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March 26th, 2018:

Precinct analysis: Countywide candidates

Mar 26th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

We have four – count ’em, four – runoffs for Harris County office nominations for May. Every contested countywide non-judicial primary – that is, everything other than County Judge – is going to overtime. I’m going to look at the data from these four races with an eye towards the runoffs. As a reminder, my analysis of the Senate primary is here, and my analysis of the Governor and Lt. Governor races is here. Let’s start with the District Clerk race.


Dist   Howard  Burgess Jordan Shorter
=====================================
CD02    3,161   15,405  2,276   4,938
CD07    3,254   16,917  2,307   5,271
CD08      234      819    160     435
CD09    3,918    7,493  3,185   5,959
CD10    1,000    3,442    769   1,578
CD18    5,631   13,574  4,807   8,922
CD22      438    1,458    355     708
CD29    2,850    6,260  2,562   3,739
CD36      993    4,150    726   1,508
				
HD126     712    2,089    577   1,010
HD127     772    2,505    635   1,220
HD128     486    1,559    344     659
HD129     712    3,509    534   1,207
HD130     610    2,156    421     904
HD131   1,669    2,943  1,389   2,477
HD132     758    2,529    689   1,393
HD133     741    4,486    490   1,213
HD134   1,262   10,294    681   1,813
HD135     713    2,586    700   1,376
HD137     443    1,442    350     677
HD138     623    2,580    433   1,016
HD139   1,535    3,372  1,373   2,232
HD140     479      890    424     602
HD141   1,047    1,714  1,048   1,531
HD142   1,299    2,090  1,216   2,091
HD143     803    1,508    810   1,020
HD144     373      943    340     445
HD145     655    2,149    525     929
HD146   1,735    3,857  1,242   2,687
HD147   1,817    5,482  1,241   3,154
HD148     885    4,795    611   1,249
HD149     622    1,625    532     910
HD150     728    2,415    542   1,243

Marilyn Burgess was above the magic 50% line for most of the evening as Primary Day returns came in, but fell just short in the end, leading the pack with 49.22%. She was strong everywhere, getting at least a plurality in every district except HD142, which she missed by one vote. Stranger things have happened, but it’s hard to imagine her losing in the runoff given the data.

Next up is County Clerk:


Dist    West  Mitchell Trautman
===============================
CD02   3,368     8,412   13,817
CD07   3,824     8,739   15,009
CD08     255       729      651
CD09   3,418    10,215    6,620
CD10   1,222     2,798    2,708
CD18   5,071    15,336   12,068
CD22    418      1,283    1,222
CD29   2,777     6,286    6,160
CD36   1,051     2,687    3,599
			
HD126    783     1,881    1,683
HD12     784     2,152    2,205
HD128    488     1,296    1,257
HD129    756     2,110    3,047
HD130    674     1,713    1,678
HD131  1,340     4,511    2,506
HD132  1,037     2,304    1,972
HD133    878     1,939    4,080
HD134  1,336     2,830    9,754
HD135    956     2,342    2,028
HD137    490     1,105    1,285
HD138    720     1,693    2,214
HD139  1,405     4,216    2,756
HD140    476     1,003      884
HD141    847     3,141    1,312
HD142    954     3,951    1,741
HD143    737     1,953    1,438
HD144    406       716      934
HD145    677     1,247    2,253
HD146  1,513     4,351    3,507
HD147  1,785     4,299    5,328
HD148    922     1,935    4,655
HD149    647     1,613    1,410
HD150    793     2,184    1,927

I’ll be honest, I thought Diane Trautman would do better than she did. She’s been around for awhile, she’s run and won countywide before, and she was a very active campaigner. I wasn’t the only one who was surprised to see this race be as close as it was, with Trautman at 44.27% and Gayle Mitchell, who lost a primary for County Clerk to Ann Harris Bennett in 2014, at 40.42%. When I say that Trautman was an active campaigner, I don’t just mean on Facebook and via email. I mean I saw her at multiple events, including all of the CEC meetings from 2017. Nat West was present at CEC meetings, as he is the SDEC Chair for SD13, but as far as I know Gayle Mitchell never attended and of those or any other event that I did. Be that as it may, she finished just 5,500 votes behind Trautman, and she won or ran strongly in numerous districts. She also did better on Primary Day than she did in early voting; the same was true for Rozzy Shorter and the other non-Burgess District Clerk candidates, which probably just suggests when different types of voters were voting.

