Election 2006

Interesting.

A project to mobilize faith-based voters to support a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage may have illegally served Gov. Rick Perry’s re-election campaign, according to a complaint filed Thursday with the Internal Revenue Service.

The Texas Freedom Network, a religious watchdog group, asked the IRS to investigate a Houston-based foundation that allegedly violated its tax-exempt status by mobilizing Christian voters to support Perry.

The group says that several of Perry’s top contributors funneled money through the Niemoller Foundation to the Texas Restoration Project, a group of 2,000 socially conservative pastors.

The Restoration Project held six “policy briefings” in 2005 centered on voter turnout for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Perry spoke at those meetings.

The complaint alleges the foundation operated outside laws that give tax-exempt status only to groups that do not participate in political campaigns.

“The Texas Restoration Project appears to have served as a partisan voter-mobilization tool for the Perry re-election campaign, with affiliated pastors encouraged to use their churches as partisan, political extensions of that campaign,” TFN President Kathy Miller said in a letter to Linda Stiff, IRS acting commissioner.

[…]

The tax records show the foundation spent about $1.26 million to fund the Texas Restoration Project.

The closed-door policy briefings occurred at a time when U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison and state Comptroller Carole Strayhorn were considering challenging Perry in the March 2006 GOP primary.

Although neither Hutchison nor Strayhorn challenged Perry in the primary, Strayhorn ran as one of two independent candidates, along with Democratic nominee Chris Bell, in the November general election.

“That the governor of Texas was able to speak at each of six briefings — including two on one day in Fort Worth and Dallas and two on one day in San Antonio and Houston — clearly suggests careful co- ordination between Texas Restoration Project organizers and Gov. Perry’s office and campaign,” Miller said in the complaint.

Quinn said the governor’s campaign and supporters sent out communications and had conference calls with pastors on the Restoration Project’s list. The pastors were invited to Perry’s inauguration in last year.

I’ve no idea what if any action the IRS will take on this. Between this and the Chris Bell lawsuit, Perry’s going to have his hands full for awhile. Good thing for him he may not be too busy with the Presidential election much longer, given how things are going for his preferred candidate. BOR has more.

From the weekend, the Statesman lays out the issue of Rick Perry’s RGA troubles.

Even by Texas standards, the Republican Governors Association’s argument that it isn’t a political committee is absurd. Not only absurd, it’s obscene.

Just before last year’s election, the association gave Gov. Rick Perry $1 million in his hard-fought bid for re-election. But the group didn’t report the donation to the Texas Ethics Commission as required under Texas law. And Perry didn’t list the individual donors behind the large gift.

Turns out that most of that money came from controversial Houston homebuilder Bob Perry, who has had his fingers in a lot of GOP fundraising pies in recent years. Bob Perry’s money was behind the scurrilous Swift Boat Veterans for Truth political ads that undercut Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry in 2004.

Now the governor is saying that concealing Bob Perry’s name was an oversight, a clerical error. And the Republican Governors Association is saying it isn’t a political committee, so it didn’t have to disclose the donors. Sorry, if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck.

This year-old episode not only quacks, it stinks. And Travis County Attorney David Escamilla is reviewing the circumstances of the two $500,000 contributions dumped into Perry’s treasury in the final two weeks of the campaign.

[…]

In addition to a possible $2 million penalty, the candidate accepting the money also could be guilty of a criminal misdemeanor. That is a heavy weight hanging over Perry’s head.

More bizarre still is the Republican Governors Association’s argument that, although it raises and donates money to GOP candidates, it isn’t a political committee. The law isn’t precise in its definition, says Ben Ginsberg, the association’s attorney.

He argues that Texas law wasn’t properly crafted to include every entity that might contribute to a candidate. If the law is so flawed that a political committee that gives $1 million to a candidate for governor isn’t defined as a political committee, then that law needs a serious overhaul.

The courts aren’t likely to agree with Ginsberg and the governors association. Indeed, if the Republican Governors Association isn’t a political committee when it contributes to candidates, then nothing is. And millions in secret donations can flood Texas elections.

This has the potential to be all kinds of fun. I’ll be keeping an eye on it.

You may recall back in March that NASA Administrator Michael Griffin stirred up some trouble when he gave a public address that included an exhortation to the audience to keep Tom DeLay in office. This is because of the Hatch Act, which forbids government employees from endorsing political candidates. It took awhile, but the federal Office of Special Counsel, which investigates and enforces alleged violations of the Hatch Act has reprimanded Griffin for his statements. Muse and Bay Area Houston have the details.

I’m not sure why this has come up right now, but both Perry and Stace are using the case of Janette Sexton in HD144 to make a point in a larger argument about who did and didn’t do what to help Democratic candidates up and down the ballot in 2006. I don’t have any quibble with their basic point, that there wasn’t nearly enough support being given by the various power brokers within the party to candidates who were not in races deemed top tier, but I have a serious disagreement with the way they’re using the data to make their point. Perry, who ranks all Democratic State House challengers from Harris and Montgomery Counties by their vote percentage, says:

It’s worth noting that Cohen raised $500,000 for her campaign, with the assistance of many of the previously named legislators, an army of volunteers and the wherewithal to take a ten-month leave of absence from her position as the director of the Houston Area Women’s Center. Thibaut, an adroit fundraiser, collected $150,000 and also a core of vigorous volunteer support. Matula, who ran in neighboring HD-129, benefited from the teachers PAC and strong efforts from the Bay Area New Democrats, Area 5 Democrats and Battleground Democrats — all clubs that could have chipped in volunteer assistance to Padilla-Sexton as well — enabling her to have extensive blockwalking and phonebanking. BAND, to their credit, provided robocalls to Janette’s campaign. John Cobarruvias, the president of the club, admitted that BAND’s efforts were stretched too thin over the Bell, Lampson and Matula campaigns to provide much in the way of anything extra. So with virtually no help and no resources – no money, no volunteers, consequently no direct mail, blockwalking or phonebanking, not even any campaign literature – Padilla-Sexton performed fourth of eleven political novices. Trautman, McDavid, and Khan all had greater resources and performed less well in their districts.

