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March 27th, 2023:

Precinct analysis: Looking back at the 2012 landscape

Mar 27th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

PREVIOUSLY: State House 2022

We’ve had our first look at the way the new State House districts performed, and while we can expect the 2024 election to be a little different, it’s clear at this time that there aren’t many swing seats out there, even with a fairly expansive definition of “swing”. That’s by design, of course, and it’s clear Republicans have gotten pretty good at doing what they do. But I think we all recall feeling similar emotions following the 2012 election, and while it took awhile, we did see some massive changes in how districts were perceived over time. So let’s wind the clock back a decade and see what the landscape looked like at first. We’ll start with the Republican seats as of this time in 2013, using the same “under 55%” and “55-60%” standards as before.


Dist  Romney   Rom%    Obama Obama%
===================================
023   31,282  54.6%   25,365  44.2%
043   25,017  52.0%   22,554  46.9%
052   30,763  54.7%   23,849  42.4%
054   25,343  52.9%   21,909  45.7%
102   29,198  53.0%   24,958  45.3%
105   23,228  52.1%   20,710  46.5%
107   27,185  51.8%   24,593  46.9%
113   27,095  52.5%   23,891  46.3%

Dist  Romney   Rom%    Obama Obama%
===================================
032   28,992  56.9%   21,104  41.4%
045   35,298  55.2%   26,757  41.8%
047   50,843  58.0%   34,440  39.3%
065   31,456  57.5%   22,334  40.8%
096   36,190  58.6%   24,838  40.2%
097   39,614  59.6%   25,881  38.9%
108   40,564  59.0%   27,031  39.3%
112   28,221  55.0%   22,308  43.5%
114   35,795  55.2%   28,182  43.5%
115   30,275  55.4%   23,556  43.1%
132   31,432  58.9%   21,214  39.8%
134   46,926  56.4%   34,731  41.7%
135   32,078  58.8%   21,732  39.8%
136   35,296  55.1%   26,423  41.2%
138   27,489  59.2%   18,256  39.3%

Ironically, the first two districts listed here are ones that quickly disappeared from the “competitive” rankings. Both HDs 23 and 43 trended red over the decade, and neither has had a serious Democratic challenge since 2014. (HD23 was won, for the last time, by Democrat Craig Eiland in 2012; HD43 became Republican after the 2010 election when its incumbent switched parties.) Most of the other districts in both tables above are now Democratic, with HD132 being Dem for one cycle after being flipped in 2018 and flipped back in 2020. HD107 was the first Dem takeover, in 2016, while HD134 turned blue in 2020. All the rest came over in 2018.

It should be noted that as of the 2012 election, there were only 55 Democrat-held districts. Three went red in the 2014 debacle, with two of those (HDs 117 and 144) plus HD107 flipping back in 2016. Dems have 64 seats now, and could with a bit of optimism get to the 67 that they had after the 2018 wave. After that, you’re relying on either a steady march of favorable demographic progress, or another shakeup in the national landscape that makes formerly unfriendly turf more amenable. Which is indeed what happened last decade – in the previous decade, it was more the march of demography – but past performance does not guarantee future results. The Republicans have made some gains in formerly dark blue turf, too, as they had in 2010 when they managed to finally win in historically Democratic rural areas. You can’t say from here which way or how far the wheel will spin.

In the end, there were 22 “competitive” seats by our metric as of 2013. Fourteen of them were won after then at least once by a Democrat, with thirteen of them net for Team Blue. I have 34 such seats in 2023. I’d say that’s a combination of Texas being modestly bluer overall – remember that Mitt Romney took 57% in 2012 while Donald Trump took 52% in 2020; Greg Abbott got 59% in 2014 and 54% in 2022 – with Republicans having to spread themselves a little thinner in order to hold as many of these seats as a result. We’ll just have to wait and see how it all ends up.

On the other side of the ledger, the “swing” Dem-held seats of a decade’s hence:


Dist  Romney   Rom%    Obama Obama%
===================================
034   19,974  44.2%   24,668  54.6%
078   19,013  44.0%   23,432  54.3%
117   20,036  46.7%   22,234  51.8%
144   11,606  47.9%   12,308  50.8% 

Dist  Romney   Rom%    Obama Obama%
===================================
041   14,906  42.3%   19,935  56.5%
048   32,025  39.5%   46,031  56.8%
050   22,906  38.8%   34,110  57.8%
074   16,738  41.5%   22,955  56.9%
118   17,824  43.3%   22,719  55.2%
125   19,004  39.5%   28,374  59.0%
148   16,296  41.1%   22,449  56.6% 
149   18,183  41.8%   24,839  57.1%

Not nearly as many as there are now, and basically none of them became more competitive over the course of the 2010s. HDs 117 and 144 did flip in 2014 but returned to the fold the following election. A couple of these districts, specifically HDs 34 and 74, are legitimately competitive now, at least by the statewide numbers, and of course HD118 was drawn to be considerably redder and is now Republican-held but tenuously so. While it’s on the Dem target list now, I expect it will be on the Republicans’ target list in two years.

