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December 14th, 2022:

Precinct analysis: Beto versus Abbott

All right, I have the full landscape data for Harris County and the November 2022 election, and I’ll be doing my usual thing with it. There’s a lot of data and a lot of ways to explore it, some of which I don’t realize until I’m in the process of looking at something else. I’m going to start here with the top of the ticket. Let’s roll out the numbers, and at the other side I’ll have all the words.


Dist   Abbott     Beto     Lib     Grn
======================================
CD02   73,159   50,757   1,333     445
CD07   45,780   84,973   1,545     452
CD08   43,294   48,380     860     371
CD09   20,661   74,545     788     504
CD18   39,628  115,106   1,562     703
CD22   12,585    8,669     264      83
CD29   30,228   69,265     920     778
CD36   66,728   44,969   1,410     439
CD38  158,198   98,989   3,130     751

CD02   58.20%   40.38%   1.06%   0.35%
CD07   34.49%   64.01%   1.16%   0.34%
CD08   46.60%   52.07%   0.93%   0.40%
CD09   21.41%   77.25%   0.82%   0.52%
CD18   25.24%   73.32%   0.99%   0.45%
CD22   58.26%   40.13%   1.22%   0.38%
CD29   29.87%   68.45%   0.91%   0.77%
CD36   58.77%   39.60%   1.24%   0.39%
CD38   60.60%   37.92%   1.20%   0.29%

Dist   Abbott     Beto     Lib     Grn
======================================
SD04   55,846   36,950   1,005     312
SD06   41,043   85,936   1,225     927
SD07  153,513  106,557   2,933     853
SD11   57,156   35,725   1,214     339
SD13   22,813  100,559     958     680
SD15   83,653  160,077   2,850     932
SD17   59,143   51,734   1,307     363
SD18   17,094   18,115     320     120

SD04   59.34%   39.26%   1.07%   0.33%
SD06   31.78%   66.55%   0.95%   0.72%
SD07   58.18%   40.38%   1.11%   0.32%
SD11   60.52%   37.83%   1.29%   0.36%
SD13   18.25%   80.44%   0.77%   0.54%
SD15   33.80%   64.67%   1.15%   0.38%
SD17   52.55%   45.97%   1.16%   0.32%
SD18   47.95%   50.81%   0.90%   0.34%

Dist   Abbott     Beto     Lib     Grn
======================================
HD126  35,835   23,627     711     185
HD127  39,102   26,791     722     221
HD128  31,983   13,915     513     171
HD129  37,118   27,144     864     227
HD130  44,983   20,891     775     198
HD131   5,963   25,387     231     169
HD132  35,079   25,603     627     173
HD133  33,195   26,971     684     156
HD134  29,592   51,010   1,044     181
HD135  16,443   24,121     369     208
HD137   7,860   13,421     245     116
HD138  31,077   25,464     708     209
HD139  11,643   32,115     394     199
HD140   5,717   13,400     166     187
HD141   4,549   20,922     210     156
HD142   8,666   25,793     289     204
HD143   8,420   16,047     208     192
HD144  11,566   14,683     260     178
HD145  12,631   32,765     623     228
HD146   8,511   33,610     333     200
HD147   8,952   37,366     476     216
HD148  15,451   21,460     435     175
HD149  12,068   19,844     256     173
HD150  33,857   23,303     669     204

HD126  59.37%   39.14%   1.18%   0.31%
HD127  58.50%   40.08%   1.08%   0.33%
HD128  68.66%   29.87%   1.10%   0.37%
HD129  56.80%   41.53%   1.32%   0.35%
HD130  67.29%   31.25%   1.16%   0.30%
HD131  18.78%   79.96%   0.73%   0.53%
HD132  57.06%   41.64%   1.02%   0.28%
HD133  54.41%   44.21%   1.12%   0.26%
HD134  36.16%   62.34%   1.28%   0.22%
HD135  39.97%   58.63%   0.90%   0.51%
HD137  36.32%   62.01%   1.13%   0.54%
HD138  54.09%   44.32%   1.23%   0.36%
HD139  26.25%   72.41%   0.89%   0.45%
HD140  29.36%   68.82%   0.85%   0.96%
HD141  17.61%   80.98%   0.81%   0.60%
HD142  24.79%   73.80%   0.83%   0.58%
HD143  33.86%   64.53%   0.84%   0.77%
HD144  43.34%   55.02%   0.97%   0.67%
HD145  27.31%   70.85%   1.35%   0.49%
HD146  19.95%   78.80%   0.78%   0.47%
HD147  19.04%   79.49%   1.01%   0.46%
HD148  41.18%   57.19%   1.16%   0.47%
HD149  37.31%   61.36%   0.79%   0.53%
HD150  58.34%   40.15%   1.15%   0.35%

