Precinct analysis: State House 2022

We have data.

Texas Democrats and Republicans are beginning to gear up for a presidential election cycle in which opportunities to flip seats for Congress and the Legislature appear limited.

It’s a natural outcome after Republicans redrew legislative and congressional district boundaries in 2021 to shore up their majorities for the next decade, stamping out most districts that had turned competitive by the end of the last decade. Most of the remaining competitive territory was in South Texas, which is predominantly Hispanic, and where the GOP poured almost all their resources in 2022 — to mixed results.

On paper, there are few obvious pickup opportunities based on an analysis of the governor’s race results in each district. Among U.S. House seats, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott and Democratic challenger Beto O’Rourke did not carry any districts that are currently held by a representative from the other party. The same was true in the Texas Senate. And among state House districts, Abbott and O’Rourke each won only one that is currently controlled by the opposing party.

The statewide election results often provide a helpful guide of how a district is trending given that they often represent the highest-turnout contest in a district.

The size of the battlefield in 2024 could depend on the top of the ticket, which will be the presidential race. President Joe Biden is expected to run for reelection, and the Republican frontrunner to challenge him is former President Donald Trump, whose 2016 and 2020 runs yielded some of the closest presidential races in Texas in recent history. His closest competitor for the nomination is Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has not launched a campaign yet but is widely expected to jump in.

There are other factors for the down-ballot contests that remain to be seen.

Even though Abbott signed off on redistricting in 2021, the lines could still change for the 2024 election. Various groups are suing over the maps, alleging things like intentional discrimination and efforts to dilute voters of color, and they are currently awaiting a trial in federal court in El Paso. On the line in the case are boundaries for seats such as a San Antonio state House seat currently held by GOP Rep. John Lujan; that seat is a top battleground in the Texas House.

My initial view of the new map, which looked at the past elections of the decade, is here, and an index of my look at the results from the 2020 election under the old maps is here. I’ll look at the other types of results in future posts, but today we focus on the State House. The 2022 data for the new map is here.

The gist of this story is that the Republican redistricting was very effective and that there aren’t many competitive districts, which means we’re headed for some boring elections, much as we had in the first couple of cycles last decade. That’s slightly less true for the State House than it is for the other entities, and I think the 2024 environment will at least differ enough from last year to produce some variance.

I’m presenting the districts of interest in two groups. One is the competitive Dem-held districts, the other is the same for Republicans. I’ve sorted them further into districts where Abbott or Beto took less than 55%, and districts where they won between 55 and 60 percent. With all that said, here we go. First up are the closer districts currently held by Dems.


Dist  Abbott   Abb%    Beto   Beto%
===================================
022   17,170  44.5%   20,822  54.0%
034   18,285  47.0%   20,128  51.7%
070   27,581  45.9%   31,749  52.8%
074   18,915  48.7%   19,218  49.5%
080   20,611  51.9%   18,249  46.0%

035    9,867  39.9%   14,517  58.7%
036   10,835  39.0%   16,525  59.4%
039   12,056  40.0%   17,686  58.7%
041   17,364  43.5%   22,125  55.5%
045   26,119  38.9%   39,783  59.2%
076   20,148  39.8%   29,705  58.6%
078   21,133  41.4%   29,140  57.0%
092   14,217  40.2%   20,680  58.4%
105   13,086  42.1%   17,515  56.4% 
113   17,848  41.2%   24,854  57.4%
115   22,605  42.1%   30,334  56.5%
135   16,443  40.0%   24,121  58.6%
144   11,566  43.3%   14,683  55.0%
148   15,451  41.2%   21,460  57.2%

As the story notes, the Republicans somehow failed to field a challenger to Rep. Tracy King in HD80, an oversight I expect they’ll fix in 2024. They made the same mistake in 2010 with then-Rep. Allan Ritter in HD21, but Ritter, an old school conservative rural Dem, rectified their error by switching parties. King, whose district is considerably bluer than Ritter’s was, seems unlikely to follow suit; among other things, he’s been pushing to raise the age to buy automatic weapons from 18 to 21, which puts him at odds with Republican orthodoxy. Never say never, and if the district continues a trend towards the red King could be amenable to such overtures, but for now I don’t see that happening.