Trautman has the advantage of the runoff in CD07 going into May, as that was a big driver of overall turnout and it was her strongest turf, though she wasn’t as strong there as Burgess was. Mitchell will likely benefit from the runoffs in JP7 and HCDE Position 6, Precinct 1 – there is significant overlap between the two – though neither of those will draw people out the way CD07 will. I guess that makes Trautman a slight favorite going into May, but we all thought she was a strong favorite going into March, so who knows. If I had one piece of advice for Trautman, it would be to see if she can get some elected officials to do some outreach on her behalf. Those of us who think she’s the strongest candidate to face Stan Stanart, especially if we’re not in CD07, need to make sure we bring some friends to the polls for her.

I’m going to present the last two races together. They are Treasurer and HCDE Trustee Position 3 At Large.


Treasurer

Dist  Garcia Copeland  Osborne
==============================
CD02    8,841   4,988   11,335
CD07    9,412   5,635   11,931
CD08      685     408      533
CD09    6,404   6,742    6,729
CD10    2,826   1,763    2,060
CD18    9,634   9,856   12,141
CD22    1,226     702      989
CD29    8,533   3,170    3,816
CD36    2,835   1,493    2,910
			
HD126   1,762   1,154    1,391
HD127   2,001   1,280    1,752
HD128   1,268     733    1,005
HD129   2,185   1,166    2,512
HD130   1,679   1,024    1,324
HD131   2,478   2,999    2,711
HD132   2,289   1,508    1,472
HD133   2,209   1,222    3,260
HD134   3,581   1,897    8,060
HD135   2,251   1,485    1,537
HD137   1,193     691      996
HD138   1,849   1,047    1,689
HD139   2,390   2,746    3,051
HD140   1,333     521      573
HD141   1,569   1,964    1,589
HD142   2,038   2,353    2,061
HD143   2,146     978    1,039
HD144   1,301     332      479
HD145   2,399     576    1,295
HD146   2,645   2,898    3,568
HD147   3,264   2,888    4,983
HD148   3,066   1,034    3,373
HD149   1,469   1,029    1,150
HD150   2,031   1,232    1,574

HCDE

Dist Wallenstein   Cantu  Patton
================================
CD02       8,942   8,497   7,619
CD07      11,269   8,813   6,864
CD08         511     610     497
CD09       5,001   7,639   7,290
CD10       2,086   2,570   1,985
CD18       8,126  12,111  11,627
CD22         909   1,258     755
CD29       2,894   9,410   3,240
CD36       2,667   2,856   1,725
			
HD126      1,291   1,760   1,245
HD127      1,487   1,958   1,572
HD128        909   1,370     747
HD129      2,336   2,101   1,408
HD130      1,340   1,515   1,159
HD131      1,956   3,182   3,094
HD132      1,457   2,166   1,629
HD133      3,179   2,017   1,499
HD134      6,878   3,163   3,495
HD135      1,424   2,240   1,593
HD137        872   1,164     834
HD138      1,617   1,752   1,175
HD139      1,961   3,391   2,853
HD140        442   1,530     458
HD141      1,160   2,042   1,971
HD142      1,225   2,811   2,447
HD143        779   2,422     979
HD144        473   1,350     278
HD145        943   2,465     841
HD146      2,590   3,244   3,333
HD147      3,178   3,583   4,486
HD148      2,388   3,150   1,952
HD149      1,018   1,477   1,120
HD150      1,502   1,911   1,434

Treasurer is just a tossup. Dylan Osborne led Cosme Garcia by two thousand votes, and for the most part they were pretty close to even across the districts, with Garcia having a clear advantage in CD29. I don’t see enough of an advantage for either candidate to take a guess at who might have the edge in May. Neither outcome would surprise me.

