Beto O’Rourke

Does this sound like a guy who’s running for Governor?

I mean, probably not. But you never know.

Actor Matthew McConaughey is apparently not interested in running for Texas governor unless he thinks the role would allow him to truly make a difference.

On Thursday, the Texas-born actor went on the New York Times Opinon’s Sway podcast, an interview show hosted by Kara Swisher, and explained what he meant by “measuring” a possible run for governor next year, saying he is still learning about politics from mentors — who he refrained from naming — and is considering how useful he would be in the position.

“Is that a place to make real change or is it a place where right now it’s a fixed game, you go in there, you just put on a bunch of band-aids, in fours year you walk out and they rip them off and you’re gone?” the actor told Swisher. “I’m not interested in that.”

The self-proclaimed “folk-singing philosopher, poet-statesman” went on to call politics a “broken business” when it comes to political ideologies and said he fears a civil war if politicians remain on a path of “preservation of party” while not truly considering their constituents. McConaughey also reasoned that he could have have more influence in an informal role.

With regards to fixing this issue, McConaughey said, “One side I’m arguing is ‘McConaughey exactly, that’s why you need to go get in there. The other side is ‘that’s a bag of rats man. Don’t touch that with a ten foot pole. You have another lane. You have another category to have influence and get done things you’d like to get done and help how you think you can help and even heal divides.'”

You can parse it out however you want. I tend to think that actual candidates are more definitive about their intentions, or at least follow a familiar script when they’re being teases (*cough* *cough* Beto *cough* *cough*). This reads more to me like someone who hasn’t fully engaged with the question, and his subsequent remarks about “third parties” and “aggressive centrism” are just pablum. It might read differently if he were busy articulating positions and how he differed from the establishment, but that requires taking positions and risking the discovery that they’re not as popular or as original and differentiating as you might think. But that’s just me. If you’re dying for him to run, you probably think he sounds like he’s raring to go. We’ll know soon enough. The Texas Signal, which actually listened to that podcast and transcribed some of its more interesting bits, has more.

Beto and McConaughey

Oct 1st, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Our guy has a few thoughts about that other guy.

Beto O’Rourke

Beto O’Rourke says he is still “very seriously” thinking about running for governor — and that he is not surprised Matthew McConaughey, another potential candidate, is polling so well against Gov. Greg Abbott.

During an interview at the 2021 Texas Tribune Festival, the former Democratic U.S. representative from El Paso praised McConaughey for using his star power to help Texas, including after the 2019 mass shooting in O’Rourke’s hometown of El Paso. Addressing a recent poll showing McConaughey with a lead over Abbott, though, O’Rourke suggested the actor is benefiting from being a blank slate to most Texans when it comes to his current politics.

“He’s a really popular figure whose political views have not in any way been fixed,” O’Rourke said. “I don’t know, for example, who he voted for in the most consequential election since 1864 in this country. I don’t know how he feels about any of the issues that we’ve brought up. … So I think that might explain part of [the polling].”

See here for the background, and here for my explanation of the McConaughey bubble, which is similar in nature to Beto’s. If you can project whatever you want onto a candidate, you’re probably more likely to support that candidate. Not that complicated.

Pressed on his decision-making timeline, O’Rourke only said, repeatedly, that he would make up his mind “in the near future.”

O’Rourke did offer a case against Abbott, while responding to a question about whether he could run for U.S. Senate again in 2024.

“The fight in front of us right now is the one that we’re talking about today in Texas right now, given what’s going on,” O’Rourke said. “Given the deep damage and chaos and incompetence that is connected to Greg Abbott — from the winter freeze, the abortion ban, the permitless carry, the anti-mask mandate, the terrible toll that COVID has taken on this state and where it has decimated populations along the border, like in my hometown of El Paso — this is what we need to be focused on right now.”

[…]

O’Rourke said Democrats’ underwhelming showing in [South Texas] was partly due to the Biden campaign not paying enough attention to the state overall.

“That didn’t help things, but it also had a lot to do with Democrats far too often talking to Hispanic or Latino voters on the border as though they’re somehow apart or separate from the rest of the state, and talking to them in the language of victimhood or grievance or, ‘This bad shit is coming down on you, and aren’t you angry and aren’t you with us?’ instead of talking about the aspirational things that matter most to us,” O’Rourke said. “‘Am I going to be able to hang on to my job? Can I find a better one? Could I afford to buy this boat or send my kid to college?’”

O’Rourke said Republicans in 2020 — including former President Donald Trump — “had a really compelling message, even though it was predicated on a false choice.” That false choice, as O’Rourke described it, was between keeping one’s job and staying safe during the coronavirus pandemic, an apparent reference to the business shutdowns that played out in the months before the 2020 election.

“From listening to folks in South Texas and along the border,” O’Rourke said, “that really resonated.”

That’s a pretty good explanation of what happened, and a good pivot to Abbott’s weaknesses. I do think that Beto is a better candidate than before. He just needs to make it official.

Quinnipiac: Everyone is under water

Sep 30th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Not a great poll for anyone.

As Governor Greg Abbott faces reelection in 2022, a slight majority of voters say 51 – 42 percent that he does not deserve to be reelected, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University poll of Texas registered voters released today. In June 2021, voters were split, as 48 percent said he did not deserve to be reelected and 46 percent said he did.

Today, Governor Abbott receives a divided 44 – 47 percent job approval rating, marking the first time Abbott’s score is underwater since Quinnipiac University began polling in Texas in April 2018. In today’s poll, Republicans approve 83 – 12 percent, independents are divided with 43 percent approving and 47 percent disapproving, and Democrats disapprove 89 – 6 percent.

Texas voters say 50 – 33 percent that they do not think Beto O’Rourke would make a good governor, while 17 percent did not offer an opinion. Voters say 49 – 25 percent that they do not think Matthew McConaughey would make a good governor, while 26 percent did not offer an opinion.

Voters were asked about Abbott’s handling of four separate issues, and he received one positive score out of the four.

Handling the economy: 53 percent approve, while 39 percent disapprove;

Handling the situation at the Mexican border: 43 percent approve, while 46 percent disapprove;

Handling the response to the coronavirus: 46 percent approve, while 50 percent disapprove;

Handling the issue of abortion: 37 percent approve, while 53 percent disapprove.

Voters are split on whether Abbott is taking Texas in the right or wrong direction, as 48 percent say that Abbott is taking Texas in the wrong direction and 45 percent say in the right direction.

Voters were also asked if they thought Greg Abbott would make a good president. Two-thirds (67 percent) said no, while 24 percent said yes.

Voters in Texas give President Joe Biden a negative 32 – 61 percent job approval rating. This marks a 24- point net change from June 2021, when 45 percent of Texas voters approved of the job he was doing and 50 percent disapproved.

On Biden’s handling of the response to the coronavirus, voters give him a slightly negative 44 – 49 percent approval rating. This is a substantial drop from June 2021 when they approved 58 – 37 percent.

On Biden’s handling of the situation at the Mexican border, voters give him a negative 20 – 71 percent approval rating, which is a drop compared to a negative 29 – 64 percent rating in June 2021.

All that is from the Quinnipiac press release, which contains poll data as well. Their June results are here.

The negative trend in Abbott’s approval numbers has been seen in every other recent poll, with the UT-Tyler/DMN poll being the most recent example. As with the other polls, this is the worst position Abbott has ever found himself in, in many cases the first time he’s had a negative rating. I have no idea if this will persist – all of the usual cliches about what constitutes a long time in politics apply here – but it’s been quite interesting to see. As I’ve noted before, this is mostly about Democrats shedding any positive feeling they ever had about Abbott, with independents largely being sour on him as well. Whatever crossover appeal Abbott once had – and past election results say he had it – it’s not showing up in these numbers.

As for Biden, we don’t have nearly as much recent approval data on him as we do for Abbott. That UTT/DMN poll showed a decline in his rating, as one would expect given the nation numbers, but it was not nearly as bad as this – they had him at 42/50, which I thought was pretty decent all things considered. The UT-Texas Policy Project had him at 40/51 in August, but that may be old enough as to be out of date. We’ll have to wait and see what other pollsters say. My feeling is that the Q-pac number is a bit of a negative outlier, but we’ll need to see the data to know.

As for Beto and McConaughey, the only numbers for them – really, for Beto – that I want to see are head-to-head numbers with Abbott. It continues to mystify me that a pollster like Quinnipiac would ask a fuzzy question like this one without also doing a straight up poll of the race. I do not understand the reasoning behind that.

One more thing, which stood out quite a bit for me in the crosstabs: There’s a huge gender gap, for Abbott and the Republicans in general. Look at these approval numbers:


Candidate  With men  With women
===============================
Abbott        49-39       39-54
The Lege      43-46       34-54
Cruz          54-38       40-55
Cornyn        42-35       30-46
Biden         26-68       38-55
Trump         48-42       39-53
Beto          25-61       41-39

On the abortion issue specifically, Abbott is at 44-45 for men, 31-60 for women, easily the most negative response he got on any of the individual issues they asked about. Biden and Beto (this was for the “would make a good Governor” question) do better with women, but the dichotomy with the Republicans (including the Lege) is just striking to me.

I should note that there were similar gaps in the June poll. Indeed, it was even more apparent in Abbott’s numbers then, mostly because men were more strongly in favor of Abbott then – he was at a very robust 58-35 with men in June, and at 39-56 with women, a tiny bit lower than in September. His “deserves re-election” numbers went from 54/40 for men and 39/56 for women in June to 49/43 and 36/57 in September. Maybe the men are catching up to the women, and maybe this is evidence that the dip is temporary. Either way, the numbers strongly suggest what a 2022 electoral strategy might look like. I’ll keep an eye on this as we start to get more numbers.

Matthew Dowd has entered the Dem primary for Lite Guv

Sep 30th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

We have another contested primary for Dems.

Matthew Dowd

Matthew Dowd, the chief strategist for George W. Bush’s presidential reelection campaign who later split with the former president publicly, is running for lieutenant governor as a Democrat.

Dowd also has worked for Bob Bullock, who in 1994 was the last Democrat elected as Texas lieutenant governor, and faces an uphill battle to unseat Republican Dan Patrick, the state’s second-highest-ranking official who has steered Texas politics into the far-right fringes of the GOP.

