announcement. It may just be that this Trib story is not as clear as it could be, as this tweet demonstrates:

Just in: @GovAbbott schedules #SD14 special election for July 14. He would’ve set it for May 2 but pushed it back due to #coronavirus, he says. https://lnks.gd/l/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJidWxsZXRpbl9saW5rX2lkIjoxMDEsInVyaSI6ImJwMjpjbGljayIsImJ1bGxldGluX2lkIjoiMjAyMDAzMTcuMTg4MzU0MTEiLCJ1cmwiOiJodHRwczovL2dvdi50ZXhhcy5nb3YvdXBsb2Fkcy9maWxlcy9wcmVzcy9QUk9DX1NEXzE0X0tpcmtfV2F0c29uX3JlcGxhY2VtZW50XzAzLTE2LTIwMjAucGRmIn0.2uu2CObtvg8EYEJwJ85X34u9Ox261Hpd2GeUmibi3jA/br/76195015060-l #txlege

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) 7:54 PM – 16 March 2020

Whatever the case, the proclamation is here. Let’s hope that circumstances do not force it to be pushed back again.

Primary precinct analysis: Everyone did something in the Senate primary

Mar 16th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

MJ Hegar

So while we wait for actual precinct data from the primary, I thought I’d take a look at some county-level data from the non-Presidential races, as they have the county-by-county breakdown on the SOS election night pages. The US Senate primary, with its twelve candidates overall and five topping ten percent seemed like a good spot to do a deeper dive. The main problem is just presenting that much data, as my usual style of doing a table of numbers isn’t going to work well – it’ll be much too crowded and will be hard to spot the interesting bits. So what I thought I’d try was to focus on the counties with the most voters, and to see who did the best in them. I put everything in a spreadsheet, and sorted by total number of voters for each county. I settled on the top thirty to report on, which gave me a good geographic spread and included some big counties that don’t have many Democrats and some smaller counties where nearly everyone voted Democratic. From there, I pulled out the five top performers in each county, to see what story that could tell me.

Rather than try to present that in some form of table here, which would have taken a lot of tedious text formatting on my part, I just put the result into its own spreadsheet, which you can see here. For each of these counties, I reported the top five candidates and gave their vote totals and vote percentage. The top five performers change from one county to the next, so the five selected are listed above each county’s numbers. I think it makes sense, but have a look and let me know if it’s confusing. I’m now going to summarize what I found from this exercise.

MJ Hegar finished first 15 times and second seven times. Only in Webb and Maverick counties did she not finish in the top five. She was especially strong in the Central Texas area as expected, but also finished first in places like Harris, Collin, Denton, Fort Bend, and Montgomery. To me, her performance versus everyone else’s is the difference between having a campaign that has sufficient funding to actually do advertising and other voter outreach, and not having it.

Sen. Royce West

Royce West finished first five times and second four times. He finished outside the top five ten times, including in such large counties as Bexar and El Paso. He won big in Dallas and won Tarrant, but he trailed Hegar in Collin and Denton and finished fifth in Travis. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure what his path to winning the runoff is.

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez had five firsts (Bexar, El Paso, Cameron, Nueces, Brazos) and five seconds (Travis, Webb, Guadalupe, Maverick, Bastrop), but finished outside the top five ten times, including in places like Harris and Hidalgo where you’d think she’d have done better. She finished behind Sema Hernandez at least nine times, and behind Annie Garcia at least ten times. (I say “at least” because there were a few instances in which neither was in the top five, and I didn’t go back to see where they fell.) I thought Tzintzún Ramirez had the potential to be a force, and I still hope she runs for something in the future, but someone who can’t consistently top no-money, no-organization candidates like those two is not exactly encouraging. Tzintzún Ramirez was the Bernie candidate, and you have to ask what good that did her. Actually, if you’re a Bernie person, you really should ask why it is that the larger Bernie movement didn’t provide any noticeable fundraising support for her, and clearly didn’t give her much of a boost in the polls. If you want to see candidates like that actually win races, you really ought to think about those questions. She has endorsed Royce West in the runoff, but I’m not sure how much that will matter.

Did I mention that Annie Garcia, a candidate who had raised less than $22K as of February 12, finished fourth in this race, ahead of people who had run and won elections before like Chris Bell and Amanda Edwards? I have to think that being called “Annie ‘Mama’ Garcia” on the ballot probably helped her in places where people didn’t know that much about the slate. It also makes me wonder why she got to be “Mama” but Carole Keeton Strayhorn didn’t get to be “Grandma”. What exactly are the rules for that, anyway? Be that as it may, Garcia won Webb, Lubbock, and Maverick counties, while finishing second in El Paso, Williamson, Cameron, Hays, and Nueces. She finished in the money in 22 of the 30 counties, more than either West or Tzintzún Ramirez. If you had bet me that a month ago, you would have won my money.

Sema Hernandez won Hidalgo County and Chris Bell won Brazoria, so there are all your first place winners. Hernandez, for those few people who insisted her showing in 2018 made her a legitimate candidate this time around despite raising even less money than Garcia and failing to file any finance reports until Q3 this year, shows up in 18 of these 30 counties, but was mostly shut out of the top ten, finishing fifth in Harris, fifth in Bexar, and fourth in El Paso, failing to break ten percent in any of them. She did finish second in Brazoria County, while Bell was runnerup in Harris, Fort Bend, Galveston, and Lubbock. Amanda Edwards (Montgomery, Bell, Comal) and Michael Cooper (Jefferson) also had second place finishes. Edwards had ten third-place finishes, three fourths, and four fifths, while Cooper also finished fourth in Webb and Maverick, and fifth in Smith.

So that’s six candidates with at least one first place finish, and eight with at least one first or second place finish. Believe it or not, the other four candidates – go ahead, name them right now, I double dog dare you – also had at least one top five finish:

Victor Harris – Hidalgo County, third
Adrian Ocegueda – Cameron County, fifth
D.R. Hunter – Nueces County, fifth
Jack Daniel Foster – Maverick County, fifth

Let’s just say we’ll probably never have an election quite like this one again. I’ll have more of this analysis/trivia for you in the coming days. I’m still waiting for a canvass from Harris County.

Eckhardt declares for SD14

Mar 11th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

And now there are two.

Sarah Eckhardt

Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt resigned from her position Tuesday ahead of a run for the open seat in the Democrat-leaning Texas Senate District 14.

“I’m leaving the warmth and friendship of public service at the county to seek public service at the state as your next state senator,” Eckhardt said during a tearful speech at the end of a commissioners court meeting. “I’m running to succeed Senator [Kirk] Watson. I can’t fill his shoes, but I am running to succeed him.”

Eckhardt is the second candidate to enter the race to replace retiring state Sen. Kirk Watson, an Austin Democrat, who will resign from office at the end of April to become the first dean of the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs. Over the weekend, longtime state Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, D-Austin, became the first candidate to formally launch a bid for the Senate seat, which covers Bastrop County and parts of Travis County.

[…]

Eckhardt, who was elected Travis County’s first female county judge in 2015, was required under the Texas Constitution to resign from that office before running for the Legislature. Eckhardt and Rodriguez, who has served in the House since 2003, could soon be joined in the race by Austin City Council member Greg Casar, who recently filed a campaign treasurer report for the Senate seat.

See here and here for the background, and here for a copy of Eckhardt’s statement. Eckhardt had the tougher decision to make, since Rep. Rodriguez doesn’t have to resign to run for this office; neither will the other candidates, with the possible exceptions of Casar and Pflugerville City Council Member Rudy Metayer. I get to be neutral in this one, they all look fine to me. My best wishes to the voters of SD14 who will not only have to make a choice among all these good candidates, but as is the case with what is essentially a primary among contenders who won’t differ much on the issues, will also have to survive another primary-type election, complete with inevitable runoff. Godspeed, y’all.

Rep. Eddie Rodriguez announces for SD14

Mar 9th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Others are sure to follow.

Rep. Eddie Rodriguez

State Rep. Eddie Rodriguez, an Austin Democrat, announced Saturday that he is running for Texas Senate District 14.

“It is truly an honor to even be running [for] the Senate,” Rodriguez said at B.D. Riley’s Irish Pub in Austin, where he kicked off his Senate campaign with supporters. “I want to run for the Senate because I want to make Texas a more progressive place for everyone.”

Rodriguez, who has served in the House since 2003, is the first candidate to formally enter the special election for the historically Democratic seat, which will be vacated by retiring state Sen. Kirk Watson, a fellow Austin Democrat, at the end of April. The seat, which covers Bastrop County and parts of Travis County, overlaps with Rodriguez’s House seat.

The special election for the seat hasn’t yet been called by Gov. Greg Abbott. The winner will represent the district for the remainder of the term, which ends in 2023.

Rodriguez, flanked by supporters and a fellow member of the House’s Austin delegation, underscored his experience and the relationships he has built while serving in the House — and briefly outlined what he wants to continue working on if elected to the Senate: increasing access to health care and making “sure the government stays the hell out of our bedroom.”

State Rep. Celia Israel, D-Austin, introduced Rodriguez before he delivered his remarks, saying the delegation is “100% behind Eddie Rodriguez being the next senator.”

See here for the background. The election will be called by Abbott after Watson’s resignation becomes official, which should put it in November. I know that Rep. Israel had said she was not going to run, as had Rep. Donna Howard, and this makes it sound like none of the other State Reps from Travis County will jump in. Other potential candidates mentioned in the story include Austin City Council member Greg Casar, Travis County Judge Sarah Eckhardt (who has set an agenda item to discuss how her replacement would be named when she resigns as required to run for the legislature), Austin-area attorneys Jose “Chito” Vela and Adam Loewy, and Pflugerville City Council Member Rudy Metayer. And as previously discussed, this is a safe Democratic seat.

DNC to target Texas

Mar 8th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Game on.

The Democratic National Committee [added] Texas to its list of 2020 targets just days before Super Tuesday, vowing to invest heavily in the state to help Democratic candidates up and down the ballot in the latest sign that the national party is taking Texas more seriously than it has in years.

That investment includes getting more organizers on the ground as the party also seeks to take control of the Texas House from Republicans who have held it for a generation. While the DNC is focused on helping the Democratic presidential nominee beat President Donald Trump, the party also says it will help with the race against Republican U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, as well as efforts to win the nine seats needed to flip the state House.

[…]

“You’ve got a whole new era of Democratic politics in Texas, and you have a national party making a commitment to lift Texas up,” said Manny Garcia, executive director of the Texas Democratic Party. “This is a significant investment from the DNC to make sure we lay the groundwork necessary for a competitive and strong battleground presidential race.”

The party would not disclose how much the national arm plans to pour into Texas and said it will roll out more detailed plans for the funding in the coming weeks. But the investment will include additional staff and organizers.

The DCCC is already here in multiple races, and the DSCC is backing MJ Hegar, though what that might mean for November is unclear at this time. There’s enough polling to suggest that Texas can be competitive in November in the Presidential race, but the downballot rewards are great as well, including and especially at the legislative level where flipping the House would give Dems leverage for Congressional redistricting. The surprise here would have been if the DNC had decided to stay out of state for November.

Runoff roundup

Mar 7th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Here, as best as I can determine, are the runoffs of interest for May:

US Senate – MJ Hegar versus Royce West

CD02 – Sima Ladjevardian versus Elisa Cardnell
CD03 – Lulu Seikaly versus Sean McCaffity
CD10 – Mike Siegel versus Pritesh Gandhi
CD17 – Rick Kennedy versus David Jaramillo (D), Pete Sessions versus Renee Swann (R)
CD22 – Troy Nehls versus Kathaleen Wall (R)
CD23 – Tony Gonzales versus Raul Reyes (R)
CD24 – Kim Olson versus Candace Valenzuela
CD31 – Christine Eady Mann versus Donna Imam

Note that Wendy Davis (CD21), Sri Kulkarni (CD22), Gina Ortiz Jones (CD23), and on the Republican side Wesley Hunt (CD07) all won outright. I skipped a couple of Republican runoffs in safe D districts, because life is short.

Railroad Commissioner – Chrysta Castaneda versus Roberto Alonzo

SBOE5 – Robert Morrow versus Lani Popp (R, wackadoo versus what passes for normal)
SBOE6 – Michelle Palmer versus Kimberley McLeod

SD19 – Xochil Peña Rodriguez versus Roland Gutierrez
SD27 – Eddie Lucio versus Sara Stapleton-Barrera

Didn’t mention this yesterday, but Susan Criss prevailed in SD11.

HD02 – Dan Flynn versus Bryan Slaton (R)
HD25 – Ro’Vin Garrett versus Cody Vasut (R, this is Dennis Bonnen’s old seat)
HD26 – Suleman Lalani versus Sarah DeMerchant (D), Matt Morgan versus Jacey Jetton (R)
HD45 – Carrie Isaac versus Kent Wymore (R)
HD47 – Jennifer Fleck versus Don Zimmerman (R)
HD59 – Shelby Slawson versus JD Sheffield (R)
HD60 – Jon Francis versus Glenn Rogers (R)
HD67 – Tom Adair versus Lorenzo Sanchez
HD100 – Lorraine Birabil versus Jasmine Crockett
HD119 – Liz Campos versus Jennifer Ramos
HD138 – Akilah Bacy versus Jenifer Pool
HD142 – Harold Dutton versus Jerry Davis
HD148 – Anna Eastman versus Penny Shaw

Note that in that HD47 primary, one (1) vote separates second and third place, according to the Travis County Clerk. I assume there will be a recount, and even before then late-arriving mail ballots could change this. In the event of an actual tie, there will be a coin flip to determine who goes to the runoff. I’m rooting so hard for that outcome, you guys.

In the HD67 primary, 63 votes separate Lorenzo Sanchez and Rocio Gosewehr Hernandez, or 0.3 percentage points. I would expect a recount there as well, but with a far lesser chance of affecting the outcome.

Lorraine Birabil was the winner of the special election in HD100 to fill out the unexpired term of Eric Johnson, who is now Mayor of Dallas. Anna Eastman was the winner of the special election in HD148 to succeed Jessica Farrar.

14th Court of Appeals, Place 7 – Tamika Craft versus Cheri Thomas

164th District Court – Cheryl Elliott Thornton versus Alex Smoots-Thomas
339th Criminal Court – Te’iva Bell versus Candance White

County Commissioner, Precinct 3 – Diana Martinez Alexander versus Michael Moore

Moore was leading most of the night, but Alexander caught and passed him as final results came in. I don’t care to go through the various Constable and JP races, but the good Jerry Garcia was leading problematic incumbent Chris Diaz going into the Precinct 2 Constable runoff.

Whatever turnout there will be in the runoffs will be driven primarily by the Dem Senate race and the Congressional races on both sides. Won’t be much, but it ought to be a bit more than usual, and surely more on the D side if there were no Senate runoff.

It’s Hegar versus West for the Senate nomination

Mar 5th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

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The last undetermined race on the Dem side has an answer.

MJ Hegar

MJ Hegar and Royce West are advancing to a runoff for the Democratic nomination to challenge U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas.

Hegar, the former Air Force helicopter pilot backed by national Democrats, clearly established herself as the leading vote recipient Tuesday night in the 12-way primary. However, it was not clear until Wednesday afternoon that West, the Dallas state senator, was the runner-up. With almost all polling locations reporting, Hegar had 22% of the vote and West 14.5%.

“I believe we are well-positioned to win the runoff,” West said in a statement thanking his competitors for their ideas and effort. “The runoff is a brand new day.”

West was closely followed in the results by progressive organizer Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, who got 13.2% and conceded late Wednesday afternoon.