To which Stace says:

Considering we had other “favorites” that raised so much more and performed just as well as Padilla-Sexton I wonder if they did as well because of effective campaigning, or just for being the alternative on the ballot.

I’m sorry, but comparing candidates in this fashion is not illuminating. It’s like ranking baseball players by batting average without taking into account league and park effects. Putting it another way, the overall National League batting average in 1930 was .303, and in 1968 it was .243. Calling a .300 hitter in 1930 better than a .280 hitter in 1968 would be completely misguided – hell, a .300 hitter in 1930 was, compared to his peers, mediocre, while in 1968 a .280 hitter was an All Star. Context matters.

I say if you really want to know how a State House candidate did, you need to compare her to her peers on the ballot. Here’s how the nine Harris County State House challengers did relative to the other countywide Democrats in their districts:

Candidate     Dist    Pct County%   Diff  Rank
==============================================
Trautman       127  40.78   32.25  +8.53     1
Cohen          134  55.75   48.42  +7.33     1
Matula         129  42.31   37.55  +4.76     1
Thibaut        133  42.80   42.05  +0.75     8
Brann          136  29.89   29.96  -0.07     9
Khan           126  33.47   33.83  -0.36    12
Sexton         144  41.87   43.04  -1.17    17
Nelson-Turnier 150  29.71   31.67  -1.86    18
McDavid        138  39.86   42.77  -2.91    18

“County% is the average percentage of the 18 countywide Dems. As I’ve discussed before, the Harris County candidates did about three points better overall than the statewides did, and there was less variation among them, so I consider this to be the most accurate measure of how blue or red a given district is. “Diff” is the difference, positive or negative, between the State Rep’s performance and the average countywide candidate’s performance. (All percentages are for the two-candidate GOP/Dem race; all third parties are dropped from consideration.) “Rank” means where out of 19 total candidates (themselves included) in the district the candidate’s performance rates.

These numbers speak for themselves. Trautman, Cohen, and Matula significantly overperformed relative to their districts, as I showed before. Sexton ran a little more than a point worse than average, and did better than only two others on the ballot – John Shike and Goodwille Pierre. Thibaut, who did have significant resources but barely beat average, can fairly be said to have underperformed, but to say Sexton did better than Trautman is just wrong.

Again, none of this obviates the point Perry and Stace made about the commitment or lack thereof made by the powers that be to the candidates on the ballot. I’m disputing the notion that Sexton’s performance is comparable to those of the candidates who did get insitutional backing of some kind. Maybe she would have done better if she’d had that kind of backing; maybe the same is true for Scott Brann, Mark McDavid, Dot Nelson-Turnier, and Chad Khan as well. They didn’t get it, so we’ll never know. I have a lot of respect for these folks and the effort they put forth. But as we criticize the establishment for abandoning these candidates, bear in mind the possibility that the real abdication was in not recruiting candidates they were willing to support and thus leaving the race to unfunded novices.

I’m following the CD29 results here. The folks who are embedded with the DiNovo campaign are doing the same here and here. With all of Matagorda and about half of Brazoria in, the standings are here, and K-T’s assessment at this juncture is here. Stay tuned.

UPDATE: It’s over. Runoff yes, DiNovo no. Alas.

Today is the day for the last election of 2006, the special election in HD29 to fill the seat of the late Rep. Glenda Dawson. I’ve got a writeup on it over at Kuff’s World, and to that I’ll add links to Muse and Cobarruvias. If you live in Brazoria or Matagorda Counties, you might need to vote today. Check Dr. DiNovo’s page for a listing of polling locations. I’ll have updates on this race later today.

Last Thursday, I blogged about how the National Journal twice quoted an incorrect assertion that Tom DeLay’s 2003 re-redistricting netted the GOP a mere two seats. PerryVsWorld has also blogged about this – though I disagree about his assessment of Henry Bonilla’s future, I think he’s right to say that Bonilla was a dead duck under the old lines.) So far, the comment I left here has never been approved (though one by Ryan Goodland making the same point was), and I’ve never gotten a response to the email I sent to John Mercurio. I don’t know why such a silly, easily-debunked error has gained such currency, but my respect for the National Journal has gone down a notch because of it. Don’t be fooled: Tom DeLay paid a high price for his scheme, but even with the loss of CD22 this year (whether for one cycle or long-term), he got a decent payoff for it. Anyone who says otherwise is just wrong.

The last election of 2006 (but not necessarily the last election of this cycle) will take place on Tuesday. It’s the special election for HD29 to fill the seat left vacant by the death of State Rep. Glenda Dawson. There are multiple Republicans and one Democrat in this race, Dr. Anthony DiNovo, who ideally would make it to a January runoff (*that* would be the last election of this cycle). If nothing else, if DiNovo just makes it to the runoff, that’s one less assured vote for Tom Craddick as Speaker. Anything that makes Craddick sweat is good, and who knows? After Ciro Rodriguez’s laugher last week, can anyone say for sure what might happen in a runoff?

Various folks are currently involved in the GOTV work for DiNovo. If you’ve got the time and the inclination, please join in with Muse, Coby, Kaos, Karl-T, and Hal at DiNovo headquarters. Especially Hal. Dems started the year with a special election win. Wouldn’t it be great to end it that way, too?

Eye on Williamson brings the latest news about the major voting problems they had in that county this year.

Williamson County officials took a major step Thursday to restore residents’ trust in the voting system after numerous problems in the November election led to a partial recount and the resignation of the county elections administrator.

At least 100 election workers and staff members voiced concerns Thursday at a meeting called by the county’s elections commission.

“This election did not go as smoothly as previous elections had gone when I had been a judge,” election judge Eric Whitfield said after the hearing. “We need a way to make sure that people who move here and are interested enough in voting, that they can do that.”

After the hearing, acting Elections Administrator John Willingham said the main complaints were about staffing, training and technical support. He will make recommendations to officials in the next six to eight weeks, including calling for the formation of a panel of election workers that will regularly report to the commission.

“I think it’s difficult for someone who’s not involved in elections every day . . . to hold the officials and staff accountable,” he said. “I think election judges do have that opportunity, and they can see things that are going wrong.”