In a two-and-a-half minute campaign announcement video, Dowd said GOP politicians have failed the state, zeroing in on Patrick, who he called “cruel and craven” and denounced as a divisive figure who puts his political ambitions over the needs of everyday Texans.

“Enough is enough. We need more officials who tell the truth, who believe in public services, in common sense with common decency for the common good. … We need to expect more from our politicians,” Dowd says in the ad. “Dan Patrick believes in none of those and that is why I am running for the powerful office of lieutenant governor of this great state.”

In an interview with The Texas Tribune, Dowd said he started seriously considering running for office after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of President Donald Trump who were trying to stop the certification of last year’s presidential election. But it wasn’t until after the state’s legislative session that Dowd really focused on Patrick as his target.

“Watching the legislative session and how horrendous it was — not only what the lieutenant governor didn’t do, but also what he did do,” Dowd said. “This summer, I started thinking maybe I should run and remove this guy so I don’t have to be embarrassed about our own state.”

[…]

Dowd said he doesn’t think he’ll match Patrick in the fundraising race, but he expects to have enough to run a competitive race.

Before he can get to Patrick in November, he’ll have to face other Democratic candidates in a March primary. So far, Mike Collier, the Democrat who came within 400,000 votes of unseating Patrick in 2018, has formed an exploratory committee and has been barnstorming across the state. One of his main issues is “fixing the damn grid” and he is expected to formally announce his campaign soon.

In a statement following Dowd’s announcement, Collier’s deputy campaign manager blasted Dowd for his previous work for Republicans.

“We welcome Matthew Dowd back to the Democratic Party,” Ali S. Zaidi said in a statement. “Mr. Dowd — you may notice things have changed a lot since you were working for Republicans. Democratic voters will be interested to hear how selling a false war, ensuring the deciding Supreme Court vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, and leading the charge to pass numerous anti-marriage equality ballot measures have shaped your current views.”

Dowd said he knew Collier was exploring a run but it did not factor in to his decision to jump into the race.

He said he would not attack Collier or any other Democrat that gets in the race. Instead, he’ll focus on showing Texans why Patrick is out of touch with their values.

“From Day One, I’m gonna take this to Dan Patrick and that’s gonna continue for 405 days,” he said, referring to the number of days until next year’s general elections. “I’m gonna be unrelenting in telling the truth in showing how Dan Patrick has hurt Texans and hurt this state.”

Dowd has talked about this race before, so now he has followed through. I guess it’s a little premature to say we have a contested primary as Mike Collier is not yet official, but he’s been at least as an active a campaign presence as anyone out there, so I will be surprised if he doesn’t join in. At a high level, the two are pretty similar, though Dowd does indeed have his Bushian past to deal with. What I want at this point is for their race to generate some news and interest, to remind people of all the ways in which Dan Patrick is terrible, because on that point the two of them are very much in agreement. The Chron has more.

UT-Tyler/DMN: Abbott loses ground

Sep 21st, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

A well-timed poll result.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) may be feeling the pressure, the latest poll from The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler shows.

Abbott’s approval rating has dropped to 45 percent in the aftermath of controversial legislation such as a ban on mask mandates amid the COVID-19 pandemic and a ban on most abortions after six weeks. It’s far too early to tell how things will play out in next year’s election, but two well-known potential candidates look like they could give Abbott a serious run if they do wind up entering the race.

Actor Matthew McConaughey, who has hinted that he’s entertaining the idea (though it’s unclear what party, if any, he would represent), led Abbott by nine points in a hypothetical matchup in the new poll, while former Rep. Beto O’Rourke (D-Tex.), who ran against Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) for a spot in the upper chamber and later took a shot at the Democratic presidential nomination, cut a previous 12-point head-to-head deficit against Abbott down to five in the survey. Abbott does have a more comfortable lead against Republican primary challengers, however.

The DMN story is here, and the poll data is here. I’ve covered the McConaughey matter before, and you can refer to those previous entries because the issue remains the same. For what it’s worth, the UT-Tyler poll doesn’t mention Beto’s party either, but I think we can safely assume that a decent number of poll respondents correctly identify him as a Democrat.

The headline result here is that Abbott leads Beto 42-37 in this poll after having led him 45-33 in the July poll. We will surely start to get a lot more head-to-head data now that Beto is semi-officially in the race. We do have some previous results we can look at to provide some context, so let’s do that. First, here are the approval/disapproval numbers for Joe Biden and Greg Abbott, plus the favorable/unfavorable numbers for Beto:


April

Name     App  Disapp  Neither
=============================
Biden     48      41       12  
Abbott    50      36       15
Beto      35      37       27

June

Name      App  Disapp  Neither
==============================
Biden      47      41       11
Abbott     50      36       14
Beto       31      40       29

September

Name      App  Disapp  Neither
==============================
Biden      42      50        9
Abbott     45      44       11
Beto       34      42       24

I’ve combined the strong/somewhat approve/disapprove numbers for Abbott and Biden, and the strong/somewhat favorable/unfavorable numbers for Beto; there was also a “don’t know enough” option for Beto, which I added into the “Neither” column. Biden’s approval drop is expected given the national numbers, and honestly they’re better than I might have expected given that. Abbott is doing better here than in the recent Texas Politics Project and Morning Consult polls, but the direction is the same. Again, it’s hard to say how the various factors will play into the 2022 election, so for now let’s just note that this is where we are.

Two other data points of interest. Both were asked for the first time in the September poll, so there’s nothing to compare them to from this source, but we do have some data from elsewhere. First, this poll included a “right direction/wrong direction” question for Texas, with the result being 44/54 wrong/right. Dems were 40/59 for “wrong”, Republicans were 59/39 for “right”, and indies were interestingly 33/64 for “wrong”. Make of that what you will, and compare to the recent Texas 2036 survey of people’s “right/wrong direction” attitudes.

Finally, this poll gets into mask and vaccine mandates and the bans on same:

Do you support or oppose Governor Abbott’s ban on mask mandates?


        Total    Dem  Ind  Rep
==============================
Support   44%    33%  32%  67%
Oppose    55%    66%  67%  33%

Do you support or oppose Governor Abbott’s ban on vaccine mandates?


        Total    Dem  Ind  Rep
==============================
Support   49%    37%  38%  72%
Oppose    49%    62%  60%  28%

There’s also a question about mask mandates in schools, with 50% saying masks should be required in all K-12 classrooms, 26% saying schools should be allowed to decide, and 20% saying no mandates. There’s national data showing that the public is broadly in favor of how Democrats and President Biden have responded to COVID (and also of mask and vaccine mandates) and opposed to the Republican response. This is the sort of thing that can certainly change over time, but for now, and for a nascent Beto campaign, coming in hot on a platform that strongly criticizes Abbott on this issue would seem to have some traction. Again, more polling will surely follow, but this is very much an issue to watch.

Signs pointing to Beto running for Governor

Sep 20th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

8 comments

Oh, God, yes.

Beto O’Rourke

Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke is preparing to run for governor of Texas in 2022, with an announcement expected later this year, Texas political operatives tell Axios.

Why it matters: O’Rourke’s entry would give Democrats a high-profile candidate with a national fundraising network to challenge Republican Gov. Greg Abbott — and give O’Rourke, a former three-term congressman from El Paso and 2020 presidential candidate and voting rights activist, a path to a political comeback.

But he would be running in a complicated political environment. Immigration is surging at the southern border and Democrats at the national level are bracing for a brutal midterm election and potentially losing the House of Representatives in 2022.

A new poll for the Dallas Morning News shows that O’Rourke has narrowed the gap with Abbott in a hypothetical matchup, down, 37%-42%. In July, O’Rourke faced a 12-point deficit, 33%-45%.

Over the summer, Abbot has seen his approval rating sink to 41%, with 50% disapproving, in a separate poll.

Driving the news: O’Rourke has been calling political allies to solicit their advice, leaving them with the impression that he’s made his decision to run in the country’s second-largest state.

“No decision has been made,” said David Wysong, O’Rourke’s former House chief of staff and a longtime adviser. “He has been making and receiving calls with people from all over the state.”

I’ve been assuming that Beto would be running for Governor for some time now, so this is more of a relief and a “finally!” than anything else. That said, the lack of any deep-background, “sources say” stories of the “he’s thinking about it/he’s inching closer to it” variety were beginning to worry me. I suppose this could still end up not happening, but really, outlets like Axios don’t run this kind of story for things that wind up not happening. I feel pretty confident at this point.

So we move forward from here, which means “start the fundraising engines” and recruit the back end of the ticket. The narrative piece is in place, the rest is execution. I’m ready.

Precinct analysis: SBOE

Sep 7th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Introduction
Congressional districts
State Rep districts
Commissioners Court/JP precincts
Comparing 2012 and 2016
Statewide judicial
Other jurisdictions
Appellate courts, Part 1
Appellate courts, Part 2
Judicial averages
Other cities
District Attorney
County Attorney
Sheriff
Tax Assessor
County Clerk
HCDE
Fort Bend, part 1
Fort Bend, part 2
Fort Bend, part 3
Brazoria County
Harris County State Senate comparisons
State Senate districts 2020
State Senate district comparisons
State House districts 2020, part 1
State House districts 2020, part 2
Median districts
State House district changes by demography
State House district changes by county

Hey, guess what? The 2020 election data is finally on the Texas Redistricting page for Congress and the State Board of Education. It had been there for awhile for the State House and State Senate, which is why I was able to do those most recent Precinct Analysis piece. Now I can fill in the missing pieces, and I will start here with the State Board of Education, which has a current composition of nine Republicans and six Democrats following the Dem flip in SBOE5. Here’s what the 2020 results looked like for these districts:


Dist   Biden    Trump  Biden%  Trump%
=====================================
01   288,864  245,645   53.3%   45.3%
02   259,587  281,363   47.4%   51.4%
03   361,827  238,999   59.4%   39.2%
04   388,518  117,290   75.9%   22.9%
05   554,766  475,249   52.9%   45.3%
06   391,913  371,101   50.6%   47.9%
07   351,218  509,642   40.2%   58.4%
08   307,826  526,425   36.3%   62.2%
09   196,720  577,419   25.1%   73.7%
10   440,594  445,355   48.7%   49.3%
11   383,185  472,594   44.1%   54.3%
12   469,730  429,676   51.3%   47.0%
13   401,190  128,910   74.7%   24.0%
14   310,738  570,422   34.7%   63.7%
15   150,843  498,932   22.9%   75.6%

Before we dive into the numbers, you’re probably wondering where these districts are. I know I don’t have a mental map of the SBOE like I do for the legislative districts. Here is the SBOE statewide map, and the District Viewer, which you can zoom in on to the street level. That will be your best friend for when the new maps are coming out.