Sen. Royce West

“This campaign was consistently underestimated,” Tzintzún Ramirez said in a statement. “I ran as a progressive, as a Latina, and as a working mom. We ran this campaign unapologetically, and we all have so much to be proud of for what we’ve accomplished.”

[…]

Hegar leaned hard on her background as a military hero and working mom, presenting herself as the “badass” best suited to go toe to toe with Cornyn. Along the way, she resisted some of the more liberal positions of her primary competitors.

West ran on his 27 years of experience in the Texas Senate, and he had the support of most of his Democratic colleagues in the Legislature. He has said Texas needs “an experienced leader to stand up to” President Donald Trump.

The SOS results page took a long time getting numbers from Dallas County, which is why this race took so long to clarify. West won big in his home county, and it seemed like there were other late-arriving returns that favored him – I watched throughout the day yesterday and saw what had once been a decent sized lead for Tzintzún Ramirez slowly drain away. Runoffs are low-turnout affairs, but if Dallas and the surrounding area comes out for West in May, he can win.

As for Tzintzún Ramirez, she conceded on Twitter late in the day Wednesday. She was a late entrant into a race that already had four experienced candidates, but she acquitted herself well and I hope to see her take another run at something. There’s an entire statewide slate to fill up in 2022, and the first election after redistricting always offers opportunities.

Overall, I think Hegar is the stronger candidate for November, and I hope to see her pick up her fundraising even more going forward. I hope the DSCC’s backing is more than just talk, because we’re going to need that in November, no matter how competitive the state may be at the Presidential level. But she has to win in May first, and West will be a formidable challenge. I hope they both hit the ground running for overtime. The Chron and the Dallas Observer have more.

2020 primary results: Senate and Congress

Mar 4th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

In the US Senate primary, MJ Heger is clearly headed to the runoff. It’s less clear who’s in second place, in part because the statewide results are so out of date on both the Trib and SOS pages. As of this draft, these pages show Royce West trailing Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez by three points, with 64,041 votes cast for him. However, as of the same time, the Dallas County election results show West with 58,873 votes, just in Dallas. Suffice it to say, the statewide results are not up to date. My guess is that West finishes second, but check back later.

For Congress:

– Sima Ladjevardian was close to 50% in CD02 after early voting, but slipped back a bit from there and will be in the runoff with Elisa Cardnell.

– Mike Siegel was leading in CD10 as far as I could tell, but it’s not clear who he’ll face in the runoff.

– Sri Kulkarni appears to be over 50% in CD22. I very much hope that race ended last night.

– Wendy Davis (CD21) and Gina Ortiz Jones (CD23) were winning easily, and Julie Oliver (CD25) was also headed to victory. Kim Olson and Candace Valenzuela were basically tied in CD24 and will face off in May, as will Sean McCaffity and Lulu Seikaly in CD03. Christine Eady Mann and Donna Imam made the cut in CD31. Elizabeth Hernandez appeared to be leading Laura Jones in CD08.

– Henry Cuellar seems to have held on in CD28, and on the Republican side Kay Granger was doing the same in CD12. So Republicans will still have at least one female member of Congress from Texas.

– Sheila Jackson Lee and Al Green won easily against their challengers.

– Pete Sessions will be in the runoff in CD17, and Troy Nehls gets to face Kathaleen Wall and her millions of dollars in CD22. I pity everyone who will have to suffer through the TV commercials.

One more of these to go.

UPDATE: The Chron says it’s Mike Siegel and Pritesh Gandhi in the CD10 runoff, with Shannon Hutcheson finishing third. That’s a rare failure for a female candidate in any Dem primary from this year.

2020 primary results: State races

Mar 4th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

I’m going to direct you to the Texas Tribune results page, which combines both parties’ results and is a couple orders of magnitude less sucky than the revamped SOS election night results pages. Good Lord, whoever designed that “upgrade” from the lower-tech previous version should be banished to a desert island. We’re gonna do bullet points here:

– As with the Harris County judicial races, female candidates swept the statewide judicial nominations. Brandon Birmingham, who was unopposed for CCA Place 9, will be the lone Democratic dude on the statewide judicial ballot. Staci Williams was leading Brandy Voss for Supreme Court Place 7. On the Republican side, incumbent CCA Place 3 incumbent Bert Richardson was holding on against Rick Perry fangirl Gina Parker. Good grief.

– Chrysta Castaneda and former State Rep. Roberto Alonzo were headed to a runoff for Railroad Commissioner. On the Republican side, incumbent Ryan Sitton was trailing his opponent, some dude named Jim Wright. I was paying no attention to that one, so I’ll be looking for some news stories today to explain what happened there.

– Michelle Palmer and Kimberley McLeod were headed to a runoff in SBOE 6, while Marsha Burnett-Webster was cruising in SBOE 10. Rebecca Bell-Metereau was on her way to another shot at SBOE5, and, well, lookie here:

Robert Morrow is leading in the Republican primary races for the State Board of Education District 5 seat, which represents an area spanning Austin to San Antonio, according to some voting returns Tuesday night.

With about 86,000 votes counted, Morrow, a provocateur who often posts photos of women’s breasts on social media, had 39% of votes, followed by Lani Popp, a speech pathologist at the Northside school district in San Antonio, who had 36% of votes. Inga Cotton, executive director of San Antonio Charter Moms, a nonprofit that provides resources to families about charter schools, has 25% of votes. If nobody wins more than 50% of votes, the two highest vote recipients will head to a run-off election May 26.

Chairman of the Travis County GOP Matt Mackowiak was already signaling his dismay at Morrow’s lead Tuesday night.

You may recall that Morrow was for a brief time the Chair of the Travis County GOP. Have fun dealing with that shit sandwich, Matt.

– Sen. Eddie Lucio was on the knife’s edge to win in SD27. He was just over 50% when last I looked. Sara Stapleton-Barrera was in second, with about 34%. This still could go to a runoff, we’ll see. In SD19, the main pickup opportunity for Dems, Xochil Pena Rodriguez led Roland Gutierrez and would face him in the runoff. Sen. Borris Miles was around 60% of the vote in his race.

– For the State House, Natali Hurtado (HD126) and Ann Johnson (HD134) won easily. Akilah Bacy was headed to a runoff with Jenifer Pool in HD138, and Anna Eastman will have to run one more race, this time against Penny Shaw, in HD148. As of this writing, Rep. Harold Dutton was at 50.03% in his race, eight votes above the line to avoid a runoff. Needless to say, that can change. All other incumbents, in Harris and elsewhere, were headed to victory, though on the GOP side Reps. Dan Flynn and JD Sheffield were facing runoffs. Suleman Lalani and Sarah DeMerchant were leading in HD26.

Like I said, a few things are still in flux, but this is where we are with about two-thirds of the Harris County vote in. I’ll do updates as needed and will have more tomorrow.

UPDATE: In the end, both Sen. Eddie Lucio and Rep. Harold Dutton fell short of fifty percent and will be in runoffs in May.

Six questions for today’s voting

Mar 3rd, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

In some semblance of an order…

1. How will the early vote differ from the Tuesday vote? I’m mostly talking about the Presidential race here. We strongly suspect today will be a very big day at the ballot box, in part because people have been waiting, to see what the latest developments have been, before deciding, You know, so they don’t accidentally vote for a candidate who has dropped out, or one who seems unlikely to get any delegates. Bernie has the poll surge, Biden has the South Carolina surge, which has earned him a number of late endorsements. Which will have the greater effect?

2. Who finishes second in the Senate primary? Every single poll has MJ Hegar in the lead, sometimes by a few points, sometimes by a significant margin, with every other candidate in a pack after her. None of the other candidates has raised much money, and in each of the recent polls at least one of the no-money-at-all candidates has been up in the high single digits, ahead of at least one candidate who has an actual campaign. If I had to guess I’d say Royce West and Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez have the edge for the second runoff slot, but in a race with 12 candidates and where fifteen percent might be enough to finish second, who knows?

3. What surprises are out there? Here I’m mostly thinking of the Congressional primaries for the DCCC-targeted seats where there’s one candidate with a lot more money than the others: CD02, CD21, CD22, CD23, and CD24. Do the candidates with the most money win, or at least lead the pack, or does that matter less in a year where turnout is super high and voters may not know as much about the non-Presidential candidates?

4. Do we have to have the “insurgents versus establishment” debate again? There are a few races where that’s on the menu, at least in a high profile way. I’ll check back on that sometime after tomorrow, I don’t feel like it right now.

5. How random is the bottom of the ballot? We have a lot of judicial races in Harris County, and in the primaries where you don’t have a party label to give you some guidance, we have a lot of voters who know diddly squat about a lot of these candidates. Here in Harris County, we have a number of challengers to sitting District Court judges, some of whom are more serious than others (the same can be said about the incumbents). Some candidates have racked up the endorsements and have been very visible, others not so much. Will there be any correlation between those who worked at is and those who won? History says at best a weak link, but maybe this year will be different.

6. Will the Republicans succeed at their diversity effort? They’d sure like to say they were successful. Maybe that’s good enough.

Four more polls say Bernie is leading in Texas

Mar 3rd, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

From Latino Decisions:

A new poll of Texas voters published Friday by Univision shows Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) with a 6-point lead over his rivals in the crucial Super Tuesday state, particularly among Latino voters.

The poll, conducted by polling firm Latino Decisions for Univision and the University of Houston’s Center for Mexican American Studies, shows 26 percent of Texans support Sanders in the Democratic presidential primary, while former Vice President Joe Biden and former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg are tied in second place with 20 percent support each.

A poll conducted by the same firm in September showed Sanders at 13 percent support.

No other candidate breaks the 15 percent threshold required to win delegates in the Texas primary taking place on Tuesday.

The poll also focused on Latino voters in Texas, a group that Sanders leads with 31 percent support, to Bloomberg’s 23 percent and Biden’s 19 percent.

[…]

According to the poll, President Trump and Sanders are in a dead heat in Texas in a general election match-up, with the support of 45 percent of respondents each.

Bloomberg comes in slightly ahead against Trump with 44 percent support to 43 percent.

Biden also matches up competitively with the president, with 43 percent support for Biden against 46 percent for Trump.

Warren, former South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) all trail Trump by a margin wider than the poll’s margin of error.

See here for the September Latino Decisions poll, and here for the poll data. Trump gets a pretty decent 52-48 approval rating, including 38% approval from Latinos and 19% approval from African-Americans, both of which seem high to me. Regardless of what I think, that goes along with overall better re-elect numbers in Texas for Trump, who trailed a generic Democrat 42-47 in September.

Also in this poll, way down on the last page of the data file, is a question for the Senate primary. MJ Hegar has 20%, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez and Royce West have 10%, Chris Bell and Michael Cooper have 8%, Amanda Edwards and Annie Garcia have 6%, and Sema Hernandez has 5%. There’s no head-to-head matchup, but on page 5, incumbent Sen. John Cornyn leads a generic Democrat 43-41.

From NBC News/Marist:

Bernie Sanders holds a double-digit lead over his closest Democratic rival in Texas, while he’s essentially tied with Joe Biden in North Carolina, according to a pair of NBC News/Marist polls of these two key Super Tuesday states taken before Biden’s convincing victory in South Carolina.

In Texas, which will award a total of 228 pledged delegates in the Democratic contest on March 3, Sanders gets the support of 34 percent of likely Democratic primary voters, and Biden gets 19 percent.

They’re followed by former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at 15 percent, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., at 10 percent, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 8 percent and Sen. Amy Klobuchar at 3 percent.

[…]

“North Carolina is a tossup between Sanders and Biden for Super Tuesday,” said Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion, which conducted these surveys for NBC News.

But when it comes to Texas, Miringoff adds, “Sanders is positioned to carry the state, although nearly one in four likely voters is still on the fence.”

The polls were conducted Feb. 23-27, before Biden’s lopsided victory Saturday in the South Carolina primary.

[…]

Under the Democratic Party’s delegate-allocation rules, a candidate who doesn’t get at least 15 percent — statewide and in congressional or state Senate districts (for Texas) — doesn’t qualify for delegates to take to the Democratic convention in Milwaukee.

As in past primaries and polling, Sanders overperforms in these two states among likely Democratic primary voters under the age of 45, self-described progressives, and Latinos.

Biden, meanwhile, does the best among likely Democratic primary voters over 45, self-described moderates, and African Americans.

The poll data is here, and I’ll get back to that in a minute. I’m not aware of a previous NBC/Marist poll of Texas. Three things to keep in mind for this one: One, lots of people haven’t voted yet, so the situation remains fluid. Two, most of the people who have voted so far (see page 6) are 50 and over. And three, Pete Buttigieg and now Amy Klobuchar have suspended their campaigns, with the latter endorsing Biden, which means at least some of their voters will move on to another candidate. Note I am not making any statements about how any of these factors may affect things today, I am just noting them for the record. I think they combine to be more an element of chaos and unpredictability than any one direction.

As for the data, Trump gets a 46-44 approval rating among all adults, and a 49-44 rating among registered voters. (Have I mentioned that registering people to vote for this election is A Good Thing To Do?) He led both Sanders and Biden 49-45 among registered voters, which is basically a recapitulation of the approval rating. NBC/Marist also polled the Senate primary, and gave two numbers, for “Potential Dem primary voters” and “Likely Dem primary voters”. In the former, MJ Hegar led with 13%, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez and Annie Garcia each had 8%, Royce West had 7%, and no one else had more than 5%. Among the “likely” primary voters, Hegar was at 16%, with Tzintzún Ramirez at 9%, West at 8%, Garcia at 7%, and no one else above 5%.

From UT-Tyler/DMN:

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has roared into the lead in Texas in the Democratic presidential race, with Mike Bloomberg and Joe Biden locked in a battle for second, a new Dallas Morning News-University of Texas at Tyler poll has found.

Sanders, who trailed Biden among Hispanics in the same survey late last month, has vaulted to a 42% to 18% lead over the former vice president among Latino Democrats and Latino independents who lean Democratic, according to the poll. And unlike in previous UT Tyler polls, in which Sanders trailed Biden, he now leads among all Democrats, with 29%. Bloomberg has 21%, while Biden, in third, draws the support of 19%.

The margin of error for the latest poll, conducted Feb. 17-26, is plus or minus 4.05 percentage points for the 586 likely voters who indicated they would vote in the Democratic primary. For all 1,221 registered voters surveyed, it’s plus or minus 2.8 points.

In the earlier poll, Bloomberg was a distant fourth among Hispanics, with only 12% naming him as their first choice in the state’s Super Tuesday primary. But in the latest survey, the former New York City mayor is running second among Hispanics, with 20% support.

Among white voters, Sanders and Bloomberg overtook and now lead Biden. White Democrats and independents who lean Democratic broke 24% for Sanders, 23% for Bloomberg and 15% for Biden. In the earlier poll, Biden had 27%.

[…]

For Trump, the poll brings mixed messages from the Lone Star State. The all but certain Republican nominee leads in all six of the November matchups the poll tested — with Biden, Bloomberg and Sanders the most competitive Democrats.

All trailed the incumbent Republican by 1 percentage point, 44% to 45%, well within the margin of error, the poll found. Buttigieg was 4 percentage points behind Trump (41% to 45%); Klobuchar, 7 behind (38% to 45%); and Warren, 10 down (37% to 47%).

The UT-Tyler political science page is here, and as of Monday morning they didn’t have a link to the latest poll data. Their January poll was easily Biden’s best showing in Texas, so this would be a huge swing and a big blow to the foundation of the claim that Biden and Bernie are in a tight race. That said, this poll was conducted around the time of the Nevada caucus, and the story notes that Bernie got a big bump from that, and before the South Carolina primary. The head pollster notes in the story that (as with the NBC/Marist result), Bernie’s support mostly comes from younger voters who as of the time of the poll had not actually voted. In other words, today’s turnout really matters.