[…]

Several workers said Thursday that staffing was inadequate and that their requests for additional help weren’t met.

“If you don’t have enough clerks at a polling place, voters are going to leave,” Willingham said. “We need to make sure there are procedures in place (so) that staffing concerns won’t be ignored. It’s something that could have been handled fairly easily.”

Workers also repeated complaints that they did not receive proper training in handling electronic voting machines and what election judge Betty Brown called “problem citizens,” who disturb the voting process in some way.

I’d like to know more about what Ms. Brown meant by “problem citizens”. Maybe there’s a law enforcement issue in here as well.

EoW thinks Willingham did a good job when he was elections supervisor and has hope that he can get things straightened out. We’ll see. There’s some video of the meeting as well. Check it out.

Long as I’m in a quibbling mood, I need to point out an error in this Hotline post about CD23.

[Congressional guru Rich] Cohen also makes one other point. This is now the second seat in TX this cycle that has switched hands from the GOP to the Dems as a result of Tom DeLay’s re-redistricting efforts. The other seat, of course, was DeLay’s. So the net result for the GOP based on DeLay’s re-redistricting was all of 2 seats. Was that really worth all the hassle and the subpoenas and courtroom dramas? Many a Republican is probably wondering that same thing tonight, in particular, soon-to-be-ex-Rep. Henry Bonilla.

Far be it from me to offer any balm to Tom DeLay, but Cohen’s math is funny, to say the least. I left the following comment on the post, which apparently hasn’t been approved yet:

Two?

The Dems lost TX-01 (Sandlin), TX-02 (Turner), TX-04 (Hall, who switched parties), TX-09 (Lampson, who ran in the new TX-02), TX-19 (Stenholm), and TX-32 (Frost). They went from 17 members to 11. Now that Lampson is in TX-22 and Rodriguez has ousted Bonilla in TX-23, they have 13 members. That looks a lot like a net four seat loss. Even if you discount Hall, who was a true DINO that should have switched along with Phil Gramm in the 80s, that’s three seats down. Cohen’s math makes no sense.

Maybe a four seat gain isn’t worth it, either – ideally, for DeLay, the GOP would have netted seven seats, but Chet Edwards spoiled that plan in 2004. And I, at least, believe that some other districts might be susceptible to a better-funded Democratic attack in 2008, which would render DeLay’s scheme even less meaningful. But let’s not overdo it just yet. His scheme was very costly to the Democrats, both in terms of caucus size and seniority. Some of that has now been regained, but there’s still a long way to go.

Wow.

U.S. Rep. Henry Bonilla conceded defeat to former congressman Ciro Rodriguez in a stunning upset that completed the Democratic takeover of Congress.

The Republican incumbent lost Bexar County for the first time in his political career Tuesday night, and trailed Rodriguez, his Democratic challenger, in total votes across the sprawling Congressional District 23.

The Associated Press called the election for Rodriguez shortly before 9 p.m. Bonilla telephoned Rodriguez to concede around that time, according to his spokesman, Phil Ricks.

[…]

Bonilla lost at least four counties in his West Texas stronghold that he won just five weeks ago. He carried Dimmit, Culberson, Presidio and Brewster counties in the seven-way special election on Nov. 7, but lost all four to Rodriguez on Tuesday.

“It’s an uphill battle, no doubt about it,” Bonilla spokesman Phil Ricks said at 8:15 p.m. “I think the other side was much more organized in getting the early vote out, and that’s why they sought extra days of early voting.”

Soon after Gov. Rick Perry set the runoff date, the League of United Latin American Citizens sued and eventually wrangled three extra days of early voting before dropping the complaint.

[…]

Bonilla came into the runoff with $1.6 million in the bank and the advantages of incumbency — a familiar name across the sprawling district and list of projects for which he’d secured federal funding.

Rodriguez hobbled out of the special election in debt and with the reputation of a less than savvy campaigner.

But he had a name that registered in Bexar County and into South Texas, and soon he had the interest of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The organization wound up spending more than $900,000 on mail-outs and television ads.

Adam Segal, director of the Hispanic Voter Project at Johns Hopkins University, said he’s talked informally with both campaigns in the past month.

“I think a lot of Democrats involved think making the investment was a wise decision that just weeks ago looked pretty risky,” Segal said.

Way back when, I thought the Dems should have made CD23 a priority. It took longer than I would have liked, and I admit that along the way I too had serious doubts about Ciro Rodriguez’s ability to win (he did drop out of the race at one point, after all), but it should be crystal clear now why this was a good idea. Not just to bump the Democrats’ gains up one seat to a net of 30, but to knock off a prominent Republican incumbent who might be Texas’ junior Senator-elect today had Kay Bailey Hutchison chosen to come home. That’s a huge deal.

Richard Langlois, chairman of the Bexar County Republican County, blamed Bonilla’s fall in Bexar County on his supporters staying home Tuesday.

“Obviously, it was voter apathy,” Langlois said. “Obviously, something happened.”

Apathy is of course the flip side of motivation, which as we know is what the Democrats had coming into today. Heck, they had it well before today – look at the early vote totals. Seeing Ciro in the lead there must have been quite a shock to Team Bonilla.

Anyway. Here’s the county canvass report with eight boxes in Medina County still to be counted, here’s wrapups from Burnt Orange Report and Paul Burka, and here’s a beautiful picture from Swing State Project. Congratulations, Congressman Ciro Rodriguez!

Were you not able to be in San Antonio for the get-out-the-vote rally with Bill Clinton and Henry Cisneros? Have no fear, PM Bryant was there, and he’s got pictures and video from the event for you. A quick review of what took place:

Performing were well-known Tejano musicians Los Texmaniacs and Johnny Canales, and speaking was a long list of prominent local Democratic politicians, from Congressman Charlie Gonzalez, to newly-elected state senator Carlos Uresti, to former mayor and former Clinton HUD secretary Henry Cisneros. Uresti’s speech was short and sweet, amounting to a brief cheerleading session. Cisneros took a different approach with a rabble-rousing diatrabe against Henry Bonilla’s treachery and in favor of Ciro Rodriguez’s character.