So the numbers. As you can see, Joe Biden carried seven of the fifteen districts, falling just short in district 10 for a majority but carrying Republican-held districts 6 and 12. The bad news is that he did not carry district 2, which is a Democratic district held by Ruben Cortez, who was not on the ballot after winning re-election in 2018 by seven points. District 2 has been purple through the decade but it was on the blue side of purple before 2020. Beto carried SBOE2 in 2018, but only by 4.5 points; Greg Abbott won it by a wider margin, with Glenn Hegar and George P Bush also carrying it. Based on this I think Cortez would have held it had it been on the ballot last year, but I feel confident they’ll make a stronger push for it next year.

Here’s my look at the 2018 results for these districts, for which Beto won nine districts, carrying SBOE2 and 10 where Biden fell short. As you know, District 5 has been on my radar since 2016 when Hillary Clinton carried it, and it came through as I expected. District 10 was the longest-shot of the potential takeovers, with districts 12 and 6 being in between. If we went into the 2022 elections with the same districts, I’d feel like Democratic SBOE candidates would win between five and seven districts (remember, everyone is on the ballot in the first post-redistricting year), with 2 and 12 being the main variables. I see 6 and 10 as tougher nuts to crack, with 10 having more Republican turf in it, and 6 starting from a redder place and thus just taking longer to get where I think it would be going.

Obviously, all of this will be affected by redistricting, and not only is there a greater degree of freedom for the GOP given the small number of districts, there’s been little to no attention paid to SBOE districts. The SBOE map was never part of any voting rights litigation in the 2011 cycle. I have no idea how much attention it will get this time, but as SBOE5 was one of the few Democratic pickups from 2020, I have to think that people will care a little more about it, on both sides.

As we know, Biden tended to run ahead of the rest of the Democratic ticket. It’s pretty straightforward here, in that the rest of the ticket carried five districts, with everyone winning SBOE5 but falling short in 2, 6, 10, and 12. Consistent with what we have seen in the House and Senate districts, Biden’s number in SBOE2 was about the same as everyone else’s, which you can interpret optimistically (it didn’t get any worse!) or pessimistically (Republicans overall improved, it wasn’t just Trump!) as you see fit.

For comparison, here are the numbers from 2016 and 2012:


Dist Clinton    TrumpClinton%  Trump%
=====================================
01   255,909  169,214   57.4%   37.9%
02   234,172  204,262   51.4%   44.9%
03   282,715  163,940   60.2%   34.9%
04   333,156   76,478   78.7%   18.1%
05   377,928  376,417   47.0%   46.8%
06   286,931  301,142   46.3%   48.6%
07   255,474  407,386   37.1%   59.2%
08   205,760  416,239   31.5%   63.7%
09   148,687  486,392   22.7%   74.1%
10   287,936  346,670   42.5%   51.2%
11   257,515  397,155   37.3%   57.6%
12   315,973  356,576   44.4%   50.1%
13   324,952  102,622   73.5%   23.2%
14   195,965  453,354   28.8%   66.5%
15   114,553  426,441   20.3%   75.5%

Dist   Obama   Romney  Obama% Romney%
=====================================
01   213,132  161,807   56.1%   42.6%
02   209,020  187,147   52.1%   46.7%
03   247,020  149,659   61.4%   37.2%
04   311,236   84,036   78.0%   21.1%
05   294,887  375,942   42.9%   54.7%
06   215,839  332,415   38.8%   59.7%
07   215,952  390,808   35.2%   63.6%
08   160,372  398,664   28.3%   70.3%
09   156,833  449,301   25.6%   73.3%
10   235,591  331,022   40.5%   57.0%
11   210,974  396,329   34.2%   64.3%
12   242,306  373,920   38.7%   59.7%
13   314,630  110,615   73.3%   25.8%
14   163,020  413,181   27.9%   70.6%
15   116,797  413,942   21.7%   76.9%

As noted, Hillary Clinton carried six districts, while Barack Obama carried five. The thing that always interests me is the shift over time, and you can see how dramatic it was in the districts that we’ve been talking about. Mitt Romney won districts 5, 6, 10, and 12 by double digits, with 6 and 12 being 20-point wins for him. Again, we have seen this in the previous posts, these districts are anchored in the big urban and suburban districts that have trended hard blue recently, this is just another way of looking at it. I like having the different views, you can always pick up some nuances when you have different angles.

I’m working on the Congressional data next. As always, let me know what you think.

Matthew Dowd

Aug 30th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

Not sure what to make of this.

Matthew Dowd

A little more than a week after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, Matthew Dowd announced he was leaving his job as chief political analyst with ABC News after thirteen years with the network. Freed from his talking-head obligations, Dowd could now speak out even more pointedly about what he believes to be the threat to democracy posed by Trump and his imitators. This summer, in tweets and cable interviews, the Democrat turned Republican turned Democrat has excoriated Governor Greg Abbott for a response to COVID-19 that has cost Texans lives. In a June appearance on MSNBC, Dowd said that democracy is in peril and “the only fix to this is Republicans have to lose, and lose badly, in a series of elections, and I’m willing to do whatever I can, on any day I can, to make sure that happens.”

[…]

TM: In early August you retweeted a message from University of Texas political psychologist Bethany Albertson: “It seems like TX could use a gubernatorial candidate who can stand up for voting rights and science. ASAP.” A week later you tweeted, “I will do whatever I can to defeat the GOP up and down the ballot in Texas in 2022. Literally, our values and our lives depend on it.” Are you thinking about challenging Abbott?

MD: So, here’s the best way to answer that for me. I will do whatever I can to defeat the GOP leadership and that begins with Greg Abbott, but doesn’t end with Greg Abbott. I describe Greg Abbott and Dan Patrick and Ken Paxton as craven, cruel, and crook. One’s craven. One’s cruel. And one’s a crook. And they need to go. I wish they had the gumption or wish they had the strength to resign after how much they failed the state. They won’t. So I’ll do whatever I can, in any way I can, to help in that.

I am not going to run for governor, though that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t run for something in 2022. But I haven’t made any decision about that. I’m just trying to figure out how best I can help do this and assist the Democrats in any way I can. And I’m going to speak out for sure, and whether or not that includes running for office, we’ll see. But it wouldn’t be for governor.

TM: Explain why you’d be willing to run for another statewide office but not for governor.

MD: I think there’s people positioned that would carry that mantle better. And the other thing is, I don’t want to get in a debate in a governor’s race, which would become exceedingly high intensity, about “the former Bush guy,” “the former Republican” running.

TM: That leaves Patrick and Paxton as potential targets.

MD: I don’t want to say any more, but I’m also not a lawyer so you can take it from there.

TM: Mike Collier, who came within five points of Patrick in 2018, is seeking a rematch.

MD: Yeah, he ran last time and he ran for comptroller in 2014 and lost [to Glenn Hegar by nearly 21 percentage points]. He seems like a nice guy. That’s up to him to make the right decision and the Democratic party to make the right decision of who they want to nominate.

Dowd had briefly flirted with the idea of running for Senate in 2018 against Ted Cruz, which the interview touches on. I like Mike Collier and think he’s a pretty good foil for Dan Patrick, but if Dowd thinks he can do better – in particular, if he thinks he can raise more money and get more attention for that race – then come on in and we’ll sort it out in the primary. The main thing here is that he has the right attitude. We could use a lot more of that. Campos, who had an inkling this was coming, has more.

The real reason (that we already know) why Greg Abbott hates mask mandates

Aug 27th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

He’s pandering to the base. I mean, duh!

When Texas had its first big surge of COVID hospitalizations, Gov. Greg Abbott responded by shutting down bars and mandating masks.

As the second surge hit, Abbott put in place an automatic trigger to restrict the operating capacities of businesses and halt non-emergency surgeries to free up hospital beds in areas with high hospitalizations.

But now as the state hits a third surge, Abbott — who faces re-election early next year — is doing none of that. Instead, he is suggesting that people wear masks when appropriate and get vaccinated, but only if they want, and vowing not to enact any more mandates.

“There’s no more time for government mandates,” Abbott declared last month in an interview with KPRC in Houston. “This is time for individual responsibility.”

While that has confounded health officials and many big-city leaders as hospitals fill up with patients with COVID-19, the election results for 2020 offer a glimpse into why Abbott, who tested positive for the virus this week, isn’t about to change course.

A Hearst Newspapers analysis shows a strong correlation between the counties with the lowest vaccination rates for COVID-19 and counties that voted heavily for former president Donald Trump, whose supporters Abbott will need to win his primary next spring.

Trump won 80 percent or more of the vote in each of the 10 Texas counties with the lowest vaccination rates.

[…]

Internal polling by the Abbott campaign shows he has been watching his numbers closely — particularly those related to COVID and the border.

Public polling shows 85 percent of Texas Republican voters approve of how Abbott has handled the state’s response to the virus, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released in late June. That poll also showed that while 51 percent of all Texans believe schools should be able to require masks, just 21 percent of Republicans agree. And there is a huge divide based on where people live. Almost 60 percent of respondents in cities supported schools requiring masks; in rural Texas, it’s under 40 percent.

We’ve talked about this stuff before when polls have come out that show a policy like masking has majority support, due to huge support from Dems and majority support from indies but low support from Republicans. Abbott only cares about the latter group, and he’s trying to keep the crazies in line and away from the even bigger wackjobs in the primary race. He’s betting that it won’t cost him in the general, or at least that it won’t cost him too much. There’s only one way to find out. I wish there were something more subtle or profound to say than that, but that’s pretty much it. What you see is what you get.