And yes, they polled the Senate race, too.

Barring a fluke, MJ Hegar has likely secured a spot in the Democratic runoff to challenge Republican incumbent Sen. John Cornyn. Her superior fundraising and competent campaign structure — compared to her primary rivals — has slowly but certainly given her an edge over the 11 other contenders in the contest.

While it’s easy to forecast Hegar as the front-runner, picking the candidate that will join her in the primary’s overtime period is a roll of the dice. An argument can be made for all of the other four major contenders, state Sen. Royce West of Dallas, Austin-based labor activist Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, former Houston council member Amanda Edwards and former U.S. Rep. Chris Bell of Houston, to make the expected runoff.

A new poll by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler shows Hegar comfortably out front with 15% support. The rest are in a close fight for second place, with Bell, Tzintzún Ramirez and West at 7% each. Edwards, Houston lawyer Annie Garcia and Pasadena activist Sema Hernandez had 4% support.

Cornyn is expected to cruise to victory in the GOP primary over four challengers.

It’s as clear as it ever was.

Finally, from Emerson College:

A new Emerson College/Nexstar poll of Texas finds Senator Bernie Sanders leading with 31% of the vote. Former VP Joe Biden is next at 26% followed by former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg at 16%, Senator Elizabeth Warren at 14%, former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg at 5%, Senator Amy Klobuchar at 4%, Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard at 3%, and Businessman Tom Steyer at 2%.

Compared to the last Emerson College poll of Texas in August, Sanders gained 15 points, Biden dropped two points, Warren fell three points, Klobuchar is up four points, and Gabbard moved up two points. Bloomberg had not announced his candidacy at the time of the previous poll.

Sanders’ strength continues to be among younger voters, as he garners 46% support from voters under the age of 50. Warren follows him among those voters with 15%, Bloomberg is at 13% and Biden is at 12% among under 50 voters. Biden has strong support from voters 50 and over with 40% support. Following him is Bloomberg with 20%, Sanders with 14%, and Warren with 13%.

Sanders does best among Hispanic or Latino voters, with 48% support. Biden follows at 17%, Bloomberg is at 15%, and Warren is at 13% among Hispanics. Sanders holds a much smaller lead among white voters with 26%, followed by Biden with 24%, Bloomberg with 17%, and Warren with 15%. Biden performs the strongest with African-American voters at 43% support. Following him is Sanders at 19%, Bloomberg at 14%, and Warren at 11%.

[…]

The plurality of Texas Democratic primary voters (39%) are undecided on who they will vote for this week in the primary election for the Democratic US Senate nomination. Sixteen percent (16%) plan to support MJ Hegar, 11% support Royce West, 8% Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, 6% Chris Bell and 5% Cooper. All other candidates were under 5%.

The August Emerson poll was of all voters, while this one is of “very likely Democratic primary voters” only, so there are no head-to-heads or approval numbers. The writeup notes that Biden is leading among those who decided more recently, with 35% to Bernie’s 23%, so I refer you again to the likely size of the electorate voting today. As for the Senate poll, it’s in line with the other three. I came by this last poll via a Chron story with the headline “Day before election, many Texans still undecided on Democratic Senate primary, poll says”, and my first reaction was “WHICH POLL?!?!?”, which probably says more about me than anything else. If there are any more polls out there, it’s too late and I don’t want to know about them.

Can someone beat Lucio?

Feb 28th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Maybe this is the year.

Sen. Eddie Lucio

A lot of Democrats running for the Texas Legislature this cycle are hoping that the opportunity to influence the next redistricting process helps propel them to office. One Democrat, meanwhile, is hoping it keeps him there.

As state Sen. Eddie Lucio Jr. of Brownsville looks to hold off two primary challengers, he is strongly emphasizing his experience and seniority, which includes nearly three decades in the upper chamber, making him the third most senior member in the 31-person body. He sits on the Senate Select Committee on Redistricting, and with three rounds of political boundary-drawing under his belt, he is arguing now is not the time for the Rio Grande Valley to gamble on a fresh face.

“This is no time for freshmen,” Lucio said in an interview outside a campaign event here earlier this month, echoing comments he made last month to the McAllen Chamber of Commerce. “I didn’t mean that in a negative way. I meant it in a very constructive way because … I remember my freshman year — and nothing wrong with that, you know, time would give you the experience that you need, but right now it’s important that we continue, have a little continuity on what we’ve had.”

Yet Lucio’s tenure — along with his experience siding with Republicans on some controversial topics — is fueling arguably unprecedented primary opposition from Brownsville attorney Sara Stapleton Barrera and Ruben Cortez, a member of the State Board of Education from Brownsville. Together they represent “probably the biggest challenge [Lucio]’s had in a long, long time,” Brownsville historian Tony Knopp said.

The looming redistricting process is factoring prominently into state House races as Democrats work to flip that chamber and earn a bigger say in redrawing the maps that will shape elections for a decade. Lucio’s emphasis on seeing that process through is part of a four-point reelection pitch centered on experience, seniority, “track record” and his relationships on both sides of the aisle.

But Stapleton Barrera and Cortez argue Lucio sides too often with Republicans, failing to represent his solidly blue district, especially since Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, a conservative firebrand, became the Senate’s presiding officer. And when it comes to redistricting, Cortez questions whether Lucio can be trusted to stick with Democrats throughout the process given his party-bucking ways and closeness to Patrick.

“That’s not even a question we should have on our minds,” Cortez said, “but we do.”

Lucio has taken the opposition seriously, dramatically out-raising and outspending his competition since last summer. Still, he said he is not sure he could win outright on March 3, raising the possibility of a runoff that could draw in the party’s most engaged voters.

There’s more, so go read the rest. I’m more inclined to support Cortez based on all I’ve read, but either would be an upgrade. Lucio has indeed raised and spent a bunch of money (and that’s without looking at the 30-day and 8-day reports), and the fact is that it’s hard to oust an incumbent in the absence of a scandal of some kind. On the other hand, the electorate overall is more restless than usual, and Lucio is vulnerable to a lot of arguments. A runoff would not shock me.

UH Senate poll: Hegar leads, the rest scramble

Feb 26th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Day Two of the UH Hobby School of Public Affairs poll, and a second result showing that MJ Hegar is in a strong position to make the primary runoff for Senate.

MJ Hegar

Hegar, a Round Rock Democrat who narrowly lost a 2018 Congressional race to incumbent Republican John Carter, is the best-known candidate among the crowded field. Still, more than half of voters said they did not know enough about her to have an opinion. Those numbers were even higher for the other 11 candidates.

Among people who indicated a preference in the race, Hegar was the top choice of 41%, more than three times the vote preference for state Sen. Royce West of Dallas, at 12.3%. Chris Bell, a former Houston city councilman and congressman, was in third place with support from 10.8% of voters, while Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez was fourth, with 8.3%.

The other eight candidates were led by Annie Garcia and Michael Cooper, each with 5.4%; Amanda Edwards with 5.0%; and Sema Hernandez with 4.5%

Renée Cross, senior director of the Hobby School, said the Senate race has been overshadowed by the Democratic presidential primary. And having a dozen candidates hasn’t made it easier for voters to sort out the Democratic Senate race.

“Texas Democrats were optimistic about their chances against Republican Sen. John Cornyn, especially after Beto O’Rourke came close against Ted Cruz in 2018,” she said. “But with so many candidates, it’s been hard for anyone to stand out.”

The poll, conducted between Feb. 6 and Feb. 18 among likely Democratic primary voters, found Hegar leading across all geographic areas of the state except for the border – although Bell came close in the Houston area – and across most generational, racial and ethnic groups. West drew more support from African Americans with 28.5%, compared to 18.1% for Hegar.

The full report is here, and the Hobby School landing page for their 2020 primary polling is here. I reported on their Presidential primary polling here.

I kind of hate the way they presented the data in that writeup, because it’s the result of an adjustment to the raw data that’s not clear unless you read this closely. Basically, what they did was take the initial response numbers, then recalculate them after throwing out the non-respondents. This has the effect of almost doubling everyone’s totals. They did this in the Presidential poll too, it’s just that there were just far fewer of these “don’t know/nobody” respondents, so the effect was much smaller. In the raw numbers, as you can see on that full report link, Hegar led with 22% (Table 2, page 3), followed by West at 6.6% and Bell at 5.8&, then the rest in proportionate amounts. It doesn’t change the big picture – Hegar has a significant lead, which is the same result that the UT/Trib poll got, with numbers similar to the raw totals here – it just looks funny.

To be fair, some adjustment is reasonable, because it really is the case that a non-trivial number of people who will vote in the primary will not vote in the non-Presidential races, as we discussed before. My estimate of the dropoff rate is around 25%, so if we assume everyone in the Hobby sample will vote in the Presidential race, more than half of those “don’t know/no one” respondents will still pick someone in the Senate race. You could take a crack at extrapolating from there, but honestly, I’d have just left it – and reported it – as it was. Like I said, the basic story was accurate. Why fudge around like that?

What is “safe”?

Feb 26th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

Saw this on Twitter, and it got me thinking:

For those upset about critique of establishment politics:

There are D reps in SAFE blue seats who side w/ the NRA, are anti-LGBT+, and yet are protected because they advance the interests of big donors, Wall St, fossil fuels, etc.

It’s not “wrong” to take that on and do better.

— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) 8:58 PM – 22 February 2020

AOC isn’t the only person I’ve observed referring to CD28 as “safe” Democratic. This WaPo story from 2019, reprinted in the Trib, calls CD28 “a strongly Democratic district…which gave the president just 38.5 percent of the vote in 2016”. This DMN story has a subhed that calls CD28 “Vast and overwhelmingly Democratic district”, and notes that “Trump lost here by 20 percentage points”. The American Prospect is a bit more circumspect, saying CD28 is “a safely (though not extremely) blue district, with a +9 Democratic lean”, and also noting the 20-point margin for Clinton over Trump in 2016.

But 2016 isn’t the only election we’ve ever had, and the Clinton-Trump matchup isn’t the only data point available. Here’s a broader look at the recent electoral history in CD28:


Year  Candidate    Votes    Pct
===============================
2012  Obama      101,843  60.2%
2012  Romney      65,372  38.6%
2012  Sadler      90,481  55.1%
2012  Cruz        68,096  41.5%
2012  Hampton     93,996  58.5%
2012  Keller      61,954  38.6%

2014  Alameel     41,901  46.6%
2014  Cornyn      42,010  46.7%
2014  Davis       48,451  52.7%
2014  Abbott      41,335  45.0%
2014  Granberg    45,658  51.7%
2014  Richardson  38,775  43.9%

2016  Clinton    109,973  57.8%
2016  Trump       72,479  38.1%
2016  Robinson    95,348  52.6%
2016  Guzman      77,590  42.8%
2016  Burns      102,778  57.1%
2016  Keasler     69,501  38.6%

2018  Beto        97,728  58.7%
2018  Cruz        67,483  40.5%
2018  Valdez      87,007  52.7%
2018  Abbott      75,939  46.0%
2018  Jackson     94,479  58.3%
2018  Keller      63,559  39.2%

Yes, in 2014, John Cornyn topped David Alameel in CD28. To my mind, if it is possible for a candidate of the other party to beat a candidate of your own party in a given district, that district is by definition not “safe”. It’s true that in Presidential years, most Democrats win CD28 comfortably, with the closest call being a win by just under 10 points. But in off years, even factoring out the crapshow that was the Alameel campaign, Dems generally win CD28 by smaller margins.

None of this is to say that CD28 is a swing district. It’s not, and I have no reason to be concerned about it in 2020. But if Trump-versus-Clinton-in-2016 is the gold standard here, I’ll point out that of the six districts Dems are targeting this year, four of them (CDs 02, 10, 22, and 31) were won by Trump by larger margins than Wendy Davis won CD28 by in 2014 and Lupe Valdez won it by in 2018. Different years, different conditions, and different candidates may provide a different perspective.

Another way of looking at this is to see how Democratic CD28 is compared to other Congressional districts represented by Democrats:


Dist  Clinton    Beto
=====================
CD07    48.2%   53.3%
CD32    48.4%   54.9%
CD15    56.2%   57.4%
CD28    57.8%   58.7%
CD34    59.1%   57.7%
CD20    60.2%   66.2%

All other Dem-held districts were at least 63% for Clinton and 70% for Beto. Again, none of this is to say that CD28 is vulnerable. Whoever wins the CD28 primary will be the strong favorite, like 99%+, to win it in November. This is not a comment on that race, but on public perception and objective reality. It’s why I generally try not to make blanket statements like “safe district” but try instead to put a number or two on it, so you have some context to my evaluation. I doubt anyone will adopt this as their style guide, but it’s very much how I prefer to operate.

And I have to say, I might have let this go by if I hadn’t also seen this little gem in the Chronicle story on the announced resignation of State Sen. Kirk Watson:

Abbott soon will have to schedule a special election for the remainder of Watson’s four-year term, which ends in 2022. Watson’s District 14, which mostly lies in Austin, leans Democratic.

“Leans Democratic”??? Here’s that same set of numbers for Watson’s SD14:


Year  Candidate    Votes    Pct
===============================
2012  Obama      193,112  60.2%
2012  Romney     116,001  36.1%
2012  Sadler     187,717  59.4%
2012  Cruz       109,877  34.7%
2012  Hampton    181,614  59.1%
2012  Keller     106,581  34.7%

2014  Alameel    123,058  56.2%
2014  Cornyn      80,818  36.9%
2014  Davis      140,602  63.3%
2014  Abbott      75,206  33.9%
2014  Granberg   127,108  59.7%
2014  Richardson  73,267  34.4%

2016  Clinton    249,999  65.3%
2016  Trump      106,050  27.7%
2016  Robinson   218,449  58.8%
2016  Guzman     124,165  33.4%
2016  Burns      223,599  60.8%
2016  Keasler    120,727  32.8%

2018  Beto       289,357  73.8%
2018  Cruz        98,589  25.1%
2018  Valdez     257,708  66.3%
2018  Abbott     119,889  30.9%
2018  Jackson    264,575  69.4%
2018  Keller     104,375  27.4%

LOL. SD14 “leans” Democratic in the same way that a wrecking ball leans against the side of a building. Data is your friend, people. Use the data. I know I’m tilting against windmills here, but at least you can see why I noticed that tweet.

Republican former Senators defend anti-majoritarian practices

Feb 24th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

I appreciate the spirit in which this was offered, but it’s completely out of touch with reality.

The purpose of the 31-member Texas Senate is similar to that of the U.S. Senate: to cool down some of the fevered legislation filed in the Senate or passed by a simple majority of the Texas House of Representatives.

This is accomplished by a Senate rule that requires a super-majority vote (60% of senators on the floor at this time) to bring up a bill for debate. This rule was enacted in 2015; for 70 years previously, a larger, two-thirds vote was required (21 votes of those present).

It’s no coincidence that the 2015 rule change mirrored the Senate’s partisan balance. It allowed Republicans, who held 20 seats, to bring up and pass a bill without any Democrat support. Now — with the possibility that Democrats may gain Senate seats in the general election — the idea has been raised to further lower the threshold during the 2021 legislative session to require only a simple majority vote.

As former Republican senators — with a total of 80 years of service in this wonderful, deliberative body — we oppose this possible change. Requiring only a simple majority would be bad for the Texas Senate, the Texas Legislature, and the State of Texas.

[…]

A stronger rule encourages, even forces, senators to work with colleagues across the political aisle. In our experience, working in a bipartisan manner led to better legislation and made the Texas Senate a more collegial body.

It also ensures legislators from rural and urban areas work together. In our heavily urban state, rural areas could be more easily outvoted under a rule change. In fact, some senators believe this issue is more about the urban/rural split than a partisan one.