The stars of the show were, of course, Ciro Rodriguez and President Bill Clinton, who entered the stage together. Ciro introduced the former leader of the free world, who then gave typical strong performance. Clinton’s take-home message is that this election is going to be all about turnout–who wants it more. He asked us in the crowd if we wanted to join the 29 districts who ousted Republicans in favor of Democrats, or if we would be join the list of 10 or 11 districts that came up just a percentage point short. The crowd’s answer was loud and clear.

Jaime Castillo says that momentum favors Ciro right now:

The signs of a tight horserace are now too many to discount.

They include:

Bonilla’s late decision to not only go negative in TV and radio ads, but to go with over-the-top spots that paint Rodriguez as having terrorist ties;

The continued involvement of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee with personnel, polls and expensive ads on behalf of Rodriguez;

Bonilla’s decision not to ignore, but to run a response to a critical DCCC spot that says Bonilla voted eight times to give himself a raise (The Bonilla ad says Rodriguez voted four times for congressional pay hikes);

And, finally, President Clinton’s swing through San Antonio on Sunday on behalf of Rodriguez.

Unless this race is close, none of those things happen.

Bonilla wouldn’t go negative. The national Democrats wouldn’t stick around. And Clinton would certainly have something better to do on the Sabbath than stump for a lost cause in San Antonio.

The early vote also suggests things are tight. We’ll know tomorrow. Meanwhile, you can still phonebank for Ciro if you’re not in CD23 and want to help.

CD23 isn’t the only election going on this month – the special election to fill the vacant HD29 is Tuesday, December 19, with early voting going on Monday through Friday of next week. There’s phonebanking and blockwalking going on this weekend and next week in support of Democratic contender Anthony DiNovo. If you’re in the area and want to help, Muse has the details. The Bay Area New Democrats are also involved – contact them if you want to help.

Lots of stuff happening in the CD23 runoff as early voting draws to an end. Here’s a link dump for you so you can keep up:

Henry Bonilla goes very negative amid rumors that his lead over Ciro Rodriguez is three points, not seven. Bonilla is also being criticized for not having gone negative sooner than he did. By the way, SUSA has issued a correction to its initial summary of that poll.

The DCCC sees CD23 as their 30th pickup of the year. They’ve already invested close to $1 million in the race, which makes up a huge part of the fundraising advantage that Bonilla had.

If you live in the district, there are many opportunities to get involved in Rodriguez’s GOTV operation this weekend. If you don’t live in the district, you can still phonebank.

We have a poll for the runoff.

In a runoff election today, 12/4/06, in Texas’s 23rd Congressional District, incumbent Republican Henry Bonilla appears to edge Democrat Ciro Rodriguez, 53% to 46%, according to a SurveyUSA poll conducted exclusively for WOAI-TV San Antonio. The runoff is in 8 days, on 12/12/06. Bonilla gets 70% of White votes. Rodriguez gets 72% of Hispanic votes. In SurveyUSA’s turnout model, 59% of likely runoff voters are white, 36% are Hispanic. If Hispanics, who are 55% of the population in TX 23, make up more than 36% of those who vote in the Runoff, the contest will be closer than SurveyUSA’s numbers here show. Bonilla gets 94% of Republican votes. Rodriguez gets 89% of Democratic votes. Independents split. Bonilla wins by 25 points among higher-income voters, and by 15 points among middle-income voters. Rodriguez wins by 25 points among lower-income voters. Texas’s Congressional map was redrawn after a Supreme Court case in August 2006. Since there was no time for party primaries, there was a special election on November 7th in the affected districts, in which more than one candidate per party could run. In the 23rd Congressional District, Bonilla defeated Rodriguez and several other Democrats, but received only 48% of the vote, triggering the runoff. Those who voted for other candidates on 11/7/06 now prefer Rodriguez by 3:1. Bonilla was first elected to Congress in 1992. Rodriguez represented Texas’s 28th Congressional District from 1997 to 2005.

Two points: One, as Carlos Guerra reminds us, 27 percent support among Hispanic voters would be high for Bonilla.

Now seeking his eighth term in a runoff against former Congressman Ciro Rodriguez, Bonilla’s first victory came by ousting scandal-plagued Albert Bustamante. Later, he was quick to hop on Newt Gingrich’s bandwagon, becoming an avid supporter of 12-year term limits for House and Senate members.

Bonilla also became a trusted and loyal soldier for DeLay, and in 1999 was made head of American Dream PAC, whose mission, he said, was “to give significant, direct financial assistance to first-rate minority GOP candidates.”

But with each re-election, Bonilla’s Mexican American support slipped, and in 2002, only 8 percent of those voters cast ballots for him.

To keep Bonilla in office, DeLay’s 2003 redistricting plan shifted 100,000 voters from heavily Mexican American areas out of his district, and in 2004, the more heavily Anglo district re-elected Bonilla by a margin of more than 2 to 1.

And two, according to the crosstabs, Rodriguez wins the people who voted for one of the non-runoff candidates, all of whom have endorsed him, by a not-as-good-as-it-could-be 74-23 margin.

The point I’m making here is that there will be more factors at play than just Anglo versus Hispanic turnout levels. In a race like this any poll is going to be an educated guess at best. Having said that, this isn’t all that bad a result for Ciro Rodriguez. A win is definitely within reach.

If you want to help with that, you can get involved with blockwalking, online phonebanking, or just volunteer or contribute.

Otherwise, as BOR notes, there’s still some pending action by the Justice Department that may wind up pushing Election Day back a week, though it seems unlikely at this time. And finally, South Texas Chisme and The Stakeholder remind us that way back when nanny problems were all the rage, Henry Bonilla was in on the action.

BOR has done a series of posts on how the Dems made gains in this last election cycle. The latest entry gives props to the least well known of the factors, the House Democratic Campaign Committee, or HDCC. Check it out.

Vince has put together a Best and Worst of 2006 survey that’s worth checking out. I just finished filling in my responses – click on the More link to see what I entered., or click here to see PDiddie’s.

(more…)

Continuing with my series of reports on how Harris County candidates did this year, I’d like to focus on three State Rep candidates who clearly exceeded the baseline Democratic performance of their districts.