For the others, HD70 is a newly-drawn Dem district, and I’d expect it to get bluer over time. HD74, which Rep. Eddie Morales won by 11 despite its closeness at the statewide level, was modestly blue based on 2020 results and should be more so in 2024, though if that isn’t true then expect a bigger fight later on. HD34 was purple-ish before redistricting, and as with HD74 I think it will be bluer next year, but again keep an eye on it. The one district that I think will become more vulnerable over time is HD22, in Jefferson County, which has a declining population and much like Galveston County in the 2000s and 2010s a reddish trend over the past decade. I’d like to see some effort made to shore it up, but I don’t know enough about the local conditions to know how feasible that is. Feel free to chime in if you do.

None of the other districts concern me. The Latino districts, I’d like to see what they look like in 2024. They’re all actually pretty spot on to the 2020 numbers, which given the overall lackluster Dem showing in many areas is moderately encouraging. The rest of them are in overall strong Dem areas, and I don’t expect any reversion of past trends.

Now for the Republican-held seats that Dems might like to target:


Dist  Abbott   Abb%    Beto   Beto%
===================================
037   20,551  51.1%   19,202  47.7%
052   41,813  52.5%   36,500  45.8%
063   35,831  54.8%   28,630  43.8%
094   34,479  54.7%   27,557  43.8%
108   46,796  52.6%   41,022  46.1%
112   35,245  50.6%   33,467  48.0%
118   25,172  48.5%   25,952  50.0%
121   40,300  51.1%   37,368  47.4%
122   47,856  54.7%   38,491  44.0%
133   33,195  54.4%   26,971  44.2%
138   31,077  54.1%   25,464  44.3%

014   27,936  56.9%   20,207  41.1%
020   48,367  56.5%   35,743  41.8%
025   31,545  59.3%   20,785  39.1%
026   36,266  57.7%   25,683  40.8%
028   38,940  58.1%   27,061  40.4%
029   33,393  58.8%   22,579  39.7%
054   23,763  59.7%   15,463  38.8%
055   28,125  58.4%   19,322  40.1%
057   37,715  58.1%   26,311  40.5%
061   39,753  56.1%   30,211  42.7%
065   41,487  56.9%   30,451  41.7%
066   41,464  56.9%   30,421  41.8%
067   38,127  56.3%   28,647  42.3%
089   38,701  57.5%   27,643  41.1%
093   34,136  57.6%   24,310  41.0%
096   35,260  55.2%   27,877  43.6%
097   36,059  55.2%   28,336  43.4%
099   31,869  58.6%   21,719  39.9%
106   41,639  58.3%   28,875  40.5%
126   35,835  59.4%   23,627  39.1%
127   39,102  58.5%   26,791  40.1%
129   37,118  56.8%   27,144  41.5%
132   35,079  57.0%   25,603  41.6%
150   33,857  58.3%   23,303  40.1%

I think it’s fair to say that the failure to win back HD118 was a big disappointment last year. I’ll use a stronger word if we get the same result in 2024. HD37 remains the subject of litigation – if there’s anything on the agenda to address it in this legislative session, I am not aware of it at this time. It had a slight Democratic tilt in 2020 and will clearly be a top target next year. As will HDs 112 and 121, with 108 and 52 a notch below them, though 108 is starting to feel a bit like a white whale to me. All things being equal, Dems should be in position to make a small gain in the House next year, with some potential to do better than that, and given everything we’ve seen since the dawn of time, the potential to do a bit worse as well.

The farther-out districts are mostly those we had identified as targets following the 2018 election, with a few adjustments for the new map. They’re all in counties and regions that had been trending Democratic. For the most part, I expect that to continue, but that doesn’t have to be monotonic, nor does it have to be at a fast enough pace to make any of these places actually primed to flip. I’ve said before that the way Tarrant County was sliced up it gives me “Dallas County 2012” vibes, but whether than means that a bunch of districts eventually flip or they all hold on if by increasingly tight margins remains to be seen. We’ll know more after 2024.

In theory, there won’t be many truly competitive districts in 2024, like there weren’t last year. The national environment, plus the higher turnout context, plus whatever yet-unknown factors may be in play will surely affect that, by some amount. I’d like to see an optimistic view for next year and get as many strong candidates in as many of these districts as possible, but that’s far easier said than done. This is not that different than how things looked after the 2012 elections, and we know how things went from there. Doesn’t mean anything will go any particular way or on any timetable, it’s just a reminder that there’s only so much we can know right now. I’ll have some thoughts about the other district types going forward. Let me know what you think.

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