Democrat and Republican Lt. Govs. Bill Hobby, Bob Bullock, Rick Perry, Bill Ratliff and David Dewhurst had successful terms under the two-thirds rule. It could be argued that this rule made them better leaders and improved the landmark legislation they passed (school finance, criminal justice reform, tort reform, tax cuts, worker comp reform, etc.).

Anyone notice which Lite Governor they left out of that recitation in the last paragraph? It’s not a coincidence, I assure you.

Let’s put aside the fetishization of super-majorities and the mythmaking that it’s the House producing all of the fever dream legislation these days while the Senate awaits with calm and wisdom to sort out the wheat from the chaff. (Tell me again, which chamber passed the “bathroom bill” in 2017?) The whole “require Senators to work across the aisle for the betterment of The People” thing sounds all nice and “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington”-like, but it ignores the utterly predictable reality of what will happen when and if Democrats achieve a majority in the upper chamber: Republican State Senators will immediately adopt of a model of intractable opposition to any bill that represents a Democratic priority, in the same way that Republican US Senators under Mitch McConnell used the filibuster to block literally everything President Obama wanted to do.

One reason for this is because Democratic State Senators have, to a large degree, taken similar action on many high-profile Republican priorities: redistricting, voter ID, more abortion restrictions, de-funding Planned Parenthood, “sanctuary cities”, “bathroom bills”, and so on. This is exactly why Dan Patrick, and to a lesser extent before him David Dewhurst, first weakened and then replaced the two-thirds rule, on the grounds that an elected legislative majority should be able to pass its bills with majority support. I hate these bills and I hate the effect they have had, but that’s why we have elections. I want a Democratic majority to be able to pass its bills with majority support when it is in that position as well.

But it’s the notion that requiring bipartisan consensus will be a net improvement to the process that is so laughable. Perhaps former Senators Deuell and Estes have forgotten, but the entire reason they are former Senators is because they were defeated in Republican primaries by opponents who successfully argued to the Republican voters in their districts that Deuell and Estes were too bipartisan, and too accommodating to the Democratic minority. They showed insufficient fealty to the Republican orthodoxy, and they needed to go. Would either of them argue with a straight face that Senators Bob Hall and Pat Fallon would “work with colleagues across the political aisle” in a hypothetical 16-15 or 17-14 Democratic Senate, in order to encourage better legislation and a more collegial atmosphere? I couldn’t even type that last sentence without snorting. The outcome we will get in a Senate with a modest Democratic majority and any kind of super-majoritarian rules is a Senate that passes no bills.

Again, I understand why this super-majority idea has some appeal. Maybe in a Democratic Senate where the likes of Krier and Ratliff and Sibley and Ogden and Deuell and Estes were the typical Republican Senators and none of them feared being tarred and feathered by their seething primary voters, we could indulge in this little fantasy. We don’t live in that world any more. I can’t even see it in my rearview mirror. The only thing this proposal would accomplish is the extended lifespan of every Republican priority from the past 20 years, possibly forever. I suspect they all know this, and that it appeals to them a lot more than the let’s-all-join-hands-and-work-together ideal ever would.

Endorsement watch: Senate and Tax Assessor

Feb 23rd, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

I’ve been very interested to see what the Chron would make of the Senate primary. Now we know: Royce West is their choice.

Sen. Royce West

We believe that candidate is state Sen. Royce West of Dallas, an African-American trailblazer whose record over 26 years in the Legislature is full of accomplishments as well as moments of courage and vision.

He’s been a state leader on issues as diverse as finance, criminal justice, public education and civil rights..

When then-Gov. Rick Perry drew fire in 2011 for a sign at his family hunting ranch that included a racial slur, it was West who spoke against labeling Perry, then running for president, a racist. But that same year, when the Texas division of the Sons of the Confederacy sought to have Texas issue license plates with the Confederate battle flag, West demanded the Department of Motor Vehicles reject the plates, which it did on a razor-thin vote. The decision triggered a challenge that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court before West’s position was affirmed.

[…]

Our support for West meant bypassing some incredible contenders. Former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards was an excellent public servant with a shining intellect whom we hope finds a way to continue in another role.

The front-runner in the race, Mary “M.J.” Hegar, showed why she has enjoyed early support. She was engaging, knowledgeable and told her remarkable story of bravery under fire as an Air Force pilot in Afghanistan. Michael Cooper, who ran for lieutenant governor in 2018, and Sema Hernandez, an activist in Houston making her second Senate run, , are also intriguing candidates. Among others in the race who have made a positive impression are former Houston council member and one-term Congressman Chris Bell, El Paso native Adrian Ocegueda and Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez.

But among the dozen candidates on the ballot, none has anything like West’s legislative experience. We strongly suggest Democrats back his bid to challenge Cornyn. He also has an inspiring story, and a record to match.

I think Royce West is a fine candidate with a long and distinguished record of accomplishment in the State Senate. In an earlier cycle, he’d have been hailed as a hero for taking on the challenge. Hell, that would have happened in 2018, even with Beto’s entry into the race. This year, he’s still a serious candidate with a known base of support, but he was the fourth serious candidate in the race, with Amanda Edwards stepping on his entrance. He’s been fine, and his Dallas base gives him a great shot at making the runoff, but I wouldn’t say he’s generated much excitement. Again, he’s fine and he’d be fine. This is who he is.

And back in Harris County, they endorse Ann Harris Bennett for Tax Assessor.

Ann Harris Bennett

In the summer of 2018, Harris County voters could have used a bulldog. That’s when the Harris County tax assessor-collector and voter registrar, Ann Harris Bennett, mistakenly placed more than 1,700 voters on a suspension list after a local Republican party operative challenged the registrations of 4,000 voters.

Bennett was criticized for confusing voters and not following the law, which allowed voters time to respond before they were placed on any suspension list. Bennett quickly corrected the problem and she told the Editorial Board during a candidate screening that the two employees who generated the erroneous notices are no longer with her office.

Her Democratic challenger, Jolanda Jones, says that’s not good enough. Being a criminal defense lawyer, Jones says she has the knowledge to make sure the office follows the law. Being a bulldog, the former Houston city councilwoman and “Survivor” contestant says she’d fight for voters, and for taxpayers, to protect their rights and their hard-earned dollars.

We have to admit, Jones made such an appealing case that we were almost willing to overlook her tumultuous political career, including her contributions to a fractious Houston ISD board known for petty squabbles and so much dysfunction that it’s in the process of being taken over by the state. Jones points out, correctly, that a Texas Education Agency investigation into wrongdoing on the board did not take issue with her.

“I’m going to use the same vigor, even when it’s not popular, like I did on the school board to fight for taxpayers,” Jones told us. “I’m going to be a taxpayer warrior.”

We love her spirit. We’re just not sure that the tax office, which oversees billions of dollars in property tax collections and processes millions of vehicle registrations and title transfers every year, needs a fighter as much as a diligent public servant.

I mean, that’s the choice in this race. Either option can be justified, and they each have their plusses and minuses. (A perennial crank is also in the race, and none of that last statement applies to him.) My interview with Ann Harris Bennett is here, and my interview with Jolanda Jones is here. You have the info you need, now make your choice.

Endorsement watch: Not Borris

Feb 22nd, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron makes its second major endorsement against an incumbent.

Melissa Morris

Texas Senate District 13 stretches through Harris County into the northeastern corner of Fort Bend County. It winds through struggling neighborhoods such as Sunnyside and the world-renowned Texas Medical Center and reflects our city’s rich diversity in the East End, Greater Fifth Ward and Chinatown.

Its residents deserve an elected representative attentive to its needs and able to pass legislation that will make a difference where it’s most needed.

State Sen. Borris Miles has been effective in getting funding for programs such as the Miles Ahead Scholars Program, a mentoring initiative for boys of color. He also introduced legislation to stem maternal mortality and end criminal prosecutions for failing to keep up with rent-to-own payments.

But Miles fell short in his response to the discovery of a suspected cancer cluster in Fifth Ward. Miles told the Editorial Board that he first learned of the cluster in 2017 and responded by holding community meetings and sending a strongly worded letter to TCEQ. It wasn’t until U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee got involved, Milessaid, that the issue got the attention it deserved.

That raised serious questions for us — and for one of his challengers in the Democratic primary,

During our candidate screening, attorney Melissa Morris asked Miles why he had not contacted Jackson Lee when he first learned of the cluster.

“I didn’t share it with her in 2017,” Miles responded. “I felt it was a state issue.”

Morris countered that such a serious issue merited a more urgent response from the senator representing the afflicted neighborhood. We agree. Miles’s contention that he had to follow a process doesn’t hold water when the health and lives of the people in his district are at stake.

They mention, in passing, the harassment allegations against Sen. Miles, which were an issue in the GLBT Caucus endorsement process but have otherwise been largely ignored, but this cancer cluster and Sen. Miles’ response to it was their red line. I don’t know how consequential this will be. Morris has little money, no other endorsements, and a poorly constructed webpage that doesn’t display her banner photo correctly (on two machines, and in two browsers) and links to facebook.com and twitter.com (and Google Plus, for crying out loud) instead of her own campaign Facebook account (no Twitter or Instagram, as far as I could find for her). Point being, she may be a good person and a qualified candidate, she’s probably not the most formidable opponent one could imagine.

Also endorsed yesterday: US Rep. Al Green in CD09.

While other congressional Democrats are facing primary challenges from the left wing of the party, eight-term Rep. Al Green has the opposite problem.

His lone opponent in House District 9, political newcomer Melissa Wilson, describes herself as “pro-life,” especially concerning late-term abortions, opposes an assault-weapons ban and is against imposing a higher minimum wage on small businesses.

Far from criticizing Green for not being progressive enough, Wilson says she is running against the incumbent as a “moderate” who will bring much-needed “young blood and fresh eyes” to Congress.

While a greater diversity of thought would make both political parties healthier, there is no evidence that Green’s more traditional liberal positions are out of step with his district. He was reelected with 89 percent of the vote in 2018, 81 percent in 2016 and 91 percent in 2014.

It also would be counter-productive for area voters to surrender Green’s seniority and leadership position on the Financial Services Committee when Democrats are expected to retain control of the House.

Green, 72, points to his work in securing $90 million for flood protection projects along Brays and Sims bayous. He says he continues to work on legislation to streamline recovery aid in future disasters.

Green is the right choice for voters in the March 3 Democratic primary.

I like Rep. Green and would have supported him regardless, but all this is a hard no from me. Better young blood and fresh eyes, please.

The interviews I didn’t do

Feb 19th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

As was the case with the 2019 Houston elections, there were too many candidates and too many races (and in this case, too little time as well) to do a full slate of interviews. I did what I could, and did a pretty good job of covering the races of interest in Harris County if I do say so myself, but if there had been more time I’d have done more. In some cases, I can point to previous interviews or other resources, so let’s have a review, and look ahead to what might be on tap for the runoffs.

US Senate: I’d have loved to interview some of these candidates, but it was unlikely I’d be able to get time on their calendars, especially after the filing deadline. The Texas Signal has done some Senate candidate forums, and you can see links to Facebook videos from one they did in Houston here. The Texas Trib also did a series of interviews with the five leading candidates, and they can be seen here, as well as a Q&A series here.

CD02: I interviewed Elisa Cardnell and Travis Olsen very early in the cycle, before the filing deadline and thus before Sima Ladjevardian entered the race. I’ve tried but have not succeeded at setting up a time to talk with her, and if there’s a runoff that she’s in that will be a top priority for me.

CD08: This is obviously not a district that anyone expects to be competitive, but I regret not having the time to speak to Laura Jones and Elizabeth Hernandez. They both look like super candidates, and it’s important to support efforts to build Democratic infrastructure in places like Montgomery County. That race is on my list for November.

CD09: Rep. Al Green is the one Democrat in Congress from the area that I’ve never had the chance to interview. Tried to chase him down once a few years ago but couldn’t make it happen. I don’t see this as a competitive race and there’s no need to do a November interview, but one of these days I’d like to talk with him, just to have done it.

CD10: I interviewed Mike Siegel for the 2018 runoff. This race is on my list for the May runoff, if there is one.

CD18: I interviewed Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee back in 2010. I would enjoy talking with her again, but I did not have it in me to do seven (!) interviews for this race. In the unlikely event of a runoff, I’ll definitely revisit this race.

CD22: I interviewed Sri Kulkarni for the 2018 runoff. My original thought was that if this goes to a runoff I’ll be there for it, but after the recent bizarre allegations between the two candidates who might make it into a runoff besides Sri Kulkarni, I’m not sure what I’ll do.

SD11: I interviewed Susan Criss when she ran for HD23 in 2014. I may or may not do this race for November, we’ll see.

SD13: I’ve interviewed Sen. Borris Miles twice, most recently in 2012, when he was running for re-election in HD146. Let’s just say I’d have to ask him some very different questions now, and leave it at that.

HD126: As it happens, I interviewed both candidates in 2018 – Natali Hurtado, and Undrai Fizer. I’ll probably do this one for November, we’ll see.

HD142: I have never interviewed Rep. Harold Dutton, I don’t think I’ve ever met him. I have interviewed Jerry Davis a couple of times, most recently in 2013. I will definitely want to do interviews in this race if there’s a runoff.

HD146: I have not interviewed Rep. Shawn Thierry, but I did run a judicial Q&A from her in 2010. I interviewed Ashton Woods for City Council last year.

HD147: I have interviewed Rep. Garnet Coleman multiple times, most recently in 2012. He’s always been a favorite person to talk to. In the unlikely event of a runoff, I’ll definitely revisit this race.

HD148: Had it not been for the special election in November, I’d have been all over this race. That said, thanks to the special election I’ve already done interviews with Rep.-elect Anna Eastman, Penny Shaw, and Adrian P. Garcia. I also interviewed Cynthia Reyes-Revilla for City Council. I might possibly revisit this in a runoff, but because I’ve done these interviews so recently it’s not clear to me I’d have anything new to ask these folks. We’ll see.

Sheriff: I’ve interviewed Sheriff Ed Gonzalez multiple times, including in 2016 when he first ran for Sheriff. I also interviewed Jerome Moore after he made it to the runoff with Gonzalez in 2016. I didn’t see this race as a particularly serious challenge to Gonzalez, so I put a higher priority on the DA and County Attorney races. If it turns out I was wrong and this one winds up in a runoff, I will of course revisit it.

HCDE: I also regret not doing interviews in the two At Large HCDE races, but there just wasn’t the time, and unlike with legislative offices there’s just so many questions about this position I can reasonably ask. I’ll probably do Position 7 if that race goes to a runoff, but we’ll see.

Yeah, I’ve done a lot of interviews over the years. Always room for more, though not always the time. I’ll be back to the task in March, and again later this year. Hope you find this useful.

Sen. Kirk Watson to retire

Feb 19th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Well, this was unexpected.

Sen. Kirk Watson

State Sen. Kirk Watson, an Austin Democrat, is retiring from the Texas Senate.

His resignation is effective at midnight on April 30, the Austin American-Statesman first reported Tuesday. Watson is leaving office to become the first dean of the University of Houston’s Hobby School of Public Affairs.

“This is a chance to build a world-class public affairs and policy school essentially from the ground up,” Watson said in a statement. “It is transformative work at a creative and ambitious university, located in one of the country’s largest and most diverse cities. … Only a unique opportunity to serve this state — and a compelling platform for that service — would cause me to leave.”

Watson, an attorney and former mayor of the city of Austin, represents Senate District 14, a historically Democratic seat. It covers Bastrop County and parts of Travis County. He was first elected to the seat in 2006, taking office in early 2007.