We’ll start in HD129, where Sherrie Matula provided John Davis’ first Democratic challenge since 1998, an election that Davis won with over 70% of the vote.

Matula    Pct   SW Avg  SW Pct   CW Avg  CW Pct
===============================================
14,379  42.31   +3,037   +7.80   +1,189   +4.76

Matula garnered slightly more than 3000 votes over the average Democratic statewide candidate, and nearly 1200 votes more than the average Democratic countywide candidate. She ran nearly eight points better than the statewides, and nearly five points better than the countywides. She was the second best votegetter among Democrats, trailing only Nick Lampson, while Davis lagged behind everyone except Elsie Alcala and Don Willet, each of whom he exceeded by fewer than 70 tallies.

It should be noted that this district was about as red as it was in 2004, when it was basically a two-to-one GOP area. The high Democratic score then was Kathy Stone’s 35%. The baseline, which clocked in at 37.55% for county candidates, clearly inched up some, to which I’d credit Lampson and Matula, a little bit of demographics, and the overall climate. Everything Matula accomplished was done on a miniscule budget. She worked this the old fashioned way, by being everywhere and talking to everyone. In a higher turnout year, with a real campaign warchest, who knows what might happen? Among other things, Davis is rumored to be looking at SD11, where incumbent Mike Jackson is rumored to be retiring. This is a district that won’t look terribly competitive based on the raw numbers, but should be treated as though it is for Matula’s expected second go-round. It’s definitely within range.

Next up is someone with whom we’re already pretty familiar, Ellen Cohen.

Cohen    Pct   SW Avg  SW Pct   CW Avg  CW Pct
===============================================
25,180  55.75   +5,545   +9.86   +4,743   +7.33

It’s nearly impossible to overstate Cohen’s dominance in this race. By my count, she won four precincts in which no other Democrat achieved a majority; she ran at least 9 points better than the combined average percentage in those precincts, including one (Precinct 87), which she won by eight votes, in which the baseline Dem performance was 36.9%. Cohen would have won HDs 138 and 144 had she performed at this level in them.

The thing to keep in mind with Cohen is that even with her big bucks, and even with Martha Wong’s godawful campaign, she still had to be at least an above average candidate to win. HD134 is still Republican turf, even if it’s less so than it once was. As I said before, of the 29 candidates who were on the ballot everywhere in HD134 (*), only six Democrats carried it (Henley, Moody, Sharp, Green, and R. Garcia being the other five; Matula’s level of performance would have been more than enough to win as well). Cohen made it look easy, but don’t let that fool you. She worked for it, and she earned it. Though I expect the Republicans to mount a serious challenge to her in 2008, I think this seat is hers for as long as she respects and votes the district.

And as good as Ellen Cohen was, she still wasn’t the top performer in Harris County. That honor goes to Diane Trautman in HD127.

Trautman    Pct   SW Avg  SW Pct   CW Avg  CW Pct
=================================================
14,297  40.78   +4,200  +11.36   +3,303   +8.53

Trautman was five and a half points better than the next strongest Democrat in this district. Seven Democrats failed to crack 30% there. She had at least 2000 more votes than any other Democrat, and exceeded most people by at least 3000. That’s an awful lot of ballots on which she was the only Democrat.

Another way of looking at it is this: Trautman lost this deep red district by 6,461 votes. There were 11,265 straight-ticket Republican ballots cast, and 5,210 straight-ticket Dem ballots, meaning that straight-ticket voting accounts for all but 406 votes of her deficit. Everybody else lost by at least 10,000 votes, meaning they lost the non-straight-party voters by at least 4000. Given that there were about 20,000 non-straight-ticket ballots, that means she ran close to even where everyone else was losing at least 60-40. Any way you approach it, what she did was just mind-boggling. Oh, and she would have won HDs 133, 134, 138, and 144 at this level of performance.

As with Matula and HD129, this is a district that has no right to be competitive. It too saw its Democratic performance tick up a bit, but given that it was at about 28% in 2004, it’s hard to imagine otherwise. Still, it did increase by about four points at the county level, and I can’t help but think that Trautman was a big part of that. Unlike Matula and Cohen, it’s not known yet if she’ll try again in 2008. Joe Crabb has also had retirement rumors surround him for awhile; given how much he’s disliked, that may not be a good thing from a Democratic campaign perspective. Frankly, I could make a pretty good case for Trautman to try a different race, one that would be a bit more winnable – City Council District E leaps to mind, as Addie Wiseman is term-limited. Hell, she’d probably give Ted Poe or State Sen. Tommy Williams a good run for their money. Whatever she tries, if she does decide to have another go, she’ll be formidable.

Next up: The targets for 2008.

(*) – As is my habit with these analyses, I’m excluding the four-headed Governor’s race from consideration, as it’s too weird to add much of value. That said, Chris Bell was the high votegetter among the gubernatorials in HD134 – he got 36.5% of the vote there to Rick Perry’s 32.8%, with Strayhorn (17.3) and Friedman (13.3) much farther back.

There seems to be some confusion about what I was trying to show with my posts on the Richmond Rail Effect from this past election. I think way more is being made about what I said and what the data says than I intended. Let me try to clear this up.

My thesis was very simple: Would John Culberson’s vehement anti-Richmond rail stance help him in the precincts that immediately surround the affected stretch of Richmond Ave? Rich Connelly summed up what I was looking for in his Houston Press article on Jim Henley:

Usually [the inner-loop neighborhoods along Richmond] could be relied on for some Democratic support, but they are mightily pissed at Metro for trying to build a light-rail line through their neighborhoods. Culberson has made clear he agrees with them, and if reelected he’d be a formidable ally for the residents.

In other words, much of the area right around Richmond, especially in Montrose, is Democratic. Under normal circumstances, Culberson would expect to do poorly in them. The one thing that might change this dynamic is a hyperlocal issue that directly affects the people living there – the proposed construction of a light rail line on Richmond Avenue.