(I don’t mean for this post to be in any way critical of the Chron story, which is well reported. It’s always good to review the data and see if it actually confirms the thing that we all say we know, because sometimes it doesn’t and we need to reorder our thinking. Here there were no surprises, but it’s still good to put numbers on it.)

A look ahead to Commissioners Court redistricting

Aug 24th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

As we know, the Census redistricting data is out, and that means a whole lot of map-drawing is in our future. The main focus on this will be in Austin where the Congressional and legislative maps are re-drawn, but those are not the only entities that have this job to do. Harris County will be redrawing its Commissioners Court map, and this time for the first time in decades it will be done with a Democratic majority on the Court. What might be in store? Benjamin Chou with the Texas Signal provides an advance look at the possibilities.

Over the course of the last decade, population in Harris County boomed, growing by over 630,000 residents from 4.1 million in 2010 to 4.7 million today. Most of the population growth occurred in Precincts 3 and 4, which are also the same precincts currently held by the two Republicans.

In this round of redistricting, the Court will need to tweak the districts so that the four precincts have relatively similar population numbers. For this year’s sake, that means increasing the population in Precinct 2 and decreasing the population in Precincts 3 and 4. To do so, the Democratic-majority can attempt a range of actions that can be simplified into 3 main results: maintain the same 3–2 Democratic majority or increase their majority to 4–1.

The current Commissioners Court map was drawn a decade ago, by the then 4–1 Republican majority. At that time, Republicans held Precincts 2, 3, 4 and the county judge position. The map was drawn with the intent to solidify the Republican 4–1 majority by increasing Republican voters in those three precincts, particularly Precinct 2. The court did so by replacing Hispanic Democratic voters with Anglo Republicans.

They were successful through much of the decade. In the high-Republican turnout year of 2014, Republicans crushed Democrats. Republican Governor Greg Abbott won Precinct 2 by more than 16% of votes and Precincts 3 and 4 by more than 20% each. Even in 2018, when Beto O’Rourke lifted Democratic performance to its most competitive level in a generation, the Republican majority barely crumbled. County Judge Hidalgo, the only one of the five members of the court to be elected county-wide, won by less than 2%. Commissioner Garcia won Precinct 2 by 1%. Last year, when Democrats had a chance to flip Precinct 3, the Democratic candidate lost by 5%.

When considering how to redraw the map, the new Democratic majority will likely keep Precinct 1 solidly Democratic while shoring up Precinct 2 for Commissioner Garcia. The question is whether the court makes Precincts 3, 4, or neither more Democratic so a future challenger has a better chance of ousting the Republican incumbents.

The problem with choosing neither means the Republicans have a chance of flipping the current Democratic 3–2 majority in the event Democrats lose the County Judge position. Similarly, if the Court decides to make only Precinct 3 more Democratic, there remains a risk that Republicans win control because Precinct 3 is not up for election until 2024. Because Precinct 4 is up for election in 2022, the safest bet for Democrats to retain uninterrupted control will be to redraw Precinct 4 more Democratic.

Chou goes on to draw three potential new maps, one that just makes Precinct 2 more Democratic, which would end up with the same Court if Judge Hidalgo wins re-election, and one that shores up Precinct 2 while also turning a radically redrawn Precinct 4 Democratic as well. I’ll let you have a look and see what you think. You can also review this tweet from Hector DeLeon to see the Census population figures for each of the four precincts.

It’s a good writeup, and it captures the choices well. A couple of things that were not directly addressed: One, the Latino drift towards Trump in 2020, which we have discussed before multiple times. We saw that manifest here, though perhaps not as much as in South Texas, but in areas that would affect Precinct 2. Biden carried Precinct 2 in 2020 by a tiny margin, while other Dems generally fell short; in 2018 Beto won Precinct 2 by seven points, while other Dems generally carried it by four or five. For a variety of reasons we don’t know how this will play out in 2022, but we should start with the assumption that Latino voters are a little softer than we’d like, so that we don’t overestimate our position.

Two, we can’t just shove Anglo Republicans into Precinct 1 as a way to aid Precinct 2, because the Voting Rights Act is still more or less in effect, and retrogressing its Black population would be a violation of the VRA. Yes, the thought of a Republican plaintiff filing a VRA lawsuit over this is ironic to the point of causing nosebleeds, but care must still be taken.

Three, as Harris County continues to grow and change demographically, Precinct 3 as it is now will likely become more Democratic in time for the 2024 election without much else being done. Betting on that does entail the risk that the Court could swing Republican in 2022, either via Commissioner Garcia losing or Judge Hidalgo losing. I’m less worried about the latter, and the former can certainly be mitigated against, but this would allow for the possibility of getting to 4-1 without a complete redesign of the county map, which might be controversial politically in ways that are not currently apparent.

It should also be noted that redrawing the Commissioners Court map does the same for the HCDE Trustees map. As it happens, due to resignations and appointments, Dems have a 6-1 majority on that body right now, with all three At Large seats plus the Precincts 1, 2, and 3 positions in their column. I’m certain this will be a lower priority for consideration by the mapmakers, but it is worth keeping in mind.

Beyond that, we’ll see. Commissioners Court is under the same time constraints as the Lege, in that they need to get a new map in place in time for the 2022 primaries, whenever they wind up being. Assuming that will take place in May, and the filing period will be pushed back commensurately, they have a couple of months. Expect to see some action soon – if this is like last time, they’ll hire a consultant to do the actual work, with their specifications, and they will formally approve it once it suits their needs and the public has a chance to weigh in. I will of course be keeping an eye out for this.

The march for voting rights

Aug 2nd, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

19 comments

Good work, but it can’t be the end.

Saturday marked the third time in as many months that former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke has headlined a voting rights rally at the Texas Capitol, as Democrats hope to keep momentum with just a week left before the end of the special session in Austin.

The rally, which drew several thousand attendees, marked the end of a Selma-style march to the state Capitol — a roughly 27-mile journey from Georgetown to Austin that activists split over four days. It was organized by the Poor People’s Campaign, a group inspired by Martin Luther King, Jr.

As demonstrators finished the last leg of their march, they greeted a crowd in front of the Capitol holding signs: “Texas deserves better,” “It’s about us,” “We care, we vote.” They sang along with the performers on the center stage as they belted out the labor movement anthem, “We Shall Not Be Moved.”

“The right time to do right is right now,” the Rev. William J. Barber II, a national civil rights leader who spearheaded the march, repeated throughout the rally.

It culminated with a live performance by Willie Nelson, who sang the classics “Whiskey River” and “Good Hearted Woman.” His set ended with a newer song, “Vote ‘Em Out,” which opens with the line: “If you don’t like who’s in there, vote ‘em out; that’s what Election Day is all about.”

The marchers have demands ranging from a $15 minimum wage to immigration reform, but their most pressing concern is new voting restrictions that have been proposed or passed in GOP-led states. Texas, which already has some of the nation’s strictest laws on voter registration and mail ballots, is among them.

Lots of positive energy came out of this, and I hope it helps to sustain us through the next few weeks, which are going to be tough. But really, what I want to see next are headlines that say things like “Senate Democrats agree to pass voting rights bill that includes redistricting reform and new preclearance requirements”, and “Beto O’Rourke announces his entry into the Texas Governor’s race”. I’m not asking for much here.

Day 11 quorum busting post: The Beto factor

Jul 24th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Early on I mentioned how one potentially limiting factor in the Democratic exodus to Washington DC was funding, as housing and feeding 50+ people in the Capitol for up to four weeks would run into some money. Turns out, Beto O’Rourke had that covered.

Beto O’Rourke

Beto O’Rourke has funneled $600,000 to Texas House Democrats in Washington, D.C., to help fund their stay, which could last for up to another two weeks as the lawmakers attempt to block passage of a GOP election bill at the state Legislature.

Powered by People, the group started by the former presidential candidate and El Paso congressman, will wire the funds to the Texas House Democratic Caucus sometime this week, according to state Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston.

The money will be used to help offset costs for lodging, meals and transportation as over 50 Democrats and roughly two dozen staffers stay in the nation’s capital. Members left Texas about 10 days ago and have said they plan to stay out of state until after the special session ends Aug. 6.

The funds will also help pay for costs associated with a virtual voting rights conference the caucus helped to host this week, Walle told The Texas Tribune on Wednesday.

O’Rourke announced the news during that virtual conference Thursday morning, saying that his group will continue fundraising for the Democrats in Washington.

“We’re gonna make sure that we get the full amount, 100% of what’s raised, to y’all,” he told lawmakers. “It is the least that we could do for everything that you all are doing for us. We want to do more.”

Walle said that the infusion of funds will go toward Democrats’ goal of raising $1.5 million to continue to help pay for the bills while in Washington. The caucus, he said, is “on a good pace to meet that goal.”

There are a number of ways that this exodus could end badly for the Dems. Running out of money and having to visibly scramble to cover living expenses would be one of them, made worse only by having to slink back home because there were no other choices. That outcome at least should be avoided, for which we can all be grateful. (And we could chip in a few bucks, if we felt so moved.)

And Beto’s role in this is appreciated.

Whether Beto O’Rourke is ready to run for governor or not, the Texas House Democrats’ fight over voting rights has already given him a springboard if he decides to take the plunge.

Over the past several weeks, the former presidential candidate from El Paso has been their biggest promoter, holding fundraisers with celebrities, co-organizing a 1960s-style civil rights march with prominent national leaders, and writing big checks to cover expenses for the Texas House and Senate Democrats who fled to Washington, D.C. to stop an elections bill.

It has all given O’Rourke a new boost of national media interviews and political relevance at a critical time for statewide candidates in Texas to build momentum if they are going to have a shot in an election cycle that starts faster than in most states because of the early primaries in March.

“They are keeping the coals hot on issues like election reform and redistricting, which Beto would try to leverage in 2022,” said Brandon Rottinghaus, a University of Houston political science professor.

While Democratic activists are pushing O’Rourke to get into the governor’s race, he insists he’s not thinking about that right now and is focused on fighting the elections bills Texas Republicans are trying to pass.

[…]

What O’Rourke is doing is a rarity in Texas politics, an arena where few are willing to pitch in without getting payback, said state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio.