Watson’s early departure will set off a special election to serve the rest of the term, which will end in 2023. Watson delivered his resignation letter this morning to Gov. Greg Abbott, who will later set the date for a special election.

The race to replace Watson is likely to be a crowded one and could include multiple members of the Texas House’s Austin delegation.

Here’s Watson announcing his departure on Twitter:

I’m accepting an extraordinary opportunity to be Founding Dean of the @UHouston Hobby School of Public Affairs. So today I resigned from the Senate, effective 4/30. I’ve loved serving the people of Austin & Central TX & thank them for their trust & support http://kirkwatson.com/watson-wire/a-new-chapter/

— Senator Kirk Watson (@KirkPWatson) 8:48 AM – 18 February 2020

Watson was re-elected in 2018 with 72% of the vote, so this is a safe Democratic seat. The special election, which will be for the remainder of this term ending in 2021, will almost certainly be in November, so it won’t be a low-turnout affair, either. I will be shocked if we don’t see at least a couple of current members of the Lege from Travis County take a shot at this. For one, it’s a freebie – you’ll still be on the ballot for your current seat, and won’t need to step down unless you win. For another, opportunities like this don’t come along very often – Watson was first elected in 2006, after all, following the departure of Gonzalo Barrientos. Every State Rep in SD14 should be giving this serious thought.

And if one of the current State Reps eventually wins this, we’ll be in for another round of Special Legislative Elections Happening During A Legislative Session. Assuming no one wins the SD14 special in November, there would be a December runoff. That would mean a special State House election in mid-to-late January, and a runoff if needed in late February or early March. Is it wrong that I’m just a tiny bit giddy about that?

Anyway. Watson was a terrific Senator, and he will be missed. I look forward to seeing him around Houston. Chuck Lindell has a thread with reactions from various potental candidates, and the Statesman and the Chron have more.

Five questions for the primary

Feb 18th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

15 comments

Five questions I thought of, anyway. With my own answers, some of which are admittedly on the weaselish side. Feel free to discuss/disagree/ask your own questions/etc.

1. What kind of turnout are we going to have?

The short answer is “a lot”. Texas doesn’t always get to be a part of a contested Presidential primary, but when we are, we go to the polls. Dems in 2008 and Republicans in 2016 both topped 2.8 million voters – hell, more Dems voted in the 2008 primary than in the 2004 general election. I think the bidding on the Dem side starts at 3 million, with at least 500K in Harris County (we had 410K in 2008). I think 3.5 million is in play, which means a lot of first-time Dem voters. It’s going to be really interesting to see people’s voting histories in VAN after this.

2. What does this mean for all of the other races on the ballot?

It’s really hard to say. I feel like when turnout is super low, it levels the field a bit for those who are challenging incumbents or maybe haven’t raised a ton of money because the electorate is limited to the hardcore faithful, who probably know more about the candidates, or at least pay attention to endorsements and stuff like that. In a normal high turnout environment, I figure incumbents and candidates who have raised more money have the edge, since they’re better positioned to be known to the voters. In a super high turnout election, where a significant number of people won’t be all that familiar with the many names before them, who knows? I still think incumbents will be better off, but even the high-money candidates will have to fight for attention as most voters are tuned into the Presidential race. I really don’t feel comfortable making any predictions. At least the number of goofball candidates is pretty low, so even with the likelihood of some random results, there don’t appear to be any Gene Kellys or Jim Hogans out there.

That said, some number of people who vote will just be voting in the Presidential race, so the topline turnout number will be higher, maybe a lot higher, than the size of the electorate downballot. I went and looked at primary turnout in recent elections to see what this factor looks like:


Year    President  Next Most    % Pres
======================================
2004 D    839,231    605,789     72.2%
2004 R    687,615    567,835     82.6%

2008 D  2,874,986  2,177,252     75.8%
2008 R  1,362,322  1,223,865     89.8%

2012 D    590,164    497,487     84.3%
2012 R  1,449,477  1,406,648     97.0%

2016 D  1,435,895  1,087,976     75.8%
2016 R  2,836,488  2,167,838     76.4%

“President” is the number of votes cast in that Presidential primary race, “Next Most” is the next highest vote total, which was in the Senate primaries in 2008 and 2012 and in either the Railroad Commissioner or a Supreme Court race otherwise, and “% Pres” is the share of the highest non-Presidential total. Some people could have voted for President and then skipped to a Congressional race or some other non-statewide contest, but this is a reasonable enough approximation of the dropoff. Bear in mind that context matters as well. In 2004, none of the Dem statewide primaries were contested, which likely meant more people skipped those races. The infamous Senate primary between Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst and other lesser candidates was in 2012, which is why nearly everyone also voted in that race. All but one of the Dem statewide races are contested, though none are as high profile as 2012 R Senate – we may never see a race like that again.

So my best guess would be that if 3 million people vote in the Dem Presidential primary, somewhere between 2.2 million and 2.4 million people will then vote in the Senate and other statewide primaries. That’s still a lot, but the downballot races will have a slightly more engaged electorate as a result.

3. What about that Presidential primary?

Again, who knows? The polling evidence we have is mixed. Before the UT/Trib poll, the evidence we had said that Joe Biden was the leading candidate, though whether he has a big lead or a small lead over Bernie Sanders depends on which poll you’re looking at. Throw that UT/Trib poll in there, and maybe he doesn’t have a lead at all. Who knows?

The primaries that take place between now and March 3 will have an effect as well – candidates may gain or lose momentum before March 3. Bear in mind, though, that a whole lot of Texas primary voting will happen before either the Nevada caucus or the South Carolina primary happen, so the effect from those states will be limited. And Texas is one of many states voting on Super Tuesday, so candidates can’t just camp here, they have other states to worry about as well. They do all have campaign presences, however, with some of them having been here for months. Finally, quite a few candidates who have already dropped out, including Kamala Harris, Cory Booker, and Julian Castro will still be on the ballot and will get some number of votes. That UT/Trib poll still had Andrew Yang in it, and he polled at six percent, higher than Amy Klobuchar. There are a lot of moving parts here.

To me, the X factor in all this is Michael Bloomberg, who has been carpet-bombing the airwaves (seriously, where do I go to surrender?) and has been ramping up his field presence in a way that other candidates may have a hard time matching. He was basically tied for third or just behind third but still super close in the UT-Tyler poll, and fourth in the UT/Trib poll, in double digits in each case. I won’t be surprised if these polls underestimate his strength. I mean, he sure seems like a candidate positioned to do quite well among those less-frequent Dem voters, and if your top priority is beating Trump, he did quite well on that score in the UT-Tyler poll, too. He’s now getting some establishment support, too. To say the least, Bloomberg is a problematic candidate, and the inevitable round of scrutiny of his baggage may drag him back down, but if you’re not prepared for the possibility that Bloomberg could do quite well in Texas in March, you’re not paying attention.

4. What about the runoffs?

Three statewide races – Senate, RRC, and Court of Criminal Appeals, Place 3 – as well as 15 Congressional races have at least three candidates and could go to runoffs, plus who knows how many other downballot contests. Runoffs generally get far less attention and participation than the main event, but this could be a year where a reasonable share of the initial vote turns out again in May.

Because that’s the kind of person I am, I looked at the recent history of primary runoff turnout. Here you go:


Year    President     Runoff    % Pres
======================================
2004 R    687,615    223,769     32.5%

2008 D  2,874,986    187,708      6.5%

2012 D    590,164    236,305     40.0%
2012 R  1,449,477  1,111,938     76.7%

2016 D  1,435,477    188,592     13.1%
2016 R  2,836,488    376,387     13.3%

There were no statewide runoffs in 2004 for Dems (those races were all uncontested) or in 2008 for Republicans. We already know that the 2012 GOP Senate race is a unicorn, and you can see another dimension of that here. There was a Senate runoff in 2012 on the Dem side as well, and that’s the high water mark for turnout in the modern era. This Senate race isn’t that high profile, but I think there will be some money in it, and there will be some Congressional races of interest, so maybe 300K or 400K in May for Dems? I’m totally guessing, but it wouldn’t shock me if we hit a new height this year. The bar to clear is not at all high.

5. What about the Republicans?

What about them? This is basically a 2004 year for them – incumbent President, a super low-key Senate race, no other statewide races of interest, with a few hot Congressional races being the main driver of turnout. They’ll have several of those to finish up in May as well, but my guess is they top out at about a million in March, and don’t reach 200K in May. There just isn’t that much to push them to the polls at this time.

UT/Trib: Hegar leads Senate primary pack

Feb 18th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

A small bit of clarity in a muddled race.

MJ Hegar

MJ Hegar has widened her lead over her rivals for the Democratic nomination to the U.S. Senate, but she’s one of a dozen candidates in that Texas race who remain strangers to a large majority of their primary voters, according to the latest University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.

Those widely unknown Democrats are vying for the seat held by Republican John Cornyn, a well-known incumbent who first won election to the U.S. Senate in 2002. Cornyn faces four opponents in the Republican primary.

The large number of candidates almost ensures a May runoff after the March 3 primary, but it’s not clear who might be in it. Hegar had the support of 22% of self-identified Democratic primary voters in Texas — the only candidate with double-digit support. Six candidates were next in line, in a tight grouping that makes it impossible to say for sure who’s in second place. With support ranging from 5% to 9%, that group includes Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, Chris Bell, Amanda Edwards, Royce West, Annie “Mamá” Garcia and Sema Hernandez.

The rest said they preferred one of the five remaining candidates or “someone else,” or they refused to say who they’d vote for.

“There’s going to be a runoff, and Hegar is candidate one. But there is a six-car pileup for No. 2. Who knows who No. 2 is?” said Daron Shaw, co-director of the poll and a professor of government at the University of Texas at Austin. “It’s extraordinarily volatile.”

That pretty much sums up my view of this. I’ve largely ignored Dem Senate primary polling, mostly because none of the candidates had much name recognition and that led to poll results with nobody having more than ten percent of the vote. Hegar is the one candidate who has raised significant money, she has the outside group VoteVets spending on her and also has the DSCC endorsement, and she ran a high-profile campaign for Congress in 2018, so she should be leading the pack. As for who is most likely to end up in the runoff with her, I’d pick Royce West (who should get a lot of votes in the Dallas area) and Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez as the favorites. But yes, the rest of the pack are all in the running, and most outcomes would not surprise me.

Endorsement watch: Supreme Court and SD11

Feb 16th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The Chron’s endorsement process has been a bit haphazard this season – there are times when it looks like they’ve got a theme going, then they deviate from it in some head-scratching way that makes it hard for me to do these posts in a coherent manner. They gave us three endorsements on Saturday, two from Supreme Court races and the SD11 race, so I’m just going to roll with it and give them all to you here.

Susan Criss for SD11:

Susan Criss

Within hours of the 2005 Texas City Refinery explosion that killed 15 workers, Judge Susan Criss of the Texas 212nd District Court in Galveston County began meeting with lawyers representing victims and BP to begin handling what would eventually number 4,005 settled claims. After Hurricane Ike in 2008, Criss again oversaw a massive number of disputes over insurance claims even as she struggled to repair her own flooded home.

As a result of her judicial experience, and time as a criminal defense lawyer, Criss has an exceptionally deep understanding of how Texas laws can be improved. She is bursting with ideas for criminal justice reform, mitigating flood damage and making the workings of the Legislature more transparent. We believe all this adds up to make her an extraordinary candidate for the Texas Senate and Democrats’ best choice for Senate District 11 in the March 3 primary.

No argument from me. Susan Criss is a super candidate, and her opponent in the primary doesn’t appear to be running much of a campaign.

Larry Praeger for Supreme Court, Place 6:

Houston lawyer Kathy Cheng sees her race for a seat on the Texas Supreme Court as a prime opportunity for voters to break up what many see as a monoculture among the nine justices currently sitting on the state’s top civil court. There are six men and three women. Of them, only one justice — Eva Guzman — is Hispanic. There are no African-Americans, no Asian Americans and no Democrats, either.

Cheng says her experience as an immigrant, a woman, and a person of color equips her to see the world — and where the law fits into it — with more nuance and depth than her opponent, in part because he is white.

“If you don’t experience, say, racism in your own life, then you won’t have as deep, or as broad, an understanding of what that experience is like or what it means,” she said, describing the extra awareness she believes she’d bring to her role on the bench.

We agree with Cheng that this court could use a greater dose of diversity — and not just along racial lines. More variety in life experience, in legal practice and, yes, political ideology would be welcome. After all, how can judges apply the law to the facts of daily life in legal disputes without ready antennae capable of reading life in all its variegated nuance?

Cheng goes too far, however, to suggest that a vote for her opponent, Larry Praeger of Dallas, would be a missed opportunity to bring diversity of any kind to the court. Praeger, a former prosecutor who has built up his own mostly family law practice over 20 years, would also bring a radically different perspective to the court.

Cheng ran for this same Supreme Court position in 2018, losing to Jeff Brown, who has since stepped down, thus opening the seat and necessitating its spot on the ballot again. I don’t know much about Praeger. Both have received some endorsements, according to the Erik Manning spreadheet.

Peter Kelly for Supreme Court, Place 8:

Justice Peter Kelly of the 1st District Court of Appeals in Houston is our choice between two very qualified candidates in the Democratic primary for Place 8 on the Texas Supreme Court.

Both Kelly and his opponent, Justice Gisela Triana of the 3rd Court of Appeals in Austin, have served a little over a year as appellate court judges — so it is their experience prior to their election in 2018 that is the best gauge for voters in assessing what kind of Supreme Court justice they will make. And on that basis, we find Kelly’s decades-long career as an appellate lawyer, one who has argued roughly 30 cases before the court he now wishes to join, a stronger indicator of success than Triana’s impressively diverse career as a trial court judge.

[…]

Democrats are lucky to have two qualified choices in this race, but we urge them to vote for Kelly.

Not much to add here. Either candidate would have to be replaced on their current bench if they win in November, so Greg Abbott will get to appoint someone. That’s the price we pay for having candidates who have previously won elections.

January 2020 campaign finance reports: Congress

Feb 7th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

The big ones for this cycle the Q4 2019 Congressional finance reports. For the last time, we have new candidates joining the list, and a couple of folks dropping out. Let’s do the thing and see where we are going into 2020. The January 2019 roundup is here, which closed out the 2017-18 election cycle, the April 2019 report is here, the July 2019 report is here, and the October 2020 report is here. For comparison, the October 2017 report is here. The FEC summary page for Congress is here and for the Senate is here.