So imagine you’re a typical Montrose liberal who happens to oppose rail on Richmond. Normally, you’d support Jim Henley against John Culberson because Henley is more in tune with your general belief system. But not this year. This year, you don’t care about Iraq or immigration or gay marriage or the culture of corruption or any of those other things. This year, you will break out of your normal habit of pushing the Democratic button, at least in this election (and maybe one other), because you care more about that damned light rail line than you do about those other things, and you know that Culberson has promised to do everything in his not-inconsiderable power to keep it out of your front yard. It’s as simple as that.

And that’s what I was looking for in the data – any evidence that the normal partisan preference for those areas might have changed this year, in this election. If so – if Culberson had gained support in places like the liberal Montrose precincts – I would have concluded that his vocal anti-Richmond rail stance had won over people who would not otherwise be inclined to vote for him. I’d come to that conclusion because what else could explain it? Nothing that I can think of.

The rest you already know. There is no evidence in the precinct data to support the idea that being anti-Richmond rail moved votes into Culberson’s column. He lost support in every precinct surrounding Richmond except for Afton Oaks. He lost votes overall in the surrounding area. He underperformed relative to other Republicans in those precincts, meaning that it wasn’t the case that it was just the bad year for the GOP that did him in. He even lost support in the precincts along Westpark, just as he lost support along Richmond. In short, there is absolutely no evidence to suggest that being anti-rail on Richmond was a winning issue for Culberson. Which is what I’ve been saying all along.

As for Martha Wong, I’d agree that the Richmond rail issue was not as big a deal in her campaign as it was in Culberson’s. But her position was no secret:

Houston Chronicle, February 17:

Some 350 people arrived in cars, buses and light rail trains Thursday to hear 28 of them advise the Metro board on whether its planned University line should go on Richmond Avenue.

[…]

State Rep. Martha Wong, one of five elected officials who spoke, also favored Westpark. Wong said many small businesses on Richmond would suffer while Westpark has relatively few to be affected.

“We voted on it to go down Westpark, and we feel you ought to follow the vote,” said Wong, R-Houston.

Houston Chronicle, March 16:

Opponents of a Metro light rail line being considered for Richmond Avenue found no allies in their fight to reroute the line to Westpark Drive at West University Place’s City Council meeting Monday.

State Rep. Martha Wong, R-District 134, and a small contingent of business owners and stakeholders trying to stop Metro from placing its University Line project along Richmond Avenue appeared before the council to gauge the city’s interest in joining them in their effort to route the line on Westpark.

Houston Chronicle, August 17:

[West University] Council voted unanimously to support the Metro Solutions Transit Plan to construct the University Corridor light rail line along Richmond Avenue, a topic that has been emotionally debated, particularly by southeast residents.

[…]

[Council member Mike] Woods criticized state Rep. Martha Wong, R-Houston, saying he feels Wong’s apparent support of a Westpark rail alignment does not represent the interests of West University.

“In the spring, she came before council stating her support for a Westpark line and asking for ours,” he said. “I don’t feel that rail on the Westpark side is in the best interest of Greater Houston. Rail is a regional issue, and the discomfort to immediate areas during construction is unfortunate but inevitable to the success of an effective rail system.”

Houston Chronicle, September 22:

On another issue during the debate, Cohen deflected a question about whether Metro’s University light rail line should run on Richmond, saying that the Legislature has nothing to do with Metro.

Wong reproached Cohen, saying the Legislature authorized the creation of local transit authorities in 1973.

And finally, Blue Bayou related a conversation between Wong and one of her constituents, who favored rail on Richmond.

Basically, anyone who paid any attention to the issues in this affluent, educated, well-informed district knew who stood where. And again, if there was any propensity for voters to override their normal preferences based on opposition to rail on Richmond, it simply does not show up in the precinct data. Wong did worse than Culberson in these areas. And again, as before, I can’t say that being against rail on Richmond cost Wong votes, but I can and do say that it did not gain her any.

I hope this clears things up. Any questions, let me know.

I have four things to say about this Chron article regarding the Richmond rail issue and its possible effects on the Wong-Cohen race:

1. I covered this exact topic more than two weeks ago, both here and at Kuff’s World.

2. I have sent an email to Rad Sallee and James Campbell pointing this out and asking why my work was not acknowledged. I will print any response I get.

3. The story contains two factual matters that need to be addressed:

Wong ran stronger in boxes farther west. In Precinct 233, which includes the Greenway Plaza complex, Cohen had only a narrow majority. This is one of several locations where Metro could cross the line over from Richmond to Westpark.

And Wong swamped Cohen with 62 percent of the vote in precincts 177 and 178, which include Afton Oaks and adjoining Highland Village. Afton Oaks residents have led opposition to the Richmond route.

All of this is true. It also fails to mention that Wong had carried Precinct 233 in 2004 (as Culberson did in both 2004 and 2006), and that Wong lost support in boxes 177 and 178 when compared to 2004 (64.89% in ’04 versus 59.07% in ’06 for Wong in 177, 67.24% and 66.27% in 178). In fact, Wong lost support in every single precinct that contains Richmond Ave from 2004 to 2006. There is no “other hand” for her here.

Daphne Scarbrough, a leader of the Richmond Avenue Coalition, which opposes rail there, said she thinks the issue played little if any role in Wong’s defeat.

“Our area is much more Democratic than it is Republican,” said Scarbrough, who owns and lives above a metal arts shop on Richmond near Shepherd.

If by “our area”, Scarbrough means “the precincts east of Kirby that include Richmond”, then Scarborough is right. That’s definitely Democratic turf. However, if she meant all of HD134 (which is my interpretation), then she’s wrong. The average Democratic statewide candidate got 45.89% in HD134, and the average Democratic countywide candidate got 48.42%. Only six Democrats – Jim Henley, Bill Moody, Jim Sharp, Mary Kay Green, Richard Garcia, and Cohen – got a majority of the vote there. That makes HD134 less Republican than it was in 2004 and 2002, but still Republican overall.

4. Finally, short of exit polling, you can’t really say that rail was a factor in Wong’s defeat. It wasn’t that big a theme in the campaign – education, health care, and the gay marriage amendment were all more dominant. What you can say, what I did say about Culberson as well, was that being anti-Richmond rail did not help Wong. She did not pick up any support in the areas that would be inclined to vote for Cohen based on other issues; in fact, as noted, she lost support everywhere, including in the one precinct where anti-Richmond sentiment was strongest. Being anti-Richmond rail may or may not have cost Martha Wong votes, but it sure didn’t help her gain any votes.