Dist   Abbott     Beto     Lib     Grn
======================================
CC1    67,070  207,830   2,747   1,167
CC2    95,270  108,943   2,266   1,188
CC3   218,228  147,384   4,148   1,218
CC4   109,693  131,496   2,651     953

CC1    24.06%   74.54%   0.99%   0.42%
CC2    45.88%   52.46%   1.09%   0.57%
CC3    58.83%   39.73%   1.12%   0.33%
CC4    44.81%   53.72%   1.08%   0.39%

Dist   Abbott     Beto     Lib     Grn
======================================
JP1    60,159  127,746   2,343     728
JP2    21,749   30,575     520     300
JP3    35,283   42,924     715     405
JP4   168,373  130,575   3,308   1,100
JP5   140,459  148,609   3,076   1,101
JP6     4,970   17,898     228     168
JP7    11,615   67,072     582     414
JP8    47,653   30,254   1,040     310

JP1    31.50%   66.89%   1.23%   0.38%
JP2    40.92%   57.53%   0.98%   0.56%
JP3    44.48%   54.11%   0.90%   0.51%
JP4    55.50%   43.04%   1.09%   0.36%
JP5    47.90%   50.68%   1.05%   0.38%
JP6    21.36%   76.93%   0.98%   0.72%
JP7    14.58%   84.17%   0.73%   0.52%
JP8    60.12%   38.17%   1.31%   0.39%

My notes:

– Going forward, for the most part, I’m going to skip the Congressional and State Senate districts. Most of them are not wholly contained within Harris County – only CDs 18, 29, and 38, and SDs 06 and 15 are fully represented here – so I don’t find there’s sufficient value for the added work. When we get the Texas Legislative Council dataset for the 2022 election, then I’ll return to these districts plus the SBOE districts (none of which are entirely within Harris County now that SBOE6 extends into Montgomery). Also note that CD10 no longer includes any of Harris County.

– I will have a separate post on this, but if you’re wondering how Beto did compared to expectations on the new maps, see here and here for a first look. There will be more, I promise.

– Beto was the top performer for Dems in Harris County, getting 54.03% of the vote. That makes his performance in the precincts the best case scenario (usually), at least for this election. He would be a top performer but not the top performer in 2020 or 2018, so this is hardly an upper bound. For districts that Dems would ideally like to target, like HDs 133 and 138, this shows where we’re starting out in an okay but not great year.

– Honestly, I don’t have a whole lot to say here. I think the more interesting stuff will come when I look at the comparisons to past years and when I look at some of the other races. Even without looking at past data, there wasn’t much of a surprise in anything here. All of the districts performed more or less as you’d expect. The one item of interest may be Beto carrying (barely) JP/Constable precinct 5, given our previous discussion of those precincts. I’m sure we could draw six, maybe even seven Democratic precincts, though whether we could do that while equalizing population and not violating the Voting Rights Act is another question. For sure, we could make five solid Dem precincts.

– So I’ll end here, with a note that I will also look at how the vote went in the city of Houston, the split in the statewide races, the easy passage of the Harris County bonds, and a very deep dive into judicial races. All this and more, coming up soon. Let me know if you have any questions.

Judge assigned to hear election loser contest

From the inbox, a press release from Harris County Attorney Christian Menefee:

Judge David Peeples will preside over the election contest filed by Republican candidate Erin Lunceford to void the results of her race for the 189th District Court in the November 2022 Harris County General Election. Judge Peeples has set an initial status conference for today, Tuesday December 13, at 3:00 p.m.