“He’s built an authentic platform with a lot of Texans and put it to good use to help us,” he said.

State Rep. Armando Walle, D-Houston, said the donations that O’Rourke has been sharing have been a big morale boost. He said seeing so many Texans giving small donations to help the cause has lifted spirits as the Democrats in D.C. push ahead.

“It’s meant the world to us,” Walle said. “It’s been a shot in the arm.”

Yet while O’Rourke may not be looking for an immediate tradeoff, he still benefits in a big way from what the House Democrats have done.

Rottinghaus said the Democrats’ battle over voting rights has teed up the very issues that O’Rourke would want to talk about on a campaign for governor.

“Now all they need is for him to step into the tee box,” Rottinghaus said.

One can only hope that is being communicated. I feel reasonably confident that Beto will have plenty of volunteer and establishment energy if and hopefully when he announces his candidacy. In the meantime, he’s definitely helping.

Day 3 not as long omnibus quorum busting post

Jul 15th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

27 comments

Let’s jump right in…

Who’s paying for Texas Democrats’ trip to DC? Beto O’Rourke has already raised $400K.

Beto O’Rourke’s political action committee has raised nearly half a million dollars to support Texas Democrats’ escape to Washington, D.C., he said Tuesday night.

O’Rourke, a former El Paso congressman and possible 2022 candidate for governor, has been soliciting donations for the Democrats on Twitter since they fled to the nation’s capital on Monday. It’s the second time House Democrats have broken quorum in about six weeks to kill a controversial elections bill championed by Texas’ GOP leaders.

The PAC, Powered By People, has raised more than $430,000 so far, O’Rourke said.

“Up to them to use it for whatever keeps them in the fight for as long as it takes,” he said.

The 60 or so fugitive Democrats have repeatedly said that no taxpayer dollars are funding the expenses for their stay in Washington, which could last as long as Aug. 7, the end of the special session in Austin. Legislators have been using campaign funds and personal funds, they said.

State Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said he paid for the first night of hotel rooms and meeting spaces for the group on Monday.

The effort has garnered national attention, and some celebrities have joined the fundraising push. Texas icon Willie Nelson and his wife, Annie, matched $5,000 in donations on Tuesday.

The Trib also covered this topic. Greg Abbott has been out there claiming the Dems are using taxpayer funds for this journey, which is nonsense. As I said up front, of course this is going to be a fundraising opportunity for the Dems, partly because firing up the base is a key component and partly because they’re going to need it. It’s pretty simple.

Behind the partisan drama lies a profoundly serious struggle over who gets shut out under Texas voting laws.

The dramatic exodus of Democratic Texas lawmakers to block a Republican voting bill has choked the political airways in a haze of confusion, posturing and finger-pointing.

But beneath the smoke, a fire rages.

Many Democrats, especially those who are people of color, are incensed, seeing the latest Republican voting bill as another moment of crisis in a state they believe has long marginalized people like them in the halls of power.

Many Republicans, passions stoked by unsubstantiated claims of widespread voting fraud, see their hold on political power slipping away, and are clamoring for a firewall.

The struggle over voting rights in Texas goes beyond the legislative theatrics of the moment. It is fundamentally a clash not just of elected officials, but of the two constituencies they represent. It is a fight over whose voices will be heard that began long before the Democrats shut down the Texas Legislature, and the stakes are not trivial.

The two days preceding the Democratic flight offered a microcosm of the standoff.

[…]

In the lead up to their quorum break, Democrats appeared frustrated at Republicans’ lack of consideration for the fallout voters of color could face from their proposals. Throughout the legislative debates, they’ve repeatedly pressed GOP bill authors on whether they’ve sought disparate impact studies to assess if their new voting rules would disproportionately harm voters of color. (Republicans have consistently responded they have not.)

But Democrats’ retort since fleeing the state — that their actions are an extreme but necessary effort at safeguarding their own communities from the Republicans in charge of the state — have underlined the reason behind their destination.

Conceding they don’t have the sufficient numbers to block the Texas legislation indefinitely, they have thrust their fight onto the national stage in hopes of helping increase pressure on Congress to pass federal legislation to restore sweeping protections for voters of color.

“Texas’ generations-long pattern of discrimination is not in the past; it is alive and present today in the anti-voter bills before the Texas State Legislature,” state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, said in a statement about the quorum break. “This is part of a calculated and deliberate Republican plan to chip away at the freedom to vote and to choose our leaders.”

Their remarks echoed the series of federal court rulings in recent years that found state lawmakers have repeatedly and intentionally discriminated against voters of color, often by diluting the power of their votes in selecting their representatives.

The high-stakes fight in Congress centers on a pair of federal bills, including one that could place Texas, and other states with a history of discrimination against voters of color, back under federal supervision of its election laws and redistricting.

For decades, that oversight — known as preclearance — proved to be a powerful mechanism for keeping Texas laws and political maps from going into effect until the Department of Justice or a federal court ensured they wouldn’t undermine the voting rights of people of color.

Before it was wiped out by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2013, preclearance forestalled the adoption of the state’s 2011 redistricting maps before they were revised by the federal courts. It also kept Texas from immediately implementing its stringent voter ID law, which was eventually slightly rewritten as a result of the legal intervention over the way it targeted Hispanic and Black voters who were less likely to have the one of the IDs that were not required to cast a ballot.

Texas Democrats have been able to easily align their efforts with calls for the restoration of those protections because they would wholly benefit the voters of color that are in the majority in most of their districts. Republicans’ political base is more likely to be made up of older, white Texans, while Democrats rely on a more diverse electorate with huge vote counts coming in from the state’s urban metros.

A lot of this is going to be about attention and headlines and winning hearts and minds and news cycles, but at the core there’s a serious policy issue, and Dems are giving it the level of commitment they believe it deserves. I hope that’s one of the messages that gets through to lower-information voters.

‘We are in a state of crisis’ Texas Black faith leaders speak against voter suppression legislation.

In a press conference on Tuesday highlighting Texas Republicans latest push on voter suppression bills, Black faith leaders from across the state asked Gov. Greg Abbott for a meeting to discuss voting legislation.

In addition to the meeting, leaders also asked constituents to participate in the Push Democracy Forward and the Austin Justice Coalition Prayer and Justice March on Voter Suppression at the steps of the Austin Capitol on July 15.

According to Dixon, buses will be provided in cities across the state for constituents who want to participate in the march.

“Texas is headed toward a dangerous tipping point,” Bishop James Dixon, President of the Houston chapter of the NAACP said. “We are indeed a state and a nation in crisis.”

The Black clergy said they are hoping to provide spiritual and moral leadership in the community regarding voting rights.

“We intend to make it clear that this issue is more than political,” Dixon said. “People are being misunderstood and the truth is being misrepresented.”

Dixon also said the Black clergy will be sending an open letter to non-Black clergy colleagues to meet and stand in solidarity.

“We all read from the same Bible thus we should be able to stand together for justice,” Dixon said.

Furthermore, Rev. Frederick D. Haynes III said Austin is the new Selma.

“We’re coming to Austin to say Texas, America, you must be born again,” Haynes said. “Voter suppression and democratic subversion taking place in Texas is a result of an addiction to the big lie and it’s connectected to the terrorist sedition of Jan. 6.”

Not much you can say to that except “Amen”.

Scenarios: Where Texas Dems go from here.

Texas Democrats made national news this week when they once again denied a quorum in the state legislature, preventing the Texas House from conducting business and thus preventing the passage of an egregious voter suppression bill.

So what happens next? Democrats have some options here.

1. LOBBYING TO PASS FEDERAL VOTING RIGHTS LEGISLATION
In flying to D.C. to break quorum, Democrats are continuing their work in a different forum. Their presence expresses urgency to President Biden, Senator Schumer, and Speaker Pelosi to use their majorities to pass federal voting rights legislation.

This is bigger than just Texas, because what we’re seeing in the Lone Star State is what we also saw in state legislative chambers around the country – Donald Trump’s claim that he lost the election due to unsubstantiated voter fraud, also known as “The Big Lie,” has become the basis for voter suppression laws around the country.

Things like limiting the number of polling places in cities but not in rural areas, limiting access to vote by mail, limiting voting hours, criminalizing clerical errors on voter registration cards, allowing judges to overturn elections simply based on claims and not evidence, and empowering partisan poll watchers to interfere with balloting are some of the more egregious efforts in these bills.

Democrats must use their national leverage to protect our free and fair elections, and neither Donald Trump nor state legislatures should be allowed to stifle those elections.

Door #2 is “Keep delaying the special session”, perhaps until the Supreme Court settles the legislative funding veto; Door #3 is “Republicans can negotiate”; and Door #4 is “Democrats return, nothing changes”. We don’t want to open Door #4.

That’s all for today. Tune in tomorrow when I may do another one of these.

Yeah, Greg Abbott has a ton of money

Jul 12th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

It’s the one thing he’s really good at.

Gov. Greg Abbott is starting his 2022 reelection campaign with $55 million in the bank, a staggering figure even by the already high standards for which his fundraising is known.

His campaign coffers hit the balance after he raised over $18.7 million during the last 10 days of June, his campaign announced Thursday.

The campaign said the cash-on-hand total was larger “than any other statewide candidate in Texas history.”

Seeking a third term next year, Abbott already faces at least three primary challengers. They include former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas and Texas GOP Chair Allen West, who announced his campaign Sunday.

The total may be a new high, but none of this is a surprise. Like I said, raising money is Abbott’s core competency. It’s an advantage, but if Beto O’Rourke or Julian Castro run against him, they’ll be able to raise plenty of money, too. Wendy Davis raised decent money in 2014 – she had bigger problems to overcome. Lupe Valdez didn’t raise anything in 2018, but that was not at the top of the list of her problems as a candidate. It is what it is. Some of that money will have to be used fighting off the other lunatics in the Republican primary, and while having a hard-fought and expensive primary is not necessarily a negative for a candidate or a party, I suspect this primary will not be about things that engage non-hardcore voters. Whatever the case, this is where we are. No one ever said this was going to be easy.

McConaughey Poll II: It’s all still ridiculous

Jul 7th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

Sorry, none of the canonical sequel subtitles fit here.