MJ Hegar – Senate
Chris Bell – Senate
Amanda Edwards – Senate
Royce West – Senate
Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez – Senate
Sema Hernandez – Senate
Adrian Ocegueda – Senate
Michael Cooper – Senate
Jack Foster – Senate
Anne Garcia – Senate
John Love – Senate (did not file for the primary)

Lizzie Fletcher – CD07
Colin Allred – CD32

Henry Cuellar – CD28
Jessia Cisneros – CD28

Hank Gilbert – CD01
Elisa Cardnell – CD02
Travis Olsen – CD02
Sima Ladjevardian – CD02
Sean McCaffity – CD03
Tanner Do – CD03
Lulu Seikaly – CD03
Stephen Daniel – CD06
Elizabeth Hernandez – CD08
Laura Jones – CD08
Mike Siegel – CD10
Pritesh Gandhi – CD10
Shannon Hutcheson – CD10

Adrienne Bell – CD14
Rick Kennedy – CD17
William Foster – CD17
David Jaramillo – CD17
Jennie Lou Leeder – CD21
Wendy Davis – CD21
Sri Kulkarni – CD22
Nyanza Moore – CD22
Derrick Reed – CD22
Gina Ortiz Jones – CD23
Rosey Ramos Abuabara – CD23
Jaime Escuder – CD23
Ricardo Madrid – CD23
Efrain Valdez – CD23

Jan McDowell – CD24
Kim Olson – CD24
Candace Valenzuela – CD24
John Biggan – CD24
Richard Fleming – CD24
Sam Vega – CD24
Crystal Lee Fletcher – CD24 (suspended campaign)
Julie Oliver – CD25
Heidi Sloan – CD25
Carol Ianuzzi – CD26
Mat Pruneda – CD26
Christine Eady Mann – CD31
Dan Jangigian – CD31
Eric Hanke – CD31
Donna Imam – CD31
Michael Grimes – CD31
Tammy Young – CD31


Dist  Name             Raised      Spent    Loans    On Hand
============================================================
Sen   Hegar         3,225,842  2,269,671        0  1,003,653       
Sen   Bell            318,983    310,983        0      8,000
Sen   Edwards         807,478    476,485   30,000    330,993
Sen   West            956,593    430,887  202,162    525,706
Sen   T-Ramirez       807,023    577,782        0    229,240
Sen   Hernandez         7,551      7,295        0      3,891
Sen   Ocegueda          5,773      5,273    5,600        500
Sen   Cooper            4,716      2,598       41       -660
Sen   Foster            6,957      5,604        0      1,353
Sen   Garcia           10,000      6,058   22,844      3,941
Sen   Love             31,533     27,610        0      3,922

07    Fletcher      2,339,444    544,518        0  1,836,992
32    Allred        2,370,113    555,774        0  1,917,783  

28    Cuellar       1,530,976  1,140,095        0  2,935,884
28    Cisneros        982,031    366,588        0    615,442

01    Gilbert         107,625     21,733   50,000     85,891
02    Cardnell        284,514    193,910        0     90,603
02    Olsen            29,141     24,271   11,037      4,870 
02    Ladjevardian    407,781     30,035        0    377,746
03    McCaffity       267,288     54,939        0    212,348
03    Do               17,815     17,523        0        291
03    Seikaly         109,870     43,518    3,000     66,351
06    Daniel          148,655    128,989        0     19,665
08    Hernandez
08    Jones             4,250      2,698    1,910      1,552
10    Siegel          451,917    303,847   10,000    151,560
10    Gandhi          786,107    335,354        0    450,752
10    Hutcheson       750,981    295,404        0    455,577
14    Bell             84,724     71,740        0     16,061
17    Kennedy          48,623     38,593   11,953     11,457
17    Foster
17    Jaramillo        14,280        163        0     14,116
21    Leeder           29,112     25,444    9,475      3,662
21    Davis         1,850,589    635,794   18,493  1,214,794
22    Kulkarni      1,149,783    515,958        0    661,592
22    Moore           142,528    141,373   38,526      1,154
22    Reed            142,458    104,196        0     38,261
23    Ortiz Jones   2,481,192    544,523    3,024  2,028,187
23    Abuabara
23    Escuder           8,454      2,985        0        926
23    Madrid
23    Valdez
24    McDowell         67,351     73,140        0      7,531
24    Olson           861,905    357,238   20,000    504,667
24    Valenzuela      333,007    191,231   33,956    141,776
24    Biggan           62,887     58,333   27,084      4,554
24    Fleming          16,813     16,414      300        398
24    Vega
24    Fletcher        122,427     35,099      823     87,327
25    Oliver          325,091    195,265    2,644    129,826
25    Sloan           136,461     54,257        0     82,204
26    Ianuzzi          72,607     56,912   42,195     15,695
26    Pruneda          30,117     15,546   16,000     16,935
31    Mann            170,759    126,616        0     45,580
31    Jangigian        36,127     27,383   14,681      8,743
31    Hanke            46,390     35,111        0     11,278
31    Imam            207,531     20,461  100,000    187,070
31    Grimes           15,300          0        0     15,300
31    Young            50,939     14,430        0     36,508

In the Senate primary, there’s MJ Hegar and there’s everyone else. Her totals above understate her lead in the money race, because VoteVets will be spending on her candidacy as well. I would have thought Royce West would have raised more, and I thought Cristina Tzintzun Ramirez might have done better as well, but here we are. I do think the eventual nominee will be able to raise plenty of money, and will likely get some national help as well. For sure, we know Hegar is on the DSCC’s list; whether that transfers to someone else if she falls short remains to be seen.

I’ve expressed some skepticism about Jessica Cisneros in her primary against incumbent Henry Cuellar, but she’s proven she can raise money – in fact, she outraised him for this quarter, though obviously Cuellar still has a big cash on hand advantage. I can’t say I’ve ever been enthusiastic about her candidacy – she seemed awfully green at the beginning, and as someone who had moved back to Laredo to run this race she didn’t strike me as the kind of candidate that could give him a serious challenge. But man, Cuellar is a jackass, and I’m sure that’s helped her in the fundraising department. He’s also now got some national money coming in, which suggests at least a little case of the nerves. This is the marquee race that’s not in Harris County for me, though I will reiterate what I said before about taking out Cuellar versus taking out Eddie Lucio.

Sima Ladjevardian made a big splash in CD02, and around the same time as her announcement of her Q4 haul the DCCC put CD02 on its target list, adding it to the six other seats (CDs 10, 21, 22, 23, 24, and 31) that were already there. I assume the two are related, though Elisa Cardnell keeps chugging along.

Even though there was a long history of Democratic challengers to Republican Congressmen not raising any money, we all got used to the idea of our candidates breaking records and putting up very impressive totals in 2018. Look at the January 2019 summary that I linked to above, which adds it up for the cycle. Even candidates in completely non-competitive districts were topping $100K, even $200K or more. So maybe some of the totals you see here have you a bit jaded, like “oh, sure, we can raise money now, we’re good at that now”. If that’s what you’re thinking – and I don’t blame you, I feel that way too – I invite you to look back at the January 2018 summary, which is the point in time from that cycle that we’re in now. Look in particular at CDs 03, 10, 22, and 24, where candidates this time around have in some cases done better by an order of magnitude than their counterparts – who in some cases were themselves – did two years ago. Look at Julie Oliver in CD25 – she hadn’t even cracked $20K at this point in 2018. We are in such a different world now.

I could go down the list and look at all the race, but you can see the totals. There are no surprises here, in the sense that the candidates you’d expect to do well are indeed doing very well. Only CD31 is underperforming, at least relative to the other districts, but Christine Mann has stepped it up a bit and Donna Imam is willing to throw some of her own money in the pot. With the DCCC jumping into CD02, we’ve already expanded the field, and with the numbers so far it will be easy to expand it further. If this all still feels a little weird to you, I get it. Things were the way they were for a long time. They’re not that way any more, and I for one am glad to adjust to that.

UT-Tyler: Biden doing better than Bernie

Feb 3rd, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Poll #2 from this week stands in contrast to Poll #1.

Former vice president Joe Biden has stretched his lead in Texas in the Democratic presidential fight, buoyed by gains among Hispanics, a new Dallas Morning News-University of Texas at Tyler poll has found.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has the most enthusiastic backing of any of the major Democratic presidential contenders, according to the poll.

However, among Texas Democrats and independents who lean Democratic, Sanders is running further behind Biden than he did in two statewide polls by UT-Tyler last fall.

Biden now leads Sanders, 35% to 18%. In the East Texas university’s September and November polls, the front-running Biden bested Sanders by only 9 percentage points.

In the latest survey, former New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tied for third with 16% each. Bloomberg, who is concentrating on Super Tuesday states, has spent $24 million on ads in Texas, according to Kantar/Campaign Media Analysis Group.

The poll launches a new initiative for the 2020 election by The News and the UT Tyler Center for Opinion Research. It was conducted Jan. 21-30 with 1,169 registered voters — 305 surveyed by phone and 864 through online surveys — and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.87 percentage points.

[…]

Texans’ views of Trump’s job performance have improved slightly since the fall, and he leads all major Democrats in head-to-head, general election match-ups.

Still, if the November election were held today, Biden and Bloomberg both would be competitive against the Republican incumbent in Texas, the poll found.

Trump leads Biden, 44% to 42%. He leads Bloomberg, his bitter enemy from the Gotham business world, 45% to 42%. Both leads were within the poll’s margin of error.

In hypothetical general election match-ups, Trump leads Sanders, 45% to 39% and Warren, 46% to 37%. The president had double-digit edges over three others.

There’s more, including Senate race stuff, which as has been the case for the Democratic Senate primary, hasn’t been very useful. The UT-Tyler Polling Center page is here, but as of Sunday when I drafted this they have not posted the press release and full data from this poll. You can see their November result here, and it is a big difference, with Biden closer to Trump and Sanders farther away.

The point here is not that this poll is right and that Lyceum poll from a few days ago is wrong. It’s that we don’t have enough data to know which may be closer to the truth as it stands right now. They may both be inaccurate. This is why you don’t take one poll result as the whole story, because the next poll right around the corner may tell you something very different. We will get more data soon – at the very least, it’s about time for the next UT/Texas Tribune poll – and we can then consider the whole body of evidence that we have and see what that tells us.

I’m glad that this poll had a Trump/Bloomberg question, too. I hope all polls going forward, at least until he’s no longer a viable candidate, include him in the head-to-heads. Not because I like Bloomberg as a candidate, but because at this point it would be silly not to include him. I will also note that in this poll, Trump has a narrower lead over his top competitors than he did in November even though his approval rating has notched up. The UT-Tyler poll is also one where Trump has consistently failed to break fifty percent, though that appears to be a function of a sizable “don’t know/undecided” contingent. I expect that group to shrink once the Dems have a nominee, at which point we’ll get an indication of where those folks were leaning. In the meantime, I hope we get some more of these before we start voting.

January 2020 campaign finance reports: SBOE and State Senate

Jan 31st, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Let’s finish off our review of state offices. This post will cover State Board of Education, District 6, and the State Senate. My two-part look at the State House was here and here, Harris County offices were here, and statewide races were here.

Debra Kerner, SBOE6
Kimberly McLeod, SBOE6
Michelle Palmer, SBOE6

Borris Miles, SD13
Richard Andrews, SD13
Milinda Morris, SD13

Eddie Lucio, SD27
Sara Stapleton-Barrera, SD27
Ruben Cortez, SD27

Audrey Spanko, SD01
Jay Stittleburg, SD04
Carol Alvarado, SD06
Susan Criss, SD11
Margarita Ruiz Johnson, SD11
Randy Daniels, SD12
Shadi Zitoon, SD12
Michael Antalan, SD18
Roland Gutierrez, SD19
Freddy Ramirez, SD19
Xochil Pena Rodriguez, SD19
Robert Vick, SD22
Clayton Tucker, SD24


Candidate     Raised     Spent     Loan     On Hand
===================================================
Kerner        10,556     2,636    3,000      16,517
McLeod         1,080     1,948        0       1,080
Palmer         6,076     1,722        0       7,394

Miles         52,650    41,355  656,943      29,950
Andrews        4,575     4,946    3,849         219
Morris           260     4,530   10,000       1,250

Lucio        609,622   750,263   34,557      31,972
Barrera        5,384   150,655  141,560           0
Cortez        78,338    27,777        0       6,126

Spanko        21,253    12,150        0       6,572
Stittleburg    4,574     1,499        0       3,147
Alvarado     204,820    39,550        0     386,687
Criss         15,920    33,063        0       9,697
Johnson
Daniels
Zitoon         3,550     2,573    2,250       3,226
Antalan            0         0        0           0
Gutierrez    188,588   201,288        0     109,337
Ramirez       17,690    11,414        0       5,576
Rodriguez     56,038    63,004  125,000     106,347
Vick           2,630     1,985      550       1,515
Tucker        24,059    12,180        0       2,129

There are three SBOE races of interest around the state, but I limited myself to SBOE6 because no one raises any money for any of them. In the general election they can ride the partisan wave – being a state office, they’re near the top of the ballot, so whatever effect the lack of straight-ticket voting there will be, it should be relatively minimal for them – but in a high turnout primary, who knows what will happen. At least all the choices are good.

There are four contested State Senate primaries. Sen. Borris Miles has two challengers, neither of whom has raised much money. I haven’t seen anything to suggest this is a race of interest. Former District Court Judge and HD23 candidate Susan Criss faces former CD22 candidate Margaret Ruiz Johnson in SD11, which is on the far outer edges of competitiveness – if SD11 turns into a close race in the fall, Democrats are having a very good year. Criss should have some name recognition. Johnson has not filed a report.

The two most interesting races are in SDs 19 and 27. SD19 is the seat Democrats coughed up in a 2018 special election following the resignation of Carlos Uresti. State Rep. Roland Gutierrez, who finished third in that special election, decided to forego running for re-election in order to take another shot at this seat. He’s raised the most money, but Xochil Pena Rodriguez has an equivalent amount of cash thanks to her loan. This is probably Gutierrez’s race to lose. Whoever does win will be counted on to take that seat back and force Dan Patrick to kill off the remnant of the two thirds rule, for his short term benefit and the Democrats’ long term gain.

Sen. Eddie Lucio has two challengers, and his finance report shows he’s taking the threat seriously. Ruben Cortez is an incumbent SBOE member, and he was recently endorsed by Texas Parent PAC, which accused Lucio of “following the lead of Lt. Governor Dan Patrick when he pushes legislation that harms public education.” To me, this is a far more consequential primary than the nasty and expensive one going on in CD28, mostly because there are a lot more Congressfolk than there are State Senators, and one rogue State Senator can be the difference in bad legislation passing or good bills dying in a way that one rogue Congressperson seldom is. Nancy Pelosi can take care of her business with or without Henry Cuellar. Carol Alvarado, the next Senate Democratic Caucus Chair, needs a much more reliable ally in SD27. Here’s hoping she gets one.

Lyceum poll: Trump with a mostly modest lead

Jan 31st, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

From the inbox:

Among the large pack of Democratic presidential primary contenders still vying for the nomination to be the party’s nominee for U.S. president, former Vice President Joe Biden is currently leading in the Lone Star State, with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders a close second. However, it is Biden who comes in second behind Sanders when matched against President Trump in a hypothetical 2020 general election match-up. This is according to new, independent polling results released today by the Texas Lyceum, the premier, nonprofit, nonpartisan statewide leadership group.

Just five days away from the Iowa caucuses, the traditional start of the presidential primary season, the Lyceum poll, which carries a margin of error of +/- 4.89 percentage points among potential Democratic Primary Voters (n=401), finds Biden leading with 28%, slightly ahead of Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders with 26%. Meanwhile, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren tops the second wave of Democratic candidates at 13%, followed by late entrant and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg at 9%. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg drew 6%, while Minnesota Senator Amy Klobuchar has 4%.

Sanders polls closest to Trump for the general election
The survey asked respondents who they would support if the November presidential election were held today between President Donald Trump and Vice President Biden, Senator Sanders, Senator Warren and Mayor Buttigieg, respectively. With fewer than nine months until Election Day, the Texas Lyceum poll shows President Donald Trump holds a lead ranging from 4 to 8 percentage points over each of the potential Democratic nominees, with Senator Sanders polling closest to the president, 50 to 47 among likely 2020 general election voters (n=520, margin of error +/- 4.30 percentage points).

Among the top remaining candidates, Biden trails Trump by 5 points, 51% to 46%, Warren trails Trump by 7 points, 50% to 43%, and Buttigieg is 8 points behind the president, 51% to 43%, in this early look at the November Elections.

U.S. Senate Democratic Primary Race – far from settled
Meanwhile, the race to determine the nominee to take on incumbent U.S. Senator John Cornyn next November is far from settled, as none of the 12 Democratic Primary candidates garnered more than 11% of the vote in the Lyceum survey. Air Force Veteran and 2018 congressional candidate M.J. Hegar is leading the field with 11 points. Trailing Hegar are Dallas State Senator Royce West at 8%, activist Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez at 7%, at-large Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards at 6%, and Beaumont car dealer and pastor Michael Cooper at 4%.

