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Vicente Gonzalez

Republicans have their own Congressional targets for 2022

Feb 12th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
12 comments

I have three things to say about this.

Rep. Lizzie Fletcher

Fresh off a 2020 election cycle in which they held the line against an ambitious Democratic campaign to capture U.S. House seats in Texas, national Republicans are signaling they’ll go on the offensive here in 2022, with an emphasis on South Texas.

The National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, announced Wednesday that it’s targeting five Texas Democrats in the U.S. House as they seek to regain their majority in 2022. The list of targets is three more than the GOP seriously targeted last year and includes three Democrats in South Texas where the party underperformed in November.

The first round of 2022 pickup opportunities includes the seats held by Reps. Colin Allred of Dallas, Henry Cuellar of Laredo, Lizzie Fletcher of Houston, Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen and Filemon Vela of Brownsville. There are 47 seats total on the initial national target list.

Allred and Fletcher flipped their seats in 2018 and fended off major Republican challenges last election cycle when they were also NRCC targets. Cuellar, Gonzalez and Vela, however, are new to the national GOP radar after President Joe Biden carried their traditionally blue districts by surprisingly small margins, part of trend of Democratic underperformance across South Texas last year that alarmed the party.

Republicans are especially emboldened after the NRCC’s Democratic counterpart, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, targeted 10 GOP-held seats in Texas last election cycle and won none.

[…]

The DCCC has not yet named its 2022 targets in Texas, though it has already included freshman U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving, in an early attack ad campaign. Van Duyne won her seat in November by under 2 points.

1. The Democrats went big in 2020 following the very successful 2018 election, in which they came closer than expected in several districts that had seemed way out of reach before, including a couple where they had run undistinguished and underfunded candidates (basically, CD24). The Republicans are now trying to do the same. It’s what I’d do in their position, but as we can attest, past performance does not guarantee future results.

2. Of course, the Republicans can help put a thumb on the scale in the redistricting process. Some early maps have suggested that at least one of those South Texas seats could be made a lot redder. Things can and almost certainly will change between now and when the final maps are signed into law, not to mention the first attempts to litigate them. The NRCC isn’t committing to anything now, they’re just trying to raise a few bucks. There’s nothing like a thirsty target list to get donor hearts beating.

3. I’ve said it before but it bears repeating: The national atmosphere will have a big effect on who becomes a legitimate target and who is a mirage. In our sample of two Trump-era elections, Democrats did much better when Trump himself was not on the ballot, which will be the case in 2022. That’s also the first Biden midterm, which usually bodes well for the opposition party. On the other hand, if COVID has largely been beaten back and the economy is roaring again, that’s great for the Dems. And on the other other hand, the Republicans can claim that success for themselves here in Texas, as its ruling party. In other words, nobody knows nothin’ yet.

Precinct analysis: Presidential results by Congressional district

Jan 18th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

More calls for Joaquin Castro to run for Senate

Mar 30th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

It’s getting louder.

Rep. Joaquin Castro

Latino Victory Fund, a national advocacy group that began in San Antonio, is putting more pressure on U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro to leap into the Senate race against Texas GOP Sen. John Cornyn.

On Friday, Latino Victory put up a Run, Joaquin, Run website urging Castro, D-San Antonio, to seek the Democrats’ 2020 nomination to challenge Cornyn, a three-term Senate veteran.

Backing the drive were four Texans in Congress, Reps. Veronica Escobar of El Paso, Sylvia Garcia of Houston, Filemon Vela of Brownsville and Vincente Gonzalez of McAllen.

Today, an additional five names were added to that list backing a Castro candidacy: State Reps. Gina Hinojosa, Celia Israel, Mary Gonzalez, Lina Ortega and Leticia Van de Putte, of San Antonio, who was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2014.

Castro is reportedly in, but you know the rule, it’s not official until the words come out of his mouth. Until then, anything can happen. I’m glad to see him getting nudged by other elected officials, I figure every little bit helps. Plus, you know, getting started sooner, and thus clearing up the picture for everyone else who’s circling around this race or that race, is better. I think Joaquin Castro is the best available candidate, but first he has to be available. Let’s hope he makes his decision soon. NBC News has more.

What if he does it anyway?

Jan 18th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

That’s my question.

