We have completed ten days of early voting. Traditionally, the last two days are the big ones. Will we see the same this year? First, here are the comps:
2013
2011
2009
2007
Here’s a look at how turnout has gone over the first ten days of early voting for the past three municipal elections, and for the last two days:
Year 10 Day Last 2 Final Last2 %
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2013 80,959
2011 40,389 18,156 58,545 31.0%
2009 51,997 28,519 80,516 35.4%
2007 33,247 17,017 50,264 33.9%
Based on that, we can estimate final EV turnout at between 115,000 and 125,000, based on the 10 day total being between 65% and 70% of the final total. Obviously, we are in uncharted territory here, so it’s certainly possible that the last two days will be a smaller portion of the whole. We’ll just have to see.
I’m going to hold off on estimating final turnout until after early voting concludes. Some other folks have posted thoughts on turnout, runoffs, and so forth. Here’s a sample of them, with my comments, starting with turnout thoughts.
Campos:
In 2009, 178,777 votes were cast in the H-Town city elections. In 2009, 10,152 voted by mail and 52,276 voted early in person.
According to Kyle, through Monday 12,886 had voted by mail and 29,532 in person.
Kyle also says that 72% of the vote are hard core voters – they voted in the last three city elections.
It looks to me that we are not going to reach the 2009 total. It will be interesting to see if mail ballots and early voting in person exceed next Tuesday’s turnout. Stay tuned!
I’ve never thought we’d approach the November of 2009 turnout level, but the December of 2009 runoff level, which is a bit more than 150,000 votes in the city, is possible. I do think that at least half of all votes will have been cast by the end of early voting. In other words, I do think 2013 will be like 2008 for city elections.
Robert Miller:
With 52,170 votes already cast, you can see that, as expected, Harris County will disproportionately affect the outcome of the statewide constitutional amendment propositions. In 2011, 695,052 Texans voted in the constitutional amendment election, with 152,597 votes being cast in Harris County or 22%. In 2013, it appears the Harris County may approach 30% of the statewide total.
An analysis of the City of Houston vote by Kyle Johnston of Johnston Campaign estimates that through the first five days, the ethnic breakdown of those casting Houston ballots is African American 32%, Hispanic 12%, Asian 1%, and Other (Anglo) 55%. Mr. Johnston also finds that of the City of Houston voters, 61% have a Democratic primary history, 34% have a Republican primary history, and 5% have no primary history. This partisan breakdown provides further evidence that the time has passed when a candidate running as a Republican can be elected Mayor of Houston.
Houston Politics has the latest version of Johnston’s analysis, through eight days of early voting. I do believe a Republican can be elected Mayor – surely CM Stephen Costello will be a strong contender in 2015 – but I agree that it is highly unlikely someone running as a Republican, with all that means today, could win.
Here’s Robert on the runoff question:
In the current mayoral election, Mayor Parker’s polling is showing her pulling away from Dr. Hall. According to her internal polls, the undecideds are breaking her way and Dr. Hall’s pro forma television buy is not sufficient to keep him in the game. Either the Mayor’s polls are wrong or she is going to win without a runoff.
Lots of people have been asking me this question. I think Mayor Parker can win without a runoff, but I’m not yet ready to bet my own money on that. That’s my answer until I see the first round of results on Tuesday night.
New Media Texas:
I’m no expert, but I’m predicting a runoff for the mayor’s race between Parker and Hall. Mayor Parker barely slipped by with %50.83 of the total vote on Election Day in 2011 with 5 opponents–none of whom I could name without Google. With an open seat in the African-American dense District D and a pool of 12 driving up the AA vote and Hall’s hefty war chest, he’s worth about 30% on November 5th. He’s got a pretty impressive team, although it’s apparent he’s not allowing them to perform at their full potential.
This time around Mayor Parker’s not facing 5 opponents, she’s facing 8. She’ll come out on top on November 5th, but without the 50.1% it takes to avoid a runoff–just my opinion. If I had to guess it, I’d put her numbers somewhere around 47% or so looking at the spread–Hall and Eric Dick, who brought in about 8% in his race for at large in 2011, finishing off the top 3. I’m pretty sure Dick will bring similar numbers this time around.