Richard Cantu has a much more distinct advantage in HCDE, leading Josh Wallenstein by over 11,000 votes. Wallenstein came close to not making it to the runoff – he actually ran third in both phases of in-person voting, but had a big enough lead over Elvonte Patton in mail ballots to hang onto second place. Runoffs can be weird, but Cantu seems like the clear favorite for May.

That wraps it up for the Democratic primary precinct analyses. I have one more of these to present, from the other side. Hope you’ve found these to be useful.

The DCCC elsewhere in Texas

Mar 26th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

I’m OK with this.

Colin Allred

The U.S. House Democratic campaign arm may well be at war with another Texas Democrat.

Lillian Salerno, a Democratic House candidate in the Dallas-based 32nd Congressional District, pushed out a fiery news release on Thursday afternoon when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee telegraphed its preference for her primary rival, former NFL football player Colin Allred.

“Folks here are sick and tired of a bunch of Washington insiders trying to make their decisions for them,” she said. “But I’m not scared — I’ve stood up to power and fought for what’s right my entire life.”

“Texas hasn’t elected a new woman to Congress in twenty-two years, and we’re not taking it anymore,” she added. “The DCCC would do well to remember: Don’t mess with Texas women.”

[…]

At issue was a new list the committee released called “Red to Blue” candidates. The designation serves to signal to donors and DCCC allies which candidates the committee believes should be top recipients for contributions.

Red to Blue is not technically an endorsement from the DCCC. But DCCC Chairman Ben Ray Luján heaped praise on Allred in a committee news release on Thursday.

“Raised by a single mom who taught for 30 years in Dallas’s public schools, Colin Allred has never lost touch with the community that shaped him,” said Luján.

“Now, after representing his community on the football field and standing up for working people’s dignity in the Obama administration, Colin is running to put everyday Texans before special interests. Colin’s experience and new ideas will give North Texas a fresh start as they look to replace a politician who’s spent 20-years too many in Washington.”

In past cycles, the DCCC has named districts to its Red to Blue program, rather than specific candidates, to avoid these kinds of flare-ups.

The committee also named retired Air Force Intelligence Officer Gina Ortiz Jones to the program, who is running to take on U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes. Like Allred, she is in a runoff for her party’s nomination. Both Allred and Jones significantly outpaced their closest rivals in the first round of the primary contest.

She carried 41 percent of the vote in her district, compared to rival Rick Treviño’s 17 percent. Allred won 39 percent of the vote to Salerno’s 18 percent.

Here’s the full list of supported candidates so far. CD07 is not there yet, which seems like a bit of delayed discretion. What makes this different than the DCCC’s previous incursion is pretty simple: They have taken a position for a candidate, instead of against one. Both Allred and Ortiz Jones can reasonably be called the frontrunners, too, though anything can happen in a runoff. One can certainly argue that the DCCC should have waited these races out before getting involved, but if these are the candidates they want to support, then the case for working with them to ensure they get nominated is pretty clear. I sympathize with Trevino and Salerno, who has the support of Emily’s List, but that’s politics. I say don’t get mad, prove ’em wrong and make ’em support you in November instead.

On a side note, while Salerno is correct about the paucity of women elected to Congress from Texas, we’re going to get at least two more of them this year. In addition, if you look at that red-to-blue list, eighteen of the 33 candidates being supported by the DCCC at this time are women. And assuming the DCCC eventually supports the nominee in CD07 – yeah, that might mean making nice with Laura Moser; politics is full of such opportunities – then two of the three Texans they support will be women, too. I get why she’s unhappy and I don’t blame her, but I get what the DCCC is doing in these races, too.