Gov. Greg Abbott, the state’s two Republican U.S. senators and a bipartisan group of 20 U.S. House members released a letter stating their staunch opposition to raiding Texas’ hard-fought Harvey money.

“Recent reports have indicated that your administration is considering the use of U.S. Army Corps of Engineers funds, appropriated by Congress and intended for Hurricane Harvey recovery and mitigation efforts, in an effort to secure our southern border,” they wrote. “We strongly support securing the border with additional federal resources including tactical infrastructure, technology, ports of entry improvements and personnel. However, we are strongly opposed to using funds appropriated by Congress for disaster relief and mitigation for Texas for any unintended purpose.”

Congressional signatories included nine lawmakers from the Houston metropolitan region: Republican U.S. Reps. Brian Babin, Kevin Brady, Dan Crenshaw, Michael McCaul, Pete Olson and Randy Weber; and Democratic U.S. Reps. Sylvia Garcia, Lizzie Fletcher and Sheila Jackson Lee.

Texans from other regions also signed on: Republican U.S. Reps. John Carter of Round Rock, Mike Conaway of Midland, Bill Flores of Bryan, Lance Gooden of Terrell, Kay Granger of Fort Worth, Will Hurd of Helotes, Kenny Marchant of Coppell and Roger Williams of Austin; and Democratic U.S. Reps. Henry Cuellar of Laredo, Vicente Gonzalez of McAllen and Filemon Vela of Brownsville

See here for the background. That certainly is a letter. Nicely typed, good sentence structure, no spelling errors as far as I could tell. Now what happens if and when Donald Trump goes ahead and declares an emergency and tries to tap into these funds anyway, because Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh called him mean names again? What are you, Greg Abbott, and you, John Cornyn and Ted Cruz, and you, Republican members of Congress, going to do then? We wouldn’t be here in the first place if Donald Trump were a rational actor. He’s gonna do what he’s gonna do. What are those of you who enable him at every step going to do when that happens?

Democratic primary runoff results

May 25th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

vote-button

Harris County results

Fort Bend County results

Statewide results

Trib liveblog

Just for the record, we didn’t get any precinct results until 8:34, at which time only 8% of precincts had reported. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t because of overwhelming turnout this time. We did get a big batch just after 9, but thanks to some close races, Harris County results will be the last ones I write about in this post.

Grady Yarbrough cements his position as this generation’s Gene Kelly by winning the Railroad Commissioner runoff. I’ll say again, you want a decent candidate to win these downballot primaries, especially against a perennial candidate, you’re going to need some investment in those races.

On a more interesting note, first-time candidate Vicente Gonzalez won the runoff in CD15 to succeed retiring Rep. Ruben Hinojosa. Gonzalez drew support from a bunch of Congressional incumbents, including the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Someone at least thinks he has a bright future, so keep an eye on him.

In Bexar County, Barbara Gervin-Hawkins will succeed retiring Rep. Ruth Jones McClendon in HD120.

In fairness to Stan Stanart, the Fort Bend County result reporting was even worse. They posted some precinct results a few minutes before Harris did, then bizarrely went back to showing early votes with zero precincts in. That was still the case as of 9:45 PM, then finally at 10 PM all the results came in at once. The deservedly maligned Rep. Ron Reynolds led 59-41 after early voting, then held on for a 53-47 margin. I wonder if voters were changing their minds, or if it was just the nature of Reynolds supporters to vote early. Whatever the case, he won.

And from Harris County:

– Dakota Carter wins in SBOE6.
– Ed Gonzalez will be the nominee for Sheriff.
– Judge Elaine Palmer easily held off JoAnn Storey for the 215th Civil District Court. Kristin Hawkins had an easy win for the 11th. The closest race of the evening was in the 61st, where Fredericka Phillips nosed out Julie Countiss by 210 votes after overcoming a small early lead by Countiss.
– Eric William Carter won in JP Precinct 1, while Hilary Green held on in JP Precinct 7.
– Chris Diaz romped in Constable Precinct 2, while Sherman Eagleton cruised in Constable Precinct 3.

And finally, Jarvis Johnson won in HD139, entirely on the strength of absentee ballots. Kimberly Willis won the early in-person vote as well as the Runoff Day vote, but not by a large enough margin given the modest number of people who turned out. Johnson will have the seniority advantage over his fellow freshmen thanks to his win in the special election, but this is not the kind of result that will scare anyone off for the next cycle.