I have a total of 19 competitive-by-this-metric seats as of now, but as noted I only expect a couple of them to truly behave that way. Dems will have more “real” targets, up until such time as they begin winning them. But maybe some of those South Texas seats will begin to drift away and we’ll be having a very different conversation in, say, 2026. Again, we’ll just have to see how it plays out. For now, it’s clear that there are more “competitive” seats in 2023 than there were in 2013. We’ll check back later to see how or if that changes.

Abortion funds go back to work

Mar 27th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Glad to see it, but I’m waiting for another shoe to drop.

Some abortion advocacy nonprofit groups have resumed paying for Texans to get abortions out of state after a court ruling last month.

These groups, called abortion funds, stopped paying for abortion procedures and travel to out-of-state clinics after the overturn of Roe v. Wade, citing confusion and fear of violating Texas’ intersecting abortion bans.

Virtually overnight, all of Texas’ abortion clinics closed — and the infrastructure that helped Texans access out-of-state care evaporated alongside them. Many of the people these funds work with likely could not afford to leave the state without their financial support, said Denise Rodriguez, communications director with the Texas Equal Access Fund.

“When we found out we had to pause funding, that was something that was really heartbreaking for everybody on our team,” Rodriguez said. “Now that we’re able to start funding abortions again, that’s what this organization was started for, so everybody is just excited.”

The Dallas-based TEA Fund provides Texans vouchers that lessen the costs of abortions at out- of-state clinics. Rodriguez said they have enough funding to assist anyone who calls in between Monday, when their hotline reopens, and June 24, the one-year anniversary of the overturn of Roe v. Wade.

Fund Texas Choice, a statewide group that assists with travel expenses, said on Twitter that they have reopened their hotline and are resuming limited practical support.

The Austin-based Lilith Fund has also reopened its hotline and is funding out-of-state abortions again, a spokesperson said.

Other groups are preparing to relaunch their funding mechanisms as well. This flurry of activity comes after a federal judge granted a temporary injunction in February, blocking a handful of county prosecutors from pursuing charges against anyone who helps a Texan access abortion out of state.

The ruling is not binding statewide, but it has reassured some groups enough to resume operations.

“All of it is so uncertain, but we’re going to fund abortions until we’re forced to stop,” Rodriguez said.

See here for the background. I fear this is what an economics professor of mine would have called an unstable equilibrium. Something will happen, either a ruling in an existing lawsuit, the filing of a new lawsuit, the passage of a new law in the Lege, some Presidential executive action, or something else like that, that will disrupt this. All things considered, I’d expect it to be something bad. What it is and when it might happen, I have no idea. I just don’t think what’s happening now will still be the case in, say, another six months or a year. I’ll refer to this post later when we find out.

“More Space: Main Street” permanently extended

Mar 27th, 2023
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

A good outcome for a good idea.

Houston will close down traffic on seven blocks of Main Street permanently to allow businesses to maintain outdoor seating spaces initially established during the COVID-19 pandemic, with plans to expand the concept to other commercial strips in the city.

City Council voted unanimously Wednesday to permanently extend the “More Space: Main Street” program. First approved as a pilot in November 2020, the initiative converted portions of Main’s vehicle lanes between Commerce and Rusk into seating areas for bars and restaurants struggling amid the early days of the pandemic when residents had been urged to remain in their homes to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

So far, the program has enabled participating businesses to add a total of 45 tables and 154 seats on outdoor patios, according to Houston’s Chief Transportation Planner David Fields. Bars and restaurants also reported increases in revenue, employee retention and customer satisfaction, he said.

“We surveyed the businesses. All of them said this was exactly what they wanted. They requested the city extend it,” Field said. “And people felt safer being out on Main Street because there were more people out on Main Street.”

The goal, Fields said, is to expand the concept citywide eventually, although it will require more research and conversations with local businesses to identify specific commercial strips that could be a good fit for the program.

“We definitely want to expand this once we get the permanent version up and going,” he said. “This is not something we would ever impose. This is something that we really want a commercial strip, possibly a group of businesses near each other, to see this downtown as an example and say, ‘Yeah, we would like to do that. Can you help work with us on that?’”

While “More Space” initially was designed as a tool for businesses to cope with COVID-19 policies, it has benefits beyond the pandemic and has helped create a more vibrant downtown culture, according to Melissa Stewart, executive director of the Greater Houston Restaurant Association.

“For so long, we would come to downtown, do our work and then run for the hills. That continues to change,” Stewart said. “We’re continuing to see, much even to my surprise as a native Houstonian, more and more people willing to dine outside all year around. Houston is becoming a lot more like the big cities that we see in other parts of the country.”

[…]

Main Street’s unique conditions — limited traffic flow, few nearby residential buildings and the rail line providing convenient spots for barriers — made closing down the seven-block stretch of road a relatively smooth transition. Applying the same model to other parts of the city, on the other hand, could come with additional challenges, Stewart said.

“You might think Midtown, Montrose, the Heights, but it’s really going to require a space-by-space study because, let’s say you were to implement this on a part of Yale, the workaround might be really difficult for that community and that traffic pattern,” she said. ”So, we want these solutions to be adaptable to not only the business model but also to the neighborhood.”

See here and here for the background. I love this idea for where it is. I’m happy for the same thing to be considered elsewhere in town, though I will say I’m not sure where else it could work. (Yale Street, I will say with confidence, would not work.) Downtown in general and Main Street in downtown in particular are a special set of circumstances. But by all means, be open to possibilities.