Gov. Greg Abbott, after trailing potential challenger Matthew McConaughey in the spring, has rebounded and now has a slight — but not statistically significant — lead over the movie star in a hypothetical matchup in next year’s race for governor, according to a poll released Sunday by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler.

Abbott, a two-term Republican, is favored by 39% of Texans of all political stripes, while McConaughey, who hasn’t picked a political party or even committed to running, draws backing from 38%. Nearly a quarter of Texans said they’d vote for someone else.

The poll, conducted June 22-29, surveyed 1,090 registered voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

It showed that since April, Abbott has improved his standing with all voters, though he’s still behind among independents. He is likely to handily dispatch fellow Republican and former state Sen. Don Huffines of Dallas in their tussle for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. Among Texans who say they’ll vote in the Republican primary, Abbott leads Huffines, 77% to 12%.

While no major Democrat has announced against Abbott, former El Paso congressman and presidential hopeful Beto O’Rourke hasn’t ruled out another bid for statewide office.

If O’Rourke tosses his bandanna in the ring, he starts out behind: While about two-thirds of Democrats support O’Rourke, 78% of the more numerous Republicans back Abbott. And Abbott’s edging O’Rourke among independents (35%-28%), for an overall lead of 45%-33% in their general-election showdown.

[…]

Pollster Mark Owens, who teaches political science at UT-Tyler, noted that Abbott improved his standing with potential GOP primary voters, with 67% of them picking him over McConaughey in June, compared with just 59% in April.

Simultaneously, Abbott nearly doubled his admittedly small support among Democrats, to 15% in the latest poll. Among independents, McConaughey continued to lead Abbott, though by 39%-29%, compared with 44%-28% in April.

“Signing new laws and optimism of new jobs across the state has given a renewed context for Governor Abbott to regain support from conservative voters who were disaffected by pandemic restrictions,” Owens said.

See here for the poll data, and here for my discussion of the previous poll, for which all of my objections still apply. The one unsurprising thing about this poll is that it shows a reduction in support for McConaughey among Republican voters along with a corresponding rise in support for Greg Abbott among Republicans. This is not a surprise since (spoiler alert) Greg Abbott is the Republican candidate in the race, and Matthew McConaughey is not, and could not be in a November scenario against Abbott. It’s not noted in the story, but McConaughey’s support among Democrats also fell, from 66-8 in the April poll to 56-15 in this poll. That too is a reflection of the fact that at least at this time, McConaughey is not the Democratic candidate against Abbott, either. He still could be, if he wanted to and was willing to work for it, but until such time this is all just make believe.

As for the Beto/Abbott matchup, first let me say thank you for including the question, and second that in this poll Beto wins Democratic voters by a 66-17 margin. I feel confident saying that if this is the November 2022 race, Beto will get more than 66% of Democratic voters, and Greg Abbott will get less than 17%. Abbott will also get more than 78% of Republican voters – he wins them 78-9 in this poll – and Beto will get less than nine percent, though not that much less since there’s less room for it to shrink and there are always some crossovers. Point being, again, all this is a made up exercise in meaningless numbers.

The somewhat interesting result in this poll is the Don Huffines-versus-Greg Abbott question, which is bizarrely asked of all poll respondents and not just Republican primary voters. That’s how you get a result of 39% of Democrats saying they would vote for Don Huffines, instead of 100% of Democrats saying they would fling themselves off a cliff, given an election choice of Huffines and Abbott. For the “Republican primary voters” subsample, Abbott wins 77-12, with 11% saying they would vote for someone else. This was all done before Allen West decided to inflict himself on us, and so it serves as a data point to see what if any effect West’s entry into the race has on Abbott’s base level of support among Republicans. Does West pick up whatever support he gets from the 23% who already said they weren’t voting for Abbott, or does he peel away some of Abbott’s support? My guess is it’s more the former than the latter, but we’ll see.

The poll also has some approval/disapproval numbers, some issues polling, and an AG primary question. I’ll get to that in the next post.

Chron story on Odus Evbagharu

Jul 1st, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

Some good stuff here.

Odus Evbagharu

When Odus Evbagharu, a 28-year-old legislative staffer and campaign organizer, took the reins of the Harris County Democratic Party Sunday evening, he inherited a party that stands on some of its firmest footing in years, despite several defeats in 2020 that disappointed local Democrats.

Evbagharu succeeds former chair Lillie Schechter, who won the position in March 2017, months after Democrats had swept every countywide race and delivered Harris County to Hillary Clinton by 12 points. It was a massive swing from the 2014 midterms, when it was Republicans who swept the countywide slate, but also one that leaned heavily on deep-pocketed political donors and grass-roots activity by groups such as the Texas Organizing Project, amid lackluster fundraising from the party itself.

Now, Evbagharu is taking over a party that has taken in more than $2.2 million since the start of 2018 — double the amount raised during the last comparable three-year period from 2014 to 2016 — and overseen countywide sweeps in 2018 and 2020, too. Democrats also gained control of Harris County Commissioners Court under Schechter.

“We have a robust thing going down here,” Evbagharu said Monday. “Lillie did a good job of building a great foundation. Now it’s our job to build on top of it.”

Harris County Democrats, however, still are smarting from a number of 2020 losses in local elections they had cast as battleground races, including several contests for the Legislature and Congress, along with an open commissioners court seat race. Evbagharu attributed the Democrats’ underperformance in part to their reluctance to campaign in person during the coronavirus pandemic.

“I think what went awry was, we didn’t block walk,” Evbagharu said. “And I don’t want to oversimplify it, I don’t want to say there weren’t other factors. We’ve got to do better with our messaging, and our data’s got to be better as a party. I’m not afraid to say that out loud — polling accuracy, targeting, who we talk to and not just making assumptions.”

We talked about some of this stuff (and some of the stuff later in the story that I’ll get to in a minute) when I interviewed Odus a couple of weeks ago. I trust him to have a clear view of the data and to have a plan to shore up weaknesses and build on strengths. To whatever extent that the lack of Democratic blockwalking hurt last year – everyone agrees it did, it’s putting a number on it that’s hard – that will not be an issue in 2022. There will be new challenges, and who knows what the Trump Factor will be, and we will just have to try to figure them out and make a plan.

Evbagharu said the party’s strong position, relative to the one inherited by Schechter, means he can be more proactive in sharing resources and information with local Democratic parties in surrounding counties, some of which have made electoral gains in recent elections. He said he also hopes to attract a state or national Democratic Party convention to Harris County, a goal that could become easier if more of the Houston region becomes bluer.

“It’s great that Harris County’s always at the forefront, but we need Montgomery County, we need to at least cut margins there,” Evbagharu said. “We need Galveston County, we need Brazoria, we need Waller, we need Fort Bend, which is turning blue if not already blue. We need southeast Texas to be strong.”

Evbagharu said he also wants the party to be more aggressive in lobbying elected officials — including Democrats — on policy and issues, a role that traditionally has been left to activists and advocacy groups instead of the formal party apparatus. During the most recent legislative session, lawmakers passed “the greatest hits of the red meat Tea Party Republican whatever,” he said, arguing that the local Democratic Party has a stronger role to play.

“We have to make it a habit to engage our electeds in D.C., in Austin, here in Houston at county Commissioners Court, City Hall and school boards,” Evbagharu said. “…We have to do a better job of getting in there and fighting.”

Renée Cross, senior director of the Hobby School of Public Affairs at the University of Houston, said she was not aware of the Harris County Democratic Party ever making a concerted effort to share resources with other local parties. And the last time the party took a more aggressive on policy came under Sue Schechter, Lillie Schechter’s mother, who chaired the party in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Until now, Democrats were not in much of a position to do that, Cross said.

“If you’re the party that’s trying to gain power, all your emphasis is on getting those folks elected,” Cross said. “You just don’t have the luxury of lobbying, necessarily, if your party’s out of power.”

Still, county Democrats’ hold on power is far from ironclad as the 2022 elections approach, Cross said. For one, they will have mobilize enthusiasm without former president Donald Trump in office, and Democrats’ lineup of statewide candidates remains uncertain.

“There’s a big target sitting in the White House now, which we haven’t had in four years. Republicans are certainly going to go after Preisident Biden and VP Harris, so Odus is going to have to combat that continually,” Cross said. “…And there’s no doubt that part of the success in Harris County in 2018 was part of Beto (O’Rourke) being at the top of the ticket. It was the star power of Beto that really helped turn out the vote. And I think without that, Democrats have a really tough road ahead.”

We talked about some of this stuff too. I have been an advocate for better regional coordination – it’s not just in our interest from a statewide perspective, we will also have various offices (Congress, SBOE, State Senate, appellate courts) that cross county lines and need a bigger-than-Harris response. There may be a risk of overextending ourselves, but I can’t see any good reason to not at least be talking to our neighbors.

I respectfully disagree with Professor Cross – Beto surely gets some credit for 2018, but you know who was coordinating the HCDP combined campaign that year? Odus Evbagharu, that’s who. Look, Dems have proven their ability to win in high-turnout Presidential years since 2008. We won in a high-turnout off year in 2018, and I concede that until we win again in an off year there’s room to be skeptical. I would just point out a couple of things in rebuttal. One is that Dems have built a big edge in voter registration over the years, and we’re still very good at doing that work. Two, the shift in the Trump years of college-educated Anglo voters into the Democratic column has been profound – here again I will say that Mitt Romney got 60% of the vote in HD134 in 2012, while Joe Biden got and equivalent amount in 2020. National data shows no sign of this reversing or even slowing down, and what’s more these are very reliable voters. When I say that the climate is very different now, these things are a part of that.

We don’t know what the national climate will be like, and we don’t know what Joe Biden’s approval numbers will be. If they’re in the tank, then hell yeah we have problems. Dems either have to ensure that they don’t have a turnout problem in 2022, or they have to show they can still win in Harris County in a lower turnout environment. Bear in mind, there are risks for the Republicans too. They own any future blackouts due to weather, that’s for sure. Donald Trump is not going to sit by quietly, Ken Paxton could get arrested by the FBI, the reconstituted January 6 commission will be producing reports into next year – there’s lots of things that can go wrong for the GOP as well. I am pretty reasonably optimistic about 2022, at least from a Harris County perspective. Ask me again in a year and we’ll see if that has held up.