“Texas is always a difficult state for candidates to introduce themselves to the voters due to its sheer size and multiple, large media markets,” said Joshua Blank, Ph.D., research director of the Texas Lyceum poll, “but, in a year in which the political oxygen has been sucked up by the Democratic Presidential Primary and impeachment, it’s clearly been a major challenge for those seeking to take on John Cornyn to break through with the Texas electorate. These new results confirm that it’s still anyone’s race.”

Texans Split over whether the U.S. Senate should remove Donald Trump from office
The Texas Lyceum Poll found Texans split on whether President Trump should be removed from office following his impeachment in the House of Representatives. The poll was fielded Jan. 10-19, 2020 after impeachment proceedings in the House had concluded and before the U.S. Senate trial had begun. Overall, 44% of Texas adults say the Senate should remove the president from office, while 45% disagree. Not surprisingly, views on impeachment reflect party loyalty, as 77% of Democrats believe the president should be removed from office while 86% of Republicans believe he should remain. However, in what is expected to be a more competitive election year by Texas standards, self-identified independents were more inclined to say that the president should be removed from office, 46% to 31%.

Texans’ economic views improved slightly
Evaluations of the Texas economy appear to have improved somewhat over last year. The percentage of respondents who believe Texas is better off compared to the rest of the country increased by 4 percentage points from 45% to 49%. Asked to grade the national economy, a plurality, 39% say that the country is better off than it was a year ago, with 35% saying that the economy is about the same. President Trump job approval divided by party, while Governor Abbott’s marks remain high President Trump’s job approval rating remains remarkably consistent with September 2019’s Texas Lyceum Poll given the tumultuous political environment. Overall, 52% of adult Texans surveyed disapprove of the job the president is doing, while 47% approve. Again, party plays a big role in the president’s job approval rating, with 89% of Republicans giving him high marks. Among Democrats, 85% say the president is doing a poor job. A majority of independents also rate the president negatively, with 60% saying he’s doing a poor job and 37% giving him a positive review.

The executive summary is here, the poll questions and data are here, and the crosstabs are here. A couple of thoughts:

– Biden usually polls best against Trump among the gaggle – see this SNN/SSRS poll from December, for example – but not always – see UT-Tyler and the UT/Texas Tribune polls, both from November. Sanders would usually be a point or so behind when Biden did best, with the others generally a step back (Beto was an occasional exception to that). Here, Sanders is two points closer than Biden is. Both are in the high 40s, which is the figure of greater interest to me.

– I have not followed the primary polling closely, but Biden has easily topped the Democratic field in polls before now – he led Sanders by 11 in UT/Trib, by 10 in UT-Tyler, and by 20 in CNN/SSRS. Sanders’ closeness to Biden here feels like an outlier to me, but he’s doing well nationally, so who knows. Of course, most of the headlines I’ve seen in relation to this poll are about how Sanders is “surging” in the Dem primary in Texas. Have we learned nothing about polling in all these years? One result is not a surge, it’s one result. I expect we will see more polls in the coming weeks, as the primary draws nearer, and then we can evaluate whether this was an indication of a change or just an odd result.

– He has no more chance of being the Democratic nominee than I do, but I’d have liked to see a Trump-Bloomberg matchup polled, if only to get an idea of what 47 gazillion dollars in TV ads can do for you.

– Forty-four percent of registered voters said they were more likely to vote in the Democratic primary. Forty-three percent said Republican primary. Have I mentioned that Dem primary turnout is going to be off the charts?

– Trump continues to have bad approval ratings in Texas, though here he outperforms them in the general election matchups. Note, however, that the approval question is asked of the entire sample, which is 1200 adults (the registered voter sample is 920), while the “who will you vote for” sample is 520 likely voters. In other words, it seems likely there are a significant number of people in this sample who dislike Trump but either aren’t registered or aren’t seen as likely voters. That right there is a turnout issue. Keep registering voters, and keep pushing them to the polls.

– The pollsters gave the name of all 12 Senate candidates to the respondents. My eyes are glazing over just at the thought of sitting through a robot saying “Press one for Amanda Edwards, press two for Adrian Ocegueda, press three for Jack Daniel Foster”…you get the idea. I don’t even know how you poll in that race.

Anyway. This was our first poll of the year. UT/Trib usually does a poll in February, and UT-Tyler has been doing them every couple of months and may be due for another soon. With the primary looming, I’d expect to see even more numbers soon.

Dan Patrick makes the most predictable announcement ever

Jan 25th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

Really, who didn’t see this coming?

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said Thursday he may further lower the threshold required to bring bills to the Senate floor if Republicans lose one or two seats in November.

Patrick made the comment at a conservative policy conference in Austin while discussing the current makeup of the upper chamber, which has 19 Republicans and 12 Democrats. Currently, 19 votes are required to put legislation on the floor for passage. But Republicans are facing the real possibility of losing at least one caucus member in 2020. Sen. Pete Flores, R-Pleasanton, is running for reelection in a solidly Democratic district after winning his seat in 2018 special election upset.

“I’m right there at that number, and if we lose one or two seats, then we might have to go to 16 next session,” Patrick said. “We might have to go to a simple majority because we will not be stopped in leading on federalism in the United States of America.”

Honestly, this is good news and we should be thankful for it. For one, this is the closest thing any Republican will come to admitting in public that they expect to lose SD19, a seat that they had the very good fortune to borrow for the 2019 session. There’s no reason Dan Patrick would voluntarily say this out loud to people who might report on it otherwise. He’s laying the groundwork. But look, while the two-thirds-that-is-now-three-fifths rule had its place in an older time, when the parties were less sorted by ideology and that rule wasn’t generally used for partisan reasons, it’s an anti-majoritarian abomination that just has no place in a democracy. Just look at the devastation that the filibuster wrought in the US Senate during the Obama presidency. You can’t be in favor of killing the filibuster and preserving the 2/3-3/5 rule. At least, I can’t.

Sure, in the short term, if Dems don’t take the House this year, losing the 3/5 rule will suck. Patrick and his cronies will get another session to shove through all the ridiculous wingnut crap they can, and may get to keep doing it even longer given that they’d be in control of redistricting. But someday, maybe even someday in the 20’s, the Dems are going to retake the Senate. Maybe it’ll happen in 2022, when all of the Senate is on the ballot, and maybe it’ll happen in conjunction with Dems winning statewide and keeping the House. Now ask yourself, in a Senate where Dems have 16 or 17 members: Do you want to let Senate Republicans control that chamber’s agenda by blocking every single bill the House passes that they don’t like? Or would you rather let those 16 or 17 Dem Senators do the job they were elected to do?

The brilliant thing is that when the Democratic Lieutenant Governor announces the Senate rules, which do not include a 2/3 or 3/5 rule, no one can cry about the vicious partisanship of it all, because Dan Patrick will have already set the precedent. He’ll get to have it first, but we’ll get it next, and we won’t have to do any work to make it happen. If you don’t see that as a golden opportunity, even if it is one whose timeline is unknown, I don’t know what to tell you.

Where the primary action is

Jan 18th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

It’s on the Democratic side in Harris County. This should come as a surprise to no one.

The crowded Harris County Democratic primary field reflects a new reality in Houston politics: With the county turning an even darker shade of blue in 2018, many consider the real battle for countywide seats to be the Democratic primaries, leading more candidates to take on incumbent officeholders.

“This is the new political landscape of Harris County. Countywide offices are won and lost in the Democratic Primary,” said Ogg campaign spokesperson Jaime Mercado, who argued that Ogg’s 2016 win “signaled a monumental shift in county politics” and created renewed emphasis on criminal justice reform now championed by other Democratic officials and Ogg’s opponents.

In the March 3 primaries, Ogg, Bennett, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and County Attorney Vince Ryan — all Democrats — face at least two intra-party opponents each, while Democratic Commissioner Rodney Ellis has a primary challenger in former state district judge Maria Jackson.

Excluding state district and county courts, 10 of 14 Harris County Democratic incumbents have at least one primary foe. In comparison, three of the seven county GOP incumbents — Justice of the Peace Russ Ridgway, Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman and education department trustee Don Sumners — have drawn primary challengers.

At the state level, Republicans from the Harris County delegation largely have evaded primary opponents better than Democrats. All but three GOP state representatives — Dan Huberty, Briscoe Cain and Dennis Paul — are unopposed.

On the Democratic side, state Sen. Borris Miles and state Reps. Alma Allen, Jarvis Johnson, Senfronia Thompson, Harold Dutton, Shawn Thierry and Garnet Coleman each have primary opponents.

Overall, the 34 Democratic incumbents seeking re-election to federal, state and county seats that cover at least a portion of Harris County — not including state district and county courts — face 43 primary opponents. The 22 Republican incumbents have 10 intra-party challengers.

It should be noted that a few of these races always draw a crowd. Constable Precincts 1, 2, 3, and 6 combined for 22 candidates in 2012, 21 candidates in 2016, and 17 this year. Three of the four countywide incumbents – DA Kim Ogg, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, and Tax Assessor Ann Harris Bennett – are in their first term, as is County Commissioner Rodney Ellis. There are fewer Republican incumbents to target, so Dem incumbents get to feel the heat. The bigger tell to me is that Republicans didn’t field candidates in nine District Court races. As I’ve said ad nauseum, it’s the judicial races that are the best indicator of partisan strength in a given locale.

The story also notes that the usual ideological holy war in HD134 is on hold this year – Greg Abbott has endorsed Sarah Davis instead of trying to primary her out, and there’s no Joe Straus to kick around. Republicans do have some big races of their own – CD07, CD22, HD26, HD132, HD138, County Commissioner Precinct 3 – but at the countywide level it’s kind of a snoozefest. Honestly, I’d have to look up who most of their candidates are, their names just haven’t registered with me. I can’t wait to see what the finance reports have to say. The basic point here is that we’re in a new normal. I think that’s right, and I think we’ll see more of the same in 2022. Get used to it.

DMN profile of Royce West

Jan 14th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

The fifth, and as far as I can tell final, one of these.

Sen. Royce West

U.S. Senate hopeful Royce West warns fellow Democrats not to nominate a “far left” candidate.

Instead, he says they should choose him, the “most qualified” person in the 12-person scrum seeking the chance next fall to try to unseat three-term GOP Sen. John Cornyn.

West regularly tells audiences he’s not in the race for ego gratification but out of a sense of duty. After all, he recently told audiences in Walker and Tarrant counties, someone needs to try to extinguish the dumpster fire that is Washington.

As a 26-year state senator, West insisted he has the skills, experience and wisdom that can help Congress fix health care and immigration, improve education, expand voter rights and pass gun control measures.

“It’s time to do it,” the Dallas lawyer-legislator told The 100 Ranchers, a group of African American farmers and ranchers, on a recent Saturday afternoon.

“And if I don’t do it and others don’t do it, then shame on me and my generation,” West said to a crowd at a horse and cattle operation in Riverside, near Lake Livingston in southeast Texas. “If you really want the change, I want to be a change agent for you.”

[…]

West has tried to sell himself as a reliable political pro who can get things done against tall odds, even amid partisan rancor and gridlock. But he also has reached out to young people, emphasizing his own evolution on issues.

Stressing he’s “always been there” for liberal causes such as voting rights and women’s rights, West noted to his Riverside audience that he’s lately become passionate about gay rights and the environment.

“When we look at issues concerning LGBTQ rights, now, I’ve evolved on that,” he said. A male rancher shouted “amen.” West continued, “Who am I to sit up and say who you can love, OK? You love who you want to love – and that’s a fact.”

Royce West has always been a solid if un-exciting Senator. In a different year, we’d be delighted to see a serious establishment elected official make a statewide run – look at how much enthusiasm having two State Senators at the top of the ticket in 2014 generated, at least initially. He may have “evolved” on some issues, but give the man credit – in 2005, he voted against the infamous Double Secret Illegal Anti-Gay Marriage constitutional amendment. I’ll be happy enough if he’s the nominee – he’s not my first choice at this time, but I have nothing bad to say about him. I will say, as a long-time incumbent State Senator, he has no good reason to not have a stellar Q4 finance report. As with all the others, I’m eager to see how he did on that.

(Previously: Chris Bell, Amanda Edwards, MJ Hegar, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez.)

DMN profile of Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez

Jan 12th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

The fourth entry in this series, and the first to generate some heat.

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez

Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez says there’s power in her name.

“Tzintzún is more Mexican than any Garcia or Lopez,” the activist told a gathering of Democratic women in Plano. “We were the only indigenous group in Mexico that were not defeated by the Aztecs. So you know I come from good lineage and I’m ready to defeat John Cornyn.”

Tzintzún Ramirez wants to revolutionize campaigning for her Senate race against incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn.

The veteran Latina activist is mobilizing the young and Hispanic voters whom Democrats need to transform Texas from red to blue. She’s confident her liberal proposals will also appeal to black and white Democrats and make her the party’s nominee.

The Senate primary will test whether a Green New Deal progressive like Tzintzún Ramirez can win in a state dominated by conservative voters.

“The only way we’re going to win is by the progressive muscle that we know is going to get behind this campaign to turn out voters, especially brown and black voters,” she told The Dallas Morning News. “Now we need them to win and no candidate wins without them, but I want to be the candidate for everyone in Texas that truly represents our diversity and common interests.”

[…]

“She was one of the most effective advocates on worker safety that we dealt with,” said Debbie Berkowitz, who was chief of staff at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration when she met Tzintzún Ramirez.

Berkowitz said Tzintzún Ramirez’s group produced a report that outlined how workers were dying on the job, leading to improved standards that saved lives.

Tzintzún Ramirez left the Workers Defense Project in 2015 and later formed a group called Jolt, with the goal of mobilizing immigrants and Latino voters.

Brigid Hall is the chief operations officer at Jolt and was Tzintzún Ramirez’s deputy at the Workers Defense Project.

“She has really ambitious goals and a big vision. She moves quickly and is always one step ahead,” Hall said. “She has high expectations and makes them known for the people around her. Sometimes it’s very hard to meet those expectations.”

Aside from work, Tzintzún Ramirez, 37, describes herself as having the heart of a 60-year-old woman. She likes to watch movies, work in her garden and cook. She has a 2-year-old son, Santiago, who she says will travel with her on the trail. Because she’s raising her son alone, Tzintzún Ramirez said she paused before making a final decision on running for Senate.

The heat stems from that first quote of hers, which evolved into a larger debate about names and identity and other things, some of which are mentioned later in the story. I would suggest you read what Tzintzún Ramirez has said following the publication of this story on Twitter, and also what others have said in response. And since I first drafted this post, Tzintzún Ramirez has apologized for what she said.

Be all that as it may, Tzintzún Ramirez is one of the more interesting candidates running, with a strong background in organizing and the potential to excite less-reliable voters, if she can perhaps be a bit more careful in what she says. She’s on the left edge of the primary field, and along with Chris Bell has been critical of MJ Hegar for being opposed to several of the more progressive policy ideas. I personally don’t have a feel for how the broader primary electorate will respond to the issues in question – to oversimplify, Medicare for All versus adding strengthening and adding a public option to Obamacare, Beto-style buybacks for assault weapons, the Green New Deal, etc – but I will note again that we’re going to have a really big primary voting population, and right now most of them know little about these candidates, let alone who stands for or against what. We may get some clarity in the runoff, but I for one would caution anyone against making any broad conclusions about what the primary voters wanted once all the votes are counted. I think the candidates who make the best first impression will finish in the money, and from there we can maybe get into some specifics.