Having said that, these paragraphs don’t make sense to me:

Hot opposition to rail on Richmond flared red in the Nov. 7 election, but a Houston Chronicle analysis of the vote suggests that outside the most vocal neighborhoods the passion drops off.

[…]

Wong first won the District 134 seat in 2002 and held it in 2004, but this time she lost by 12 percentage points despite the district’s Republican-leaning history. In the district’s seven precincts that include or border Richmond, Cohen drew 59 percent of the vote and Wong 38 percent, with the remainder going to a Libertarian candidate.

In 2004, Wong took 45 percent in those same precincts, which run from Graustark to the West Loop. Although some of the precincts extend north to Westheimer, all of their voters live less than a mile from Richmond and most are much closer.

The problem with this is that paragraph 1 implies that there was some kind of anti-Richmond rail effect that was visible in the returns from the precincts close to Richmond Ave, when as we’ve already seen what there was specifically contradicts that, which those subsequent paragraphs acknowledge. The story is very simple: Being anti-Richmond rail did not help Martha Wong. It may or may not have hurt her, but it did not help her. Period.

Now we’ll see what feedback I get from the Chron. Stay tuned.

As we have seen, the runoff dates for CD23 and HD29 are a week apart, with CD23 coming first on December 12. That date, which is the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe for Catholics, has drawn complaints by Latino organizations. They have now taken those complaints to the Justice Department.

LULAC has objected to the date for the District 23 runoff because it falls on the Feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe, a religious holy day celebrated by many Catholic Hispanics by attending Mass, holding processions and family gatherings and other events. The district that stretches from near El Paso to South Texas and takes in several counties on the border has a 61 percent Hispanic voting age population.

“The state representative district is predominantly white-Anglo population and would not be affected by ‘El dia de la Virgen de Guadalupe’,” LULAC national attorney Luis Vera Jr. said in the DOJ filing, using the Spanish translation of the Day of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

The 23rd district’s voters are “adversely affected by setting it on the holiest of religious holidays. There can possibly be no other reason for the different dates than an attempt to suppress the Latino vote.”

Vera also contends the state could have set the District 23 [runoff date] on a Saturday and that it did not have to be on a Tuesday.

[…]

Because Texas has a history of discriminating against minority voters, it is required to seek approval of election changes and decisions from the Department of Justice. Vera is asking DOJ not to approve the runoff date unless the state extends early voting to include a Saturday or Sunday and the election date is not on a holy day and a day that provides adequate time for all voters to be notified of the election.

I’m not equipped to evaluate the legal merits of LULAC’s complaint here, but I will say that I can think of no good reason why early voting would not include both a Saturday and a Sunday. According to South Texas Chisme, who has been following the backs and forths in this, the Bexar County Commissioners’ Court has extended early voting to do just that, in defiance of the Secretary of State. I really don’t understand what the state’s resistance is about here, especially if by adding the extra Early Voting dates the complaint to Justice would be dropped. Well, okay, I do understand their resistance, but I’m trying to think of a non-partisan objection. And I’m coming up blank.

Didn’t quite get the chance to do the next writeup that I have in mind, but in the course of noodling around with it, I found another nice little illustration of why Dan Patrick was not exactly all that and a bag of chips. While looking at the data in HD138, I noticed the following:

Pcnct  Culberson Henley  Murphy Thibaut  Patrick Kubosh
=======================================================
130          933    302     918     320      902    326
356          778    397     786     386      782    406
395          600    245     608     246      581    270
438          742    237     737     246      725    250
483          918    562     884     598      915    583
492          658    310     652     328      645    340
493          574    243     581     242      543    272
499          884    317     896     321      844    352
504          789    328     777     348      758    358
625          513    290     501     303      515    297
626          616    410     598     428      583    453
706          102     65     103      65      107     64
727          207    283     193     280      194    298

Total      8,314  3,989   8,234   4,111    8,094  4,269

We already knew that Patrick trailed most of the State Rep candidates, Murphy included. This is the precinct breakdown of that, with Culberson/Henley thrown in for extra contrast. Even though Culberson and Murphy had to contend with a Libertarian on the ballot as well as their Democratic opponents, at least one of them topped Patrick’s vote total in 10 of the 12 precincts, with both of them doing better than Danno in 8 of them. Maybe three-term Congressman Culberson should be leading the pack here, even with a Genuine Celebrity on the ballot and even though Henley provided a fairly strong challenge, but what about fellow first-time candidate Jim Murphy? You’d think Danno’s star would have outshined Murphy’s, but you’d be wrong. And note again that this is not due to undervoting – Michael Kubosh picks up all of the tallies that evaporate from the R column. The total spread across the three races is a mere 58 votes, so this is as concise a comparison as you could want.

Anyway. It doesn’t tell us much that we didn’t already know, but it’s a nice capsule review of the phenomenon. More to come from other races soon.

Maybe this has something to do with his rumored interest in the 2008 Senate race and maybe it doesn’t, but I for one am glad to see Rep. Henry Cuellar bury the hatchet and get behind Ciro Rodriguez in his runoff race versus Rep. Henry Bonilla.

Rodriguez and Cuellar had been friends but had a falling out when Cuellar opposed Rodriguez in 2004. Cuellar, who also squashed Rodriguez’s attempt to win back his seat in March, now represents the 28th congressional district.

Cuellar joined Texas’ House Democrats, 11 total, in signing a letter to Rodriguez pledging support.

“The members of the delegation are committed to travel to your district, send you resources and work with our colleagues in the House to get you re-elected,” they said in the letter.

Vince is also pleased by this development. Look, I was as big a booster of Ciro over Cuellar in March as anyone. I’d still prefer Ciro over Cuellar if that were the choice before me. But that fight was fought, and the side I picked lost. It’s time to get over it and move on, because the prize here is the even bigger one of ousting Bonilla. I applaud Cuellar for doing his part, and I promise to do mine. We’re on the same team now, so let’s make the most of it.