2016 primaries: Congress

Mar 2nd, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments
Rep. Gene Green

Rep. Gene Green

The big story here is that Rep. Gene Green not only survived, but won big. He was up 65% to 32% in early voting, a margin of about 4,000 votes; in the end he won by about 58-38, for a margin of about 5,000 votes. I had a hard time getting a feel for this race. Green was on TV a lot, but I saw more people than I might have expected expressing support for Garcia on Facebook. Garcia homed in on some issues for which Green might have been vulnerable, and as I said before, he ran the campaign I’d have had him run if I’d have been running his campaign. In the end, people weren’t ready to fire Gene Green. I doubt he faces any more serious challengers between now and whenever he decides to hang ’em up. The Press has more.

The only other Democratic Congressional primary of interest was in CD15, where Rep. Ruben Hinojosa declined to run for re-election. Vicente Gonzalez and Dolly Elizondo were leading the pack, with Gonzalez over 40% and Elizondo at 25%. As noted before, Elizondo would be the first Latina elected to Congress from Texas if she won, but she has a lot of ground to make up in the runoff if she wants to get there.

On the Republican side, multiple incumbents faced challengers of varying levels of crazy. The only one who appeared to be threatened as of when I turned it was Rep. Kevin Brady in CD08, who eventually made it above the 50% mark against three challengers, the leader of whom was former State Rep. (and loony bird) Steve Toth. That would have been one butt-ugly runoff if it had come to that, but it won’t. Reps. John Culberson and Blake Farenthold were winning but with less than 60%. No one else was in a close race.

The one Republican open seat was in CD19, where the three top contenders were Jody Arrington, Glen Robertson, and Michael Bob Starr. Of the latter, John Wright noted the following for the Observer before the results began to come in (scroll down a ways to see):

Finally, in West Texas’ Congressional District 19, retired Col. Michael Bob Starr has come under fire from other GOP candidates for participating in LGBT Pride runs when he served as a commander at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene. If Starr wins, one of the nation’s most conservative districts would be represented by someone who is arguably moderate on LGBT issues, and the outcome could serve as a barometer of where the movement stands.

Starr was running third when last I checked, but he was behind the leader by fewer than 2,000 votes, so the situation was fluid. That said, as interesting as a Starr victory would be, he’d have to survive a runoff first, and I’d be mighty pessimistic about that. But we’ll see.

Democratic statewide results – Republican statewide results

Dolly Elizondo to run for CD15

Dec 7th, 2015
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

This bears watching.

Dolly Elizondo

Dolly Elizondo, a Texas Realtor and local Democratic activist, said Thursday she will run in the state’s 15th District, a campaign that, if successful, could make her the first Latina to represent the Lone Star State in Congress.

Elizondo joined a growing intra-party fight for the seat, rated Safe Democrat by the Rothenberg & Gonzales Political Report/Roll Call, which is being vacated by Rep. Rubén Hinojosa, D-Texas, for the first time in two decades.

“I am a firm believer that ordinary people such as myself need to participate in government. While we have struggled, have had to work hard and fight for resources, we’ve been able to overcome those obstacles and succeed,” she said in a statement. “Now it is our responsibility to get involved and advocate for others.”

Elizondo’s announcement came less than two weeks before the Dec. 14 filing deadline. Already, two other Democrats – lawyers Vicente Gonzalez and Juan Palcios Jr. – have begun their campaigns for the March 1 primary. No Republican has entered the race.

Elizondo’s website is here. That last bit in the story is not true – there are at least two Republicans running, according to The Monitor, which previewed Elizondo’s announcement; the stories that accompanied Rep. Hinojosa’s retirement announcement also noted Republican opposition. And Elizondo isn’t just a “local Democratic activist”, she’s the former Hidaldo County Democratic Party chair. This is what you get from a DC-based publication. Anyway, Elizondo will try to do what other Latina candidates have not been able to. She has drawn some interest from Emily’s List, which ought to help her in the primary if they throw in. I wouldn’t necessarily call CD15 “safe”, though in a Presidential year it should be pretty favorable to Democrats. It would still be best to have a strong candidate running. Elizondo has been on the radar for several years now. It would be way cool if she were to be that candidate.