“This will be an important case, and I’m glad to see it’s progressing,” said Harris County Attorney Christian D. Menefee. “The County will participate in the case, and we plan to make clear that it would be a grave injustice to throw out more than a million legally cast votes, especially given Ms. Lunceford’s completely baseless theories. Each of those votes represents a Harris County resident who participated in our democratic process. That is a sacred act, and we’re going to fight to protect it.”

Judge Peeples is based in San Antonio, and was appointed by the Honorable Susan Brown, the Presiding Judge of the Eleventh Administrative Judicial Region of Texas. Texas law disqualifies the judges in a county from presiding over an election contest filed in that county.

This contest is one of two current requests by losing Republican candidates to throw out the results of the November 2022 election in certain races. The other challenge is regarding State Representative District 135, which will be heard in the State House of Representatives.

“This election took countless hours of work not only by county employees, but by election judges and workers from both parties. We should be looking for ways to support these public servants rather than constantly undermining the hard work it takes to run an election in the third largest county in the country,” added County Attorney Menefee.

See here for the background. If the name sounds familiar, it may be because Judge Peeples was the jurist who ruled that the abortion bounty hunter law SB8 violated the state constitution last December, though he did not issue a statewide injunction against it. I did not see any news items related to this, so what you see here is all I know. Hopefully we will hear more about how this is progressing quickly.

Vertical farming

Very interesting.

Scaling scissor lifts are a daily duty for a vertical farmer overseeing the growth of about 10 million heads of lettuce annually from Kalera’s 4.5-acre indoor farm located in the Parc-59 industrial park in North Houston. Kalera, an Orlando-based vertical farming company, opened the 85,000 square-foot vertical farm a year ago to supply Texas and Louisiana markets with freshly grown leafy greens – betting that consumer demand for fresher, sustainably grown produce will buoy its growth.

Its lettuces are available in Trader Joe’s and H-E-B grocery stores in Houston, with more locations expected as it expands its national retail footprint by more than 40 percent this year. After going public through a $375 million merger in June, Kalera is gobbling up industrial real estate across the country.

It recently opened a farm in Denver, adding to its existing locations in Atlanta, Orlando and Houston. Next are new farms in Seattle, Honolulu, St. Paul, Minnesota and Columbus, Ohio.

Kalera is part of a nascent but blossoming vertical farm movement. Consumers’ appetite for locally grown produce, technological advances in agriculture and efforts to shorten supply chains are fomenting the growth of the vertical farming in Texas and around the world.

[…]

Investments in the sector could help cities like Houston access better, more sustainable produce, advocates argue. Like much of Houston’s produce, most of the region’s lettuce is imported from out of state,  typically traveling hundreds of miles from California before winding up on a Texas dinner plate. Not only does this create more greenhouse gases, it also means Houstonians are munching on older greens.

Companies like Kalera want to upend this model by opening vertical farms near large cities. The vertical farms can transform industrial warehouses into fields of greens growing under energy-efficient LED lights.

Stacking the greens means Kalera can compress more crops into a smaller footprint. Within its 64,000 square feet of growing space at its Houston farm, Kalera estimates it’s using about 97 percent less space than a standard farm. And they’re more productive, too, because crops grow year-round without exposure to floods, droughts and the vagaries of nature. 

One acre on a vertical farm can produce the equivalent of four to six acres on a standard farm, according to estimates from Columbia University.

Unlike greenhouses, the indoor farms rely on lights, not the sun, along with an elaborate system of sensors and artificial intelligence to cultivate the perfect environment. The crops thrive in a steady supply of nutrient-rich water.

“There are no seasons here,” said Fenn, who is the assistant general manager of horticulture at Kalera in Houston.

There are also no pests, no weeds and no exposure to animal pathogens such as salmonella, E.coli and listeria. At night from his home in Conroe, Fenn opens his smartphone to check on the progress of the crop before he goes to sleep, using Kalera’s proprietary software to monitor the farm’s sensors. He can change the lighting, humidity and temperature with the flick of a finger.

“I like to call myself a farmer,” he said, “but this is the easiest form of farmer.”

Another one from the Old Unpublished Posts Home, this time from later in October. I’ll be honest, I forgot what point I was going to make when I flagged this, other than the fact that it sounded cool and provided a potential new entry point for urban farming. This is a time of year in which we think about food a lot, so that’s as good a reason as any to put it out there.