(Previously: Chris Bell, Amanda Edwards, MJ Hegar.)

DMN profile of MJ Hegar

Jan 11th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Third in the series, and first of the candidates to jump in the race, back when we still thought Beto would be a candidate.

MJ Hegar

As she looks confidently to November, and a chance to try to pack U.S. Sen. John Cornyn “off to take his three taxpayer-funded pensions,” MJ Hegar hustles a brand she insists is distinctive.

She’s a combat veteran who sacrificed a dream career to sue the military on behalf of other women. She’s also a “mama bear,” fiercely protective of her two young sons, a working mom, a tattooed motorcyclist and a rural Texan — OK, she grew up near Austin, but her high school in Leander still has hundreds of kids in FFA.

Most of all, Hegar casts herself as “a disrupter.”

Unlike the last such person she says Texas elected to the Senate, GOP Sen. Ted Cruz, Hegar says she won’t sell out to party leaders or big donors, instead fighting for blue-collar Texans. Senate Republicans, though, assail her as “Hollywood Hegar,” someone too liberal for the state.

The one-third of Texans who are “in the middle” of the electorate distrust parties, Hegar said during a recent Texas Tribune event.

“They’re looking for character,” someone who will be a team player and “servant leader,” putting country above narrow or partisan interests, she said.

“We have not fielded a combat veteran as a Democrat in a statewide election in a state like Texas that is so pro-military and patriotic,” she told Tribune chief executive Evan Smith.

“It’s not just being a combat veteran, though,” she explained. “It’s being a disrupter. It’s not just being a veteran who goes along and does as they’re told. It’s being a veteran who took on the Pentagon, took on the establishment — and won.”

[…]

Hegar (pronounced hey-GARR) is 43 – in age, the median of the five major Democratic contenders. Last year, she came close to knocking off entrenched Central Texas GOP Congressman John Carter of Georgetown.

As she asks her party for its Senate nomination against Cornyn, Hegar is being followed at all her public appearances by three different “trackers,” who take video of her, she said an interview.

“A huge compliment,” she said. It means the GOP sees her as a threat, she noted. Of the Democrats running, Hegar has raised the most money by far — $2 million.

In 2016, Hegar cast a vote in her first primary, she recalled. She voted in the GOP primary “to stop Donald Trump,” she said. “I voted for Carly Fiorina and she had already dropped out.”

After September’s disclosures about suspension of U.S. military aid to Ukraine, Hegar backed an impeachment inquiry into Trump’s actions.

Following her recent Tribune appearance, several audience members old enough to be grandparents approached her to discuss climate change. Though Hegar said she favors “aggressive action,” she declined to bless a carbon tax measure, saying she wanted to make sure it doesn’t increase the cost of food for the middle class.

University of Texas law student Anthony Collier asked her position on Medicare for all, which would eliminate private health insurance.

Hegar said she favors preserving and improving Obamacare and adding a “public option” that would include subsidies for low-income people to be able to buy into Medicare. But she would keep private plans for Americans who want them, she said.

“We can still get there while offering people choice,” she told Collier.

Speaking to reporters after formally filing her papers Dec. 9, Hegar said people aren’t asking her about impeachment but about jobs, schools and health care.

“On some issues I’m this, on some issues I’m that,” she said. “I make up my mind based on what’s … right for my state. When Texans look at me, they don’t see a progressive or moderate. They see a bad-ass, ass-kicking Texas woman.”

Hegar probably comes into this race as the best-known candidate, thanks to her 2018 Congressional race against John Carter and the publicity she was able to generate thanks to her viral ad. The skimpy polling information we have shows her leading the primary field, though with numbers small enough for that to not really mean anything. She’s done the best at fundraising, but she’s raised Congressional numbers, not Senate numbers. We’ll see what the Q4 report has to say.

Hegar is more of a personality candidate, at least at this point, than an issues candidate, though as you can see from the story that she does have coherent positions on issues. As someone who talks to a lot of candidates and who hears a lot of answers of varying degrees of depth and understanding on basic issues, I tend to appreciate the latter more than the former, though history would suggest I’m in the minority. I also don’t want to overstate the case here or to be insulting to Hegar’s substance – she has plenty to say about issues, she just tends to lead with the “bad-ass, ass-kicking” stuff. Which, let’s be honest, is almost certainly a wise strategic move, one that makes an equal amount of sense in a future campaign against a milquetoast enabler like John Cornyn. Read the story for more.

(Previously: Chris Bell, Amanda Edwards.)

Who might run for Mayor in 2023?

Jan 10th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

14 comments

Mayor Sylvester Turner

So Election 2019 is (modulo District B) safely in the books, and Sylvester Turner is in office for his second and final term. In years past at this time I’d be taking a look ahead at the next city election – who’s termed out, who could be vulnerable, who might be priming for a run, etc – but with the next election not until 2023 that seems like a stretch. We can start thinking about who might throw their hat into the ring for Mayor, however. The field in 2015 was quite large, and I’d expect something similar in 2023. Houston Mayor is a prime gig, and it doesn’t come open very often.

I’m going to run down a list of names that seem like potential contenders. I want to stress that this list is entirely the product of my imagination. I have no inside knowledge of anyone’s intentions, and I make no warranty on any of these claims. I’m just thinking out loud. So with that in mind…

Chris Brown – He’s the current City Controller, he’s won twice citywide (which among other things means he’ll be term-limited and thus would need to run for something else, if he wants to stay in city elected office), he’s a strong fundraiser, he’s got a long history in city politics. Annise Parker and Kathy Whitmire were both Controllers before they were Mayors. He does have a bit of baggage, and his win over Orlando Sanchez was not by much, but if there’s one person on this list who would surprise me by not running, it would be Chris Brown.

State Sen. Carol Alvarado – Served three terms as Council member in District I and was Bill White’s Mayor Pro Tem before winning election to the Lege in 2008, and continues to be involved with city issues as a legislator. If she has statewide ambitions – and as a young Senator looking at a Democratic-trending state, she should – Mayor of Houston would enable her to run from a bigger base. Legislators have been elected Mayor in various cities recently, including Dee Margo (El Paso), Eric Johnson (Dallas), and of course Mayor Turner. As an incumbent, she’d be in a strong position to build up a campaign treasury in advance of running, as Turner did in 2015. The main negative here is the old story of Latinos having a hard time winning citywide elections, but someone is going to break through, and being a veteran establishment Democratic elected official is a good way to get there.

Amanda Edwards – OK, sure, she’s running for US Senate now, but so are multiple other viable candidates, only one of whom can survive the primary, never mind the uphill battle that would follow. While she would certainly prefer to be well into her first term in Washington, it’s hardly crazy or insulting to say she might be available for this race. She was an At Large Council member, one who I thought would have been in a decent position to run for Mayor this year anyway before she changed course, with a strong fundraising history. Running statewide, especially for a federal office, is a great way to vastly expand your donor base. She may well be done with city politics regardless of what happens this year, but I’d be remiss if I left her off this list.

State Rep. Sarah Davis and State Rep. Jim Murphy – Both are incumbent Republican State Reps, and I’m lumping them together here. Davis has a decent chance of losing this year, and while Murphy will be a favorite to win in 2020, he may find himself in the House minority, and decide it’s not to his liking. Houston is a Democratic city, but as establishment, business-friendly, moderate-by-modern-GOP-standards Republicans, you could imagine one of them at least making it to a runoff in the way Bill King did in 2015, and if things broke right, they could win. As with everyone else on this list they can raise plenty of money, and if Texas is still run by Republicans in 2023 they could argue that they’re better positioned to defend our local autonomy better than any Dem running.

Abbie Kamin – I know, she was just elected to District C, and incumbent Council members don’t have a strong track record in Mayoral races (Dwight Boykins, Steve Costello, Peter Brown, Orlando Sanchez, Chris Bell, Helen Huey, Gracie Saenz…you get the point), but in both the November and December races her performance was impressive, she was one of the best fundraisers of the cycle, and having District C as your base is a pretty good jumping off point, especially in a multi-candidate field where the goal is to make it to round 2. Like I said, this is just me thinking out loud.

Orlando Sanchez – Yeah, him again. You just know he’s going to keep running for things. He has name recognition, he did better than expected in losing to Chris Brown, and hey, the third time was the charm for Sylvester Turner. Why not Orlando?

The field – Not every Mayoral contender is visible from a distance. Every recent competitive race has featured at least one wealthy non-politician type, some more successful than others (Bob Lanier, Bill White, Rob Mosbacher, Gene Locke, Ben Hall, Bill King, that guy from 2019). I’ll be surprised if 2023 is an exception, but I have no idea who that person may be at this time. Similarly, every competitive race has had at least one strong black candidate, and if Amanda Edwards sits it out, someone else will step up. One or more people that no one is thinking of now will be on the radar in 2023. Ask me again in a couple of years and we’ll see who that might be.

That’s my list. Who would you add?

DMN profile of Amanda Edwards

Jan 8th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Second in the series, focusing on now-former Houston City Council member Amanda Edwards.

Amanda Edwards

On the day of her last Houston City Council meeting, outgoing at-large member Amanda Edwards wasn’t in the mood for goodbyes.

“In my mind it’s not really closing a door,” Edwards said as she drove a reporter past homes damaged by 2017’s Hurricane Harvey. “It’s kind of remodeling and expanding. I’m completely ready to turn my next position on its head in terms of what people have grown accustomed to thinking it is.”

After just one term on the council, Edwards is running for Senate against incumbent Republican John Cornyn, a bodacious move that reflects her considerable confidence and the changing perceptions of what it takes to win a high-profile post.

[…]

Edwards, 37, was born in Houston to Isabella and Eugene Edwards.

Her parents were health care providers; Eugene was a pharmacist and Isabella is a retired physical therapist.

Eugene Edwards was diagnosed with cancer when Amanda was 10 years old, and he died when she was 17.

The questions Edwards had about his treatment helped shaped her views on health care.

From her father “skunking” her in table tennis and both parents stressing education, Edwards developed a competitive spirit.

She boasts about her skills in basketball, ping-pong and volleyball.

“Just ask the mayor,” she said, alluding to a basketball game between the council and staff and the mayor’s staff, in which she starred.

Edwards has degrees from Emory University and Harvard Law School. At Emory in Atlanta, she worked in six neighborhood community development corporations.

After college, she served as board president of Project Row Houses in Houston, where she helped redevelop homes as living art pieces.

She said she ran for council in 2015 to promote servant leadership. She won easily.

“I knew that a lot of things I felt strongly about were issues of leadership, like how to appropriately invest in under-resourced areas alongside the will of the community,” she said.

Edwards touts her work in bringing venture capital to Houston, as well as her push to develop neighborhoods without harmful gentrification.

She’s campaigned heavily on her work to help neighborhoods mend after Hurricane Harvey. Edwards and her community partners canvassed affected homes to determine what victims needed and how to improve the allocation of aid.

Here’s the interview I did with Amanda Edwards in 2015, when she first ran for Council. I included the bits from this story about her time on Council because I would not have known it off the top of my head. That’s partly because this was behind-the-scenes stuff, and partly because in our system here in Houston, Council members usually only make news if they’ve done something dumb or they’ve gotten into a fight with the Mayor. It’s good to be reminded that they do a lot of things we don’t easily see.

As for her candidacy, I guess I’ve been a skeptic. I doubted the reports that she was thinking about running, and I have my doubts she can break out in this field. I’ve long believed that she had a path to being Mayor in 2023, which may be affecting my perception. Edwards says in this story that people have underestimated her for her whole life, and I may be doing exactly that. I look forward to seeing her Q4 finance report, that’s for sure. Having said all this, I do think she’ll be a compelling candidate in November if she makes it through the primary, and whatever happens in March I fully expect we’ll be hearing plenty from Amanda Edwards.

(Previously: Chris Bell.)

We’re not going to get an independent redistricting commission

Jan 7th, 2020

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Nice to think about, but the set of circumstances that might lead to it are exceedingly narrow.

Most of the seven states that have independent commissions adopted them by a citizens’ initiative. Since Texas doesn’t have that option, the only way it would happen would be if lawmakers voluntarily gave up their redistricting power.

Kathay Feng, national redistricting director of the progressive government watchdog group Common Cause, said that’s unlikely to happen in Texas, but not impossible.

“The reality is that when a legislature is looking at potentially split control or the changeover of control from one party to another, they’re the most likely to entertain the possibility of redistricting reform,” Feng said.

Rice University political science professor Mark Jones said it would take a unique set of circumstances.

“It would take us reaching a tipping point where Republicans are pessimistic about their prospects for retaining a majority, but Democrats are also pessimistic about their prospects for taking a majority as well,” Jones said.

I think Jones’ assessment is basically accurate, but it’s important to understand what Republican pessimism about retaining a majority means. We’re talking about them being afraid that they might face unified Democratic government in 2031, the next time redistricting will come around. And not only must they fear this thing that might happen ten years and three statewide elections from now, they must conclude that their best option now would be to curb that future theoretical Democratic hegemony via the creation of an independent redistricting commission. All this happens following a Democratic takeover of the State House, because otherwise Republicans can do what they’ve done before, which is draw whatever districts they want without fear. You see what I mean by exceedingly narrow?

Let’s keep one other thing in mind here. If we do get a Democratic State House, Republicans can still push for whatever maps they want for the SBOE, the State Senate, and the State House. That’s because if the two chambers can’t agree on maps for those three entities, the job gets thrown to the Legislative Redistricting Board, which is the Lite Governor, the Speaker, the AG, the Comptroller, and the Land Commissioner. In other words, a Board on which Republicans would have a 4-1 majority, and thus no trouble passing those Republican maps. The one map that would still be up in the air would be the Congressional map. If there is no map passed legislatively, it gets thrown to a federal court, over which neither side would have any control.

There is room in this scenario for some compromise. Republicans would prefer not to let a court do this work. Democrats would of course like to have some influence in the mapmaking process. You can imagine an agreement to draw maps for all four entities – Congress, SBOE, Senate, House – that leans towards incumbent protection rather than greatly advantaging or disadvantaging one party over the other. If that happens, you could also imagine them including an independent commission as a bonus Grand Bargain, but that seems a bridge too far. But compromise maps that mostly don’t make any incumbents’ lives too difficult, that I can see maybe getting done.

Maybe. The situation I’ve just described here is like what happened in 2001, which was the last time Dems controlled the House. The LRB drew the state maps, which led to the massive GOP takeover in the 2002 election, and a court drew the Congressional map. And then, once Republicans had control of the House, they went back and redid the Congressional map. That was the original, stated motivation when Tom DeLay pushed for re-redistricting in 2003: The Congressional map should be drawn by the legislators, not by a court. Obviously, they wanted a map that was much more favorable to Republicans, but that was the original reason they gave. It seems to me that this is a very plausible outcome in 2021 as well – the Republicans decide to let a court draw the map, which in all likelihood would be quite deferential to incumbents anyway, then take their chances on retaking the House in 2022 and doing a new Congressional map again. Hey, it worked once before, and now they have a more favorable Supreme Court to back them up.

Honestly, this may be the single most likely scenario – the LRB draws the state maps, a court draws the Congressional map, and everything hinges on the 2022 election. Maybe Dems keep the State House. Maybe we manage to elect a Democratic Governor, who could then veto any new Congressional map. Maybe Republicans win and do their thing. Heck, even in the Great Map Compromise scenario, who’s to say that Republicans wouldn’t tear it all up and start over in the event they retake the House and retain the Governor’s Mansion? I’d put money on that before I placed a bet on a redistricting commission. 2031 is a long, long way away. It’s not at all irrational to prioritize the now over what maybe could possibly happen if everything goes wrong.

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