Quinnipiac: Abbott has weak re-elect numbers

Jun 25th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Interesting.

As Texas Governor Greg Abbott, a Republican, seeks reelection next year, voters in the Lone Star State are divided on whether or not he deserves to be reelected as 46 percent say he does and 48 percent say he does not deserve to be reelected, according to a Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pea-ack) University poll of registered voters in Texas released today.

Republicans say 82 – 13 percent that Abbott deserves to be reelected, while Democrats say 88 – 11 percent, and independents say 50 – 42 percent he does not deserve to be reelected.

With former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, a Democrat, not ruling out a possible gubernatorial run in 2022, voters overall say 52 – 41 percent they would not like to see him run for governor. Democrats say 77 – 14 percent they do want to see O’Rourke run for governor, independents are divided saying 50 – 45 percent they do not want to see him run, and Republicans say 89 – 6 percent they do not want to see O’Rourke run.

Another name gaining attention for a possible gubernatorial run is Matthew McConaughey, the actor and Texas native. His political party affiliation is unclear. While 41 percent of voters say they would like to see him run, 47 percent say they would not like to see him run. Independents and Democrats are split, as independents say 47 – 43 percent and Democrats say 44 – 43 percent they would like to see him run. Republicans say 60 – 29 percent they would not like to see him run.

Governor Greg Abbott receives a mixed job approval rating as 48 percent of Texas voters approve of the job he’s doing and 46 percent disapprove. This is little changed from his 48 – 44 percent job approval rating in July of 2020. Today’s disapproval rating is the highest for Abbott since being elected in 2018. Other job approvals are mostly mixed.

President Biden gets 45/50 approval numbers, while Abbott scores slightly better on favorability than he did on approval. For reasons I do not understand, they did not ask the obvious Abbott/Beto, Abbott/McConaughey, and Abbott/Beto/McConaughey horse race questions. The poll data is at the bottom, underneath the press release stuff. The Quinnpiac polling analyst sums Abbott up as “A Trump favorite in a state that is turning less red in recent election cycles, Abbott has a decent but in no way overwhelming grasp on reelection”. There’s a separate Q-poll out that asks about some issues, and I’ll get to that tomorrow. We haven’t had much in the way of polling data lately, so enjoy this for what it’s worth.

Everyone’s waiting on Beto

Jun 24th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

16 comments

Pardon me while I brew myself a cup of tea and stare meaningfully out the window.

Beto O’Rourke

Texas’ Republican statewide primaries are heating up as challengers emerged in recent weeks for both Gov. Greg Abbott and Attorney General Ken Paxton. But for all the Republican maneuvering, Democrats are remaining quiet about primary plans.

Texas Democrats are in a holding pattern as they plan for the 2022 cycle for two main reasons. First, the party establishment is waiting on former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke to announce whether he will run for governor.

Secondly, and crucially, incumbents and potential candidates across the state are awaiting the release this fall of new district maps to decide whether they’ll retire, run for reelection or consider a statewide bid. The new maps will come from the decennial redistricting process where lawmakers redraw the boundaries of the state’s congressional, legislative and State Board of Education districts.

“There’s a lot of planning and strategizing behind the scenes,” said Royce Brooks, the executive director of Annie’s List, the Texas Democratic women-in-politics group. “Whatever Beto decides to do is the domino that affects everybody.”

[…]

Beyond O’Rourke, there is some chatter that former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro or U.S. Rep. Joaquin Castro might make a run for governor. Otherwise, the field of potential candidates are a mix of current and former state legislators.

Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo remains a much pined-for candidate, particularly among female Democratic operatives, but so far she has not expressed interest in running statewide next year.

And there are some Democrats who have announced runs for statewide offices, but few are well-funded. Two candidates that have earned the most notice are Mike Collier, who ran for lieutenant governor two years ago and is making another run, and former Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski, who is running for attorney general.

[…]

In a traditional election cycle, candidates tend to roll out their campaigns over the spring and summer of the off-year, but this year potential candidates are still watching and waiting for the new district maps.

The entire Texas election calendar could also be moved back, due to the delayed census amid the COVID-19 pandemic and the ripple effect on reapportionment and the Texas Legislature’s ability to draw maps.

Some statewide Democratic candidates could emerge after the maps are finished. If a Democratic incumbent finds themselves in a carved up district where he or she has no chance at reelection, the notion of running statewide — still an incredible challenge for Democrats — actually could be an easier lift than reelection.

See here for the previous update. I would say that one race has “heated up” on the Republican side, and that’s the race for Attorney General, where the opportunity to challenge a guy who’s been indicted by the state, is being investigated by the FBI and sued by several former top staffers who accuse him of being a crook, and also facing a State Bar complaint for filing a frivolous and batshit crazy lawsuit to overturn the Presidential election, would normally be seen as an obvious thing for anyone with ambition to do. The entry of a low-wattage one-term former State Senator into the gubernatorial primary is in my mind no different than Steve Stockman’s 2014 primary challenge to Sen. John Cornyn, but your mileage may vary.

I’m as big a fan of Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo as anyone, but I say there’s a zero percent chance she runs statewide in 2022. There’s no evidence to suggest that this is something she wants to do. My personal belief is that she wants to finish the job she started as County Judge, and only then will she consider something different (which may be retiring from politics). I could be wrong, and if Democrats do break through in 2022 and President Biden carries Texas in 2024 then it’s certainly possible Judge Hidalgo could be one of presumably many Dems to throw a hat in for 2026, but the very composition of this sentence should be acting to cool your jets. I will be extremely surprised if she does something other than run for re-election in 2022.

The prospect of someone who loses out in redistricting running for something statewide is one I hadn’t really considered before. It didn’t happen in 2012, mostly because there wasn’t anyone for the Republicans to screw out of a seat that year, given how they beat anyone who was beatable in 2010. Republicans will have more targets this time, though they are also operating on much tighter margins, but I could see a legislator who gets left without a winnable district deciding to run for something statewide. If nothing else, it’s a good way to build name ID and a donor base, and puts you in the conversation for next time. It’s all too vague and theoretical now to toss out any names, but this is something to keep an eye on.

Oh, and before I forget: Please don’t make us wait too long, Beto.

You can announce any time now, Beto

Jun 22nd, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

Sunday at your rally would have been a good time, but honestly I’m not too picky about that.

Beto O’Rourke

About three weeks after Texas Democrats staged a dramatic walkout to temporarily kill a GOP-led voting restrictions bill, dozens of the party’s most active and well-known members gathered in front of the Texas Capitol to rally again for federal voting rights legislation.

The speakers ranged from one-time presidential candidates — former U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, who nearly unseated U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, and Julián Castro, the former mayor of San Antonio — to members of Congress, state representatives, city leaders and local activists. The rally was the last stop on O’Rourke’s “Drive for Democracy” tour, a statewide endeavor that included nearly 20 town halls across the Lone Star State.

Several thousand were in attendance, chanting “let us vote” between speakers and holding up signs: “Protect voting rights,” “Texas voters matter,” “Don’t mess with Texas voters.”

“They’re trying to rig the system to stay in office as long as they can, try to suppress the vote to make it harder — especially for Black and brown communities to vote in Texas — and we’re not going to let them,” Castro said of Republicans. “We’re going to fight back. We’re going to say no, and we’re going to show up.”

The rally comes as Congress is set to begin debating federal voting rights legislation — the so-called “For the People Act” — this week. The Democrat-led measures, H.R.1 or S.1, would mandate that all states implement automatic voter registration, offer mail-in ballots and use new voting machines, among other provisions.

I mean, we’ll know pretty quickly if we can have any kind of voting rights bill or if the filibuster is too precious to overcome. So, maybe by the end of the week? That would work for me. The Texas Signal has a brief interview with Beto that covers what he’s doing now and yes, the inevitable question about next year. For more on that last stop on the rally, see this other Signal story and the Austin Chronicle.

Beto’s still doing his thing

Jun 15th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

I’m still hoping it will turn into another thing.

Beto O’Rourke

More than just the Houston heat fired up the crowd at voting rights rally Sunday, where former Congressman Beto O’Rourke urged action against a restrictive bills being championed by Republicans.

“I don’t care about the Democratic Party,” O’Rourke told the crowd nearly two hours into the rally in 95-plus-degree heat at a Third Ward park. “I don’t care about the Republican Party. I care about democracy, and we are going to lose it if we do not stand up.”

[…]

Sunday’s rally doubled as a voter registration event, part of a series of efforts to preserve voting options and increase engagement. Democrats have said part of their push in recent elections has focused on reigniting the political activity of some residents.

A Saturday event with O’Rourke’s group, Powered by People, in Tarrant County led to 1,608 registrations, said Angeanette Thibodeaux, national director of the National Assistance Corporation of America, which is working with O’Rourke’s group on outreach.

Of those registered, however, Thibodeaux said 442, or more than one-quarter of the people signed up to vote, lack a personal identification. She said people must prepare themselves.

“This might not make me popular with everyone on this side, but if there is a rule, be compliant with the rule,” Thibodeaux said. “If I go to the doctor, I need to have my ID. You just have to prepare for that.”

Houston marks the midway point for O’Rourke’s barnstorming tour to rally against the proposed changes. He will be in Brenham and Prairie View on Monday before heading to Beaumont on Wednesday. The scheduled events conclude June 20 in Austin.

“I want us to hold the biggest voting rights rally in the state of Texas,” O’Rourke said.

See here and here for my earlier posts in which I (maybe foolishly) suggested that Beto might be gearing up to run for Governor. As such, I hope that Austin event culminates with an announcement to that effect, or at least the promise that some kind of Big Announcement is coming. He’s pretty much acting like a candidate otherwise, he may as well make it official.

We need to talk about Sid

Jun 14th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

I know, I don’t want to and you don’t want to talk about it, but Sid Miller might run for Governor, so we’re gonna have to talk about it.

Texas Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller doesn’t believe Texas Governor Greg Abbott can win a general election battle against Beto O’Rourke or any other Democrat for that matter. And that is why Miller is still considering a run for Texas Governor in the Republican Primary.

