I’ve done the Democrats, so now let’s take a look at the Republicans. In this case, I did have a few specific questions in mind, so my approach here will be a little different. First, we all know that Steve Stockman’s performance art piece campaign against Sen. John Cornyn didn’t amount to anything, but did he at least make some noise in his own Congressional district?
Candidate CD36 Else CD36% Else%
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Cornyn 8,231 65,363 48.69% 55.57%
Stockman 5,359 27,093 31.70% 23.03%
Others 3,314 25,161 19.60% 21.39%
Total 16,904 117,617
So sort of, yeah. Cornyn was held under 50% in the bit of CD36 that’s in Harris County, and it’s clear that Stockman picked up that he lost, but it didn’t make a difference overall. As it happens, the other counties in CD36 are all entirely within CD36, so we can look at the whole district as well now that we have the Harris data:
County Cornyn Cornyn% Stockman Stockman%
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Chambers 1,609 41.02% 1,322 33.70%
Hardin 2,937 40.52% 2,986 41.20%
Harris 8,231 48.69% 5,359 31.70%
Jasper 1,274 54.28% 780 33.23%
Liberty 2,496 38.02% 2,007 30.57%
Newton 226 46.40% 194 39.83%
Orange 3,546 44.51% 2,925 36.72%
Polk 2,626 46.46% 1,820 32.20%
Tyler 1,121 46.01% 961 39.44%
So again, Stockman held Cornyn under 50% in CD36, but he still trailed in every county except Hardin. His performance in Harris was particularly weak. It’s possible that someone could have beaten Big John, or at least forced him into a runoff, but Steve Stockman was not that someone.
Along similar lines, I wondered how Dan Patrick did on his home turf of SD07 versus the rest of the county:
Candidate SD07 Else SD07% Else%
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Patrick 30,398 48,373 64.84% 53.78%
Not Patrick 16,481 41,578 35.16% 46.22%
Total 46,879 89,951
Unlike Stockman, Patrick really killed it on his home turf, but he still won a majority elsewhere as well. That cannot be a comforting thought to David Dewhurst.
Given the inflammatory rhetoric about immigration and the pushback by Latino Republicans against Dan Patrick, I also checked to see if Patrick did any worse in the five State Rep districts held by Latinos (HDs 140, 143, 144, 145, and 148) than he did elsewhere:
Candidate Latino Else Latino% Else%
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Patrick 5,515 73,256 56.58% 57.64%
Not Patrick 4,233 53,826 43.42% 42.36%
Total 9,748 127,082
Short answer: No. Of course, we don’t know how many of the Republican primary voters in these districts were Latino – the Anglo voting age population in these districts range from 12K (HD140) to 37K (HD148), so there are plenty of non-Latinos to go around. Regardless, at least in Harris County, Patrick’s rhetoric wasn’t a problem for these voters.
Finally, how did the Latino Republican candidates do in the Latino districts?
Candidate Latino Else Latino% Else%
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Abbott 8,929 119,258 92.28% 94.52%
Martinez 381 2,713 3.94% 2.15%
Others 366 4,207 3.78% 3.33%
Total 9,676 126,178
Candidate Latino Else Latino% Else%
============================================
Medina 1,558 15,993 16.91% 13.56%
Torres 420 3,144 4.56% 2.67%
Hegar 4,442 62,214 48.22% 52.74%
Hilderbran 2,792 36,620 30.31% 31.04%
Total 9,212 117,971
A little bit of a benefit, mostly for Debra Medina, but overall less than a drop in the bucket. Even if the differences had been dramatic, the paucity of voters in these districts would have minimized the effect. But the difference was trivial, so it didn’t matter anyway.