If Parker gets 47% and Hall gets 30%, then Dick and the other candidates have combined for 23% of the vote. Based on past history and my own observation of those campaigns’ capabilities, I think that’s unlikely. I think the most likely route to a runoff is Hall topping 40%. Second most likely is Dick et al combining for about 15%. When I think about it this way, it seems to make a runoff less likely. But we’ll see.
Nancy Sims:
The Mayor’s race was expected to be much more intense but seemed to fizzle out towards the end. Initially, most of the pundits regarded Ben Hall as a serious contender to face Mayor Parker due to his ability to self-fund his campaign. Pundits also like good political theater.
However, Mr. Hall has let down most everyone in that regard. While he has spent lots of money, he consistently hit the wrong note with voters. He went dark on TV while Parker steadily blasted him with attack ads.
Council races also seem to be flying slightly below the radar. When I ask any average voter (non-immersed politico) about At-Large Position 3, they look at me blankly. When I name a few of the candidates running they sometime have a glimmer of recognition. A number of people have seen the billboard Roy Morales has on 1-10 at Silber. Many have heard of or seen signs for Michael Kubosh. If they are party connected, they probably know Rogene Calvert, Kubosh or Morales. Some know Roland Chavez has been a fire fighter and inner loopers seem to know Jennifer Rene Pool. This race is anybody’s best guess. Pundits think Kubosh wins but most won’t predict who is in a run-off with him.
Agree that At Large #3 is anybody’s guess. Still not convinced Kubosh is a sure thing for the runoff, but I have nothing to back that up. I’ll be very interested to see how the precinct breakdown goes in this one.
Texpatriate thinks that if Mayor Parker wins without a runoff, she may not get as amenable a Council for herself as she could have gotten.
Democrat voters are lazy. The preceding statement, while often controversial, is extremely true nonetheless. Presidential elections, those with higher turnout, see outcomes significantly more amicable to the Democratic Party in this State. As voter turnout drops into the low single-digits, Republicans become more and more successful in the heavily Democratic city of Houston.
For example, in the 2011 At-large position #5 election, the incumbent Jolanda Jones garnered a full 39% of the vote. Laurie Robinson, a likewise Democrat, earned a further 20% of the vote. According to reasonable inferences, Jones should have crushed her opposition in a runoff with close to 60% of the vote. However, when runoff election day came, Jack Christie defeated Jones with over 54% of the vote, rising over 21-points in the polls in the interim. The rise of 21 percentage points, however, was offset by actually about receiving 5000 fewer votes. This was possible because of a devastating drop in voter turnout. Without the Mayor’s race at the top of the ticket, over 1/3 of the electorate stayed home, allowing candidates severely out-of-touch from the interests of Houstonians to get elected.
The same thing will happen this year is Mayor Parker is re-elected in November without a runoff. Let us assume arguendo that this happens. The At-large position #3 will descend into a runoff between Michael Kubosh and one of the three major Democratic candidates (Rogene Calvert, Roland Chavez or Jenifer Pool), which Kubosh will decisively win without Annise Parker at the top of the ticket.
Similarly, I think there is a good chance Andrew Burks and David Robinson go into a runoff in At-large position #2. In that race, the comparably more conservative Burks will defeat Robinson in a runoff election that does not feature a Mayoral component.
If Kubosh replaces Noriega on the City Council, the horseshoe will be split 8-8 between the Mayor’s friends and her ideological opponents. (Costello, Davis, Cohen, Boykins/Richards, Gonzalez, Gallegos/Garces, Laster and Green vs. Burks, Kubosh, Bradford, Christie, Brown, Martin, Hoang and Pennington). Parker’s third term would be irreversibly marred by a recalcitrant and unreasonable City Council (similar to how President Obama’s last six years in office have been ruined by the House).
I don’t buy this analysis. For one thing, Andrew Burks, who has very little in his campaign coffers, doesn’t drive turnout. In 2009 and 2011, he greatly underperformed other African-American candidates on the ballot in runoffs – Gene Locke, Ronald Green, and Jolanda Jones twice. I think Burks will do better if Ben Hall is spending vast sums of money pushing African-American voters to the polls in December than if he is left to do that job for himself. I agree that the Republican Kubosh is likely to do better in a lower-turnout environment, but it’s not clearcut. Remember, Republicans were the biggest supporters of red light cameras in the 2010 referendum, so if Kubosh is running on that achievement, it may cut against him in a two-person race. I just don’t think we can make blanket statements about who does or does not benefit in a runoff if there’s a Mayoral race there or not.