Greg also notes this story, and has a video of the DCCC’s ad that’s now playing in the district. Check it out.

I was going to save this one for later, but given the mostly fawning profile that just ran in the Statesman, plus my own recent tweaking of him, I suppose now is as good a time as any to analyze the performance of Dan Patrick in SD07.

To be honest, I wasn’t planning to even run the numbers in this one. The district is pretty monolithic, and it’s not like Patrick’s opponent (and onetime financial backer) Michael Kubosh ran any sort of campaign against him, so I didn’t think there’d be anything of interest there. But I reached the end of the State Rep districts and had a little extra time on my hands, so I figured what the heck.

And I’m glad I did, because I didn’t get the result I had expected. I thought Patrick, given his celebrity status, universal name recognition, and (let’s be honest) high charisma level, would be the pacesetter in his district. I fully anticipated seeing him at the top of the heap.

I was wrong. By any reasonable measure, Patrick’s performance was mediocre when compared to his fellow Republicans. Take a look at how he stacks up to the statewide and countywide candidates:

Candidate     Votes    Pct   Opponent    Votes
==============================================
Abbott      125,195  74.23     Van Os   43,457
Hutchison   123,420  73.60  Radnofsky   44,270
Combs       123,070  73.37       Head   44,672
Dewhurst    120,539  72.93   Alvarado   44,731
Kaufman     120,491  71.80     Pierre   47,326
State GOP   118,883  71.65  State Dem   47,049
Cong GOP    118,480  71.34   Cong Dem   47,607
Patrick     117,975  69.19     Kubosh   52,531
Keller      117,578  70.32     Molina   49,629
Bacarisse   117,377  70.71      Shike   48,630
Patterson   117,042  71.41    Hathcox   46,848
Staples     116,591  70.72    Gilbert   48,277
Ames Jones  115,698  70.48      Henry   48,456
County GOP  114,251  69.01 County Dem   51,297
Willet      110,812  67.60      Moody   53,100

Recall that every statewide race save for Keller-Molina had a Libertarian in it as well; there was no Lib in SD07. I’d guess that Patterson and possibly Staples would have surpassed Patrick otherwise. Patrick did do slightly better than average at the county level, but then so did Kubosh – he garnered more Dem votes than everyone except for Sharp, Moody, Garcia, and Green.

Note also that the combined GOP Congressional vote exceeded Patrick’s total. This provides a nice comparison, since every precinct in SD07 is also in either CD02, 07, or 10. Here’s how that broke down:

Candidate     Votes    Pct
==========================
Poe          24,289  74.72
Binderim      8,217  25.28

Patrick      22,514  69.07
Kubosh       10,084  30.93
----------
Culberson    61,433  68.22
Henley       28,614  31.78

Patrick      60,749  67.05
Kubosh       29,854  32.95
----------
McCaul       32,758  75.25
Ankrum       10,776  24.75

Patrick      33,443  74.61
Kubosh       11,382  25.39

Patrick got a teensy bit more votes than McCaul, but Kubosh got almost as many votes more than Ankrum, so the percentages favor McCaul, who as with the statewides and like Culberson and Poe had to contend with a Lib candidate as well.

Want more? Here’s how Patrick compares to the various State Reps who faced a contested election:

StateRepGOP  Votes   Pct  StateRepDem  Votes   Pct
==================================================
Harless     14,885 74.62         Khan  5,064 25.38
Patrick     14,896 73.54       Kubosh  5,360 26.46

Murphy       8,234 66.70      Thibaut  4,111 33.30
Patrick      8,094 65.47       Kubosh  4,269 34.53

Wong         1,965 53.76        Cohen  1,690 46.24
Patrick      2,049 57.80       Kubosh  1,496 42.20

Woolley     19,806 71.75        Brann  7,799 28.28
Patrick     19,461 69.34       Kubosh  8,605 30.66

Spivey         186 31.79     Hochberg    399 68.21
Patrick        193 33.33       Kubosh    386 66.67

Bohac        2,336 63.79      McDavid  1,326 36.21
Patrick      2,283 61.60       Kubosh  1,423 38.40

Riddle      22,384 70.23    N-Turnier  9,487 29.77
Patrick     22,177 69.54       Kubosh  9,713 30.46

Total GOP   69,796 70.03    Total Dem 29,876 29.97
Patrick     69,153 68.87       Kubosh 31,152 31.13

The totals are smaller here because some of the State Rep districts in SD07 were uncontested. Patrick did do better than Sylvia Spivey and Martha Wong. I think that’s the definition of not saying much.

The point I’m making here is that despite everything that he had going for him, Dan Patrick performed only slightly better than the average anonymous downballot Republican judicial candidate. He got only a few more votes than the second tier Republican statewides, who had to contend with greater dropoff and third-party candidates. He failed to match any of the three Congressmen (in a year where Congressional approval levels threatened to dip below those of the Ebola virus) and most of the State Reps. In short, the only remarkable thing about his performance was that there was nothing remarkable about it.

And remember, he was running against a fringe candidate who did no visible campaigning and reported zero dollars raised during the race. Really, if anything stands out in all these numbers, it’s how much better than the other Dems Michael Kubosh did. Some of this can be explained by the lack of a Libertarian to serve as the not-Republican alternative, but not all of it. At the statewide level, there were generally about 5000 votes cast for the Lib in the SD07 precincts. You’d have to transfer all of those votes and then some (about 1000 more for the lower tier races, 3000-4000 for the top four) to Kubosh to balance things out. Maybe Kubosh did pick up all those votes, I can’t say for sure. As there was no reason to vote for Michael Kubosh, the one explanation that makes sense to me is that there was a small but dedicated group of people who just wanted to vote against Dan Patrick. Didn’t matter who the alternative was as long as it wasn’t Danno. Kubosh was the beneficiary of that. Who knows, maybe if Kubosh had been a real candidate who ran a viable campaign, he might have done even better. I don’t expect to find that out in a district like SD07, but maybe we will someplace that isn’t so brightly red, say statewide. (Not that such a thought has ever occurred to Danno. Oh, no, not him.)

Anyway. You just never know what the numbers will say. That’s what makes this so much fun. Tune in tomorrow for another installment in this series.