Miller joined The Chad Hasty Show on Wednesday to address his political future and accusations that he told Rep. Dustin Burrows to sit on the gender modification bill in Calendars Committee. Miller said he was lied to about Burrows sitting on the bill initially and told Burrows told “hold on” as he tried to get radio ads pulled accusing Burrows of sitting on the legislation. Miller said he was unsuccessful at trying to get the ads removed, but ultimately he does blame Burrows for killing the body modification bill.

After discussing the modification bill, the discussion focused on Miller’s future. Miller told Hasty that, “We need a new Governor for sure. I don’t think there is any way he (Abbott) can win a general election”. Miller said that in the “next couple of weeks” he would decide on whether or not to run for Governor or to run for reelection as Texas Agriculture Commissioner. When asked his thoughts on former President Trump’s endorsement of Abbott, Miller said the endorsement was “odd” and said, “I don’t know what that’s about. It was real, real strange”. Miller said that while the former President’s endorsement of Abbott has some “weight to it”, it wouldn’t stop him from running if he felt that he was called to run.

Miller would join former one-term Senator Don Huffines in trying to outflank Abbott from the right. I have no doubt that most of what we have seen this session, and now with the Great Wall of Abbott, was done with an eye towards the Republican primary. I find it fascinating that Miller thinks he would be more appealing to the 2022 general electorate than Abbott – as a reminder, Miller got 400K fewer votes than Abbott in 2018, and won by five points while Abbott was winning by 13 – but then many politicians have made successful careers being delusional in this way. I don’t know if Miller’s invocation of Beto is based on a belief that Beto is running or just hyping a bogeyman, but I’d be happy to see Beto pitted against any of them. I certainly believe that Miller is the weaker candidate of the two, but there’s only one way to find out.

Betsy Price to run for Tarrant County Judge

Jun 13th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

2 comments

I don’t usually pay much attention to county races outside the Houston area, but there are some points of interest to discuss about this.

Betsy Price

Outgoing Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price is running for Tarrant County judge in 2022, attempting a swift return to power in one of the state’s most politically important areas.

Price revealed the decision in interviews with North Texas TV stations that published Thursday morning, telling WFAA that she would make a formal announcement later.

“I promised my family I’d take a month or two off,” Price told WFAA. “I’m just getting this out there softly.”

The news of Price’s decision comes two days after the current county judge, Republican Glen Whitley, announced he would not run for reelection. He has since 2007 been at the helm of the county, the third most populous in the state and a historically Republican place where Democrats have been making inroads recently.

[…]

Price will not be unopposed in the March primary for county judge. Before Whitley made his retirement official, Tim O’Hare, former chairman of the county Republican Party, announced he was running for county judge. He launched with a list of GOP endorsements including current county GOP Chairman Rick Barnes, county Sheriff Bill Waybourn, and five state representatives from the area. O’Hare has since rolled out endorsements from U.S. Reps. Beth Van Duyne of Irving and Michael Burgess of Lewisville.

While Democrats do not have any known candidates for county judge yet, they can be expected to seriously contest the race after the county went their way at the top of the ticket in the last two statewide elections. The Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate in 2018, Beto O’Rourke, won the county, while President Joe Biden carried it two years later.

Here are the Tarrant County election results for 2018 and 2020. It’s widely noted that Beto O’Rourke carried Tarrant in 2018 (by a 49.93% to 49.24% margin) and Joe Biden carried it in 2020 (49.31% to 49.09%), becoming the first Dems in however long to do so. They were also the only Dems to do so. The other statewide candidates in 2018 lost by a range from one point (Justin Nelson) to ten points (Lupe Valdez), while the handful of countywide candidates all lost by about five points. This includes Lawrence Meyers (I assume the former Court of Criminal Appeals justice), who lost to now-outgoing County Judge Whitley by six points.

In 2020, the statewide Dems trailed in Tarrant by four to six points, with countywide candidates losing by six or seven points. One difference between 2018 and 2020 is that in 2018 there were literally no Democrats running for district court positions, while in 2020 there was a Dem in all but two of those races. My assumption is that the Dems will have a full slate of judicial candidates as in 2020 – there’s nothing like the hope of winning to generate that kind of interest.

We used to talk about Tarrant County as a proxy for Texas as a whole electorally. I’ve posted before about how the Presidential results in Tarrant almost eerily echoed the statewide results. That was true from 2004 through 2016, but the Beto breakthrough in 2018 was a sign that things were changing, and indeed Tarrant’s Presidential result in 2020 was several points to the left of the state’s. The county that most closely mirrored the statewide Presidential result in 2020 was Zapata, carried by Trump 52.5% to 47.1%. The closest big counties were Collin, slightly to the left at 51.4% to 47.1%, and Denton, slightly to the right at 53.2% to 45.2%.

Tarrant may have been too Democratic at the top level to be a statewide predictor, but at the District Court level they were much closer to the mark, with results ranging from 52.9% to 47.1% on one end to 53.9% to 46.1% on the other. What this reminds me of is Harris County in 2004, where District Court challengers got between 45.8% and 47.9% of the vote. That doesn’t mean anything for the path Tarrant County is on – Harris did shift a little towards Dems in 2006 before the 2008 breakthrough, in conditions that were very different from what we have now – it’s just an observation.

Finally, I don’t know anything about the other contenders for the GOP nomination for County Judge, but it’s plausible to me that someone like Betsy Price, a known quantity with a low-key style, might perform better against the partisan average than a more Trumpified Republican. Again, I don’t know the players and don’t know how that primary might shape up, but it seems highly unlikely to me that there won’t be a significant pro-Trump presence in that race. Trump is one of the two Republicans to lose Tarrant County since 2018. Make of that what you will.

Ground Game Texas

Jun 11th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

1 comment

This is good, too.

Julie Oliver

Some of Democrats’ biggest regrets about the 2020 election in Texas had to do with organizing. It was not consistent throughout the cycle — and usually isn’t in any cycle. It was supplanted by TV ads at the end. And it was hampered by the coronavirus pandemic.

Now, with the backing of the state’s most prominent Democrats, two former congressional candidates are trying to turn those regrets into action.

The candidates, Julie Oliver and Mike Siegel, are launching a new nonprofit called Ground Game Texas that will focus on year-round organizing on progressive issues, aiming to fill what they see as a statewide void for their party. The group starts off with a $1 million investment from Register2Vote, a national nonprofit that the two already help lead.

“There’s no off years and there’s no off cycles, and folks need to stay engaged year-round,” Siegel said in an interview, adding there is “kind of a tendency among Democratic activists” to get involved only in presidential-election years or high-profile down-ballot contests like the 2018 U.S. Senate race. “The Republican Party doesn’t do that. They never stop.”

Ground Game Texas will organize Texans around issues rather than candidates, with a focus on what Siegel and Oliver are calling “workers, wages and weed” — issues like raising the minimum wage and legalizing marijuana that poll well but are not reflected by Republican policymakers in the state. A February University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll found that 60% of registered voters in Texas support legalizing some amount of marijuana for any use. A similar number in April expressed support for increasing the federal minimum wage.

The group expects to throw its weight behind local ballot initiatives, which often involve a lot of ground work such as collecting signatures for petitions to put the issues on a ballot. Siegel said he has already had conversations about proposals in 10 cities — places like Mission, Bedford and Elgin. The leading ideas there, he said, are decriminalizing marijuana and creating funding for climate jobs.

[…]

Ground Game Texas is launching with the support of three of the best-known Texas Democrats: Julián Castro, Wendy Davis and Beto O’Rourke, who said in a statement that the new group “is going to meet Texans where they are at to listen to them about the issues that matter most.” And it starts with an advisory board that includes Davis; rising-star state Reps. James Talarico of Round Rock and Jasmine Crockett of Dallas; and longtime party stalwarts such as former Agriculture Commissioner Jim Hightower and Texas AFL-CIO president Rick Levy.

The advisory board additionally features Democrats who ran in nationally targeted districts last year and suffered some of the toughest losses, like Candace Valenzuela, who narrowly lost to now-U.S. Rep. Beth Van Duyne, R-Irving.

Both Oliver and Siegel have firsthand experience with the challenges Democrats faced last election cycle. They both performed surprisingly well when they ran against Republican incumbents in 2018 — Oliver against U.S. Rep. Roger Williams of Austin and Siegel against Rep. Michael McCaul of Austin. In 2020, both ran again, only to lose by larger margins.

In 2020, both gained the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which named them to its Red to Blue program for promising challengers. But they remain skeptical of the committee’s priorities.

“[The DCCC] doesn’t really invest in this sort of infrastructure building that Mike and I did in our campaigns,” Oliver said. “That strategy is so different between the DC strategy and the Texas strategy. … The DC strategy doesn’t really work here in Texas, so we want to do year-round organizing.”

The DCCC announced Monday that it was including Texas in an initial seven-figure investment nationally in on-the-ground organizing, calling it the “earliest ever organizing investment of this scale and scope in DCCC’s history.” The committee said it would target areas in Texas such as Dallas, Houston and the Rio Grande Valley, where Democrats notably underperformed last year.

As I’m sure you can guess, I approve of the issues they are focusing on. I very much think there’s ground to be gained by pushing real marijuana reform, and by “reform” I mean decriminalization, if not legalization. People across the board want it, and the single biggest impediment to it is Dan Patrick. I’m more skeptical of raising the minimum wage as a winning issue – note that the polling question is about whether one supports raising the federal minimum wage, not whether one supports raising the minimum wage in Texas – but am happy to push the idea. I trust that the focus on local ballot initiatives is a starting point, because that’s not going to get very far and any success they have is certain to wind up in court, if not in legislative pushback.

Putting emphasis on organizing when three’s not an actual election going on is a good and long-needed idea as well. Lots of people complain that no one talks to them about issues and what’s important to them outside of a “please vote for me” context, so this addresses that gap. We may find out that a lot of these people prefer being left alone most of the time, but there’s no way to know until you try. The bigger point here is that by having this kind of campaign infrastructure be year-round, you’re not having to rebuild from scratch every other year.

We’ve certainly seen various initiatives, promising various kinds of new engagement, come and go over the years. I’m sure that no matter what happens in 2022, in two years’ time I’ll be reading about yet another new effort to organize and engage and register. That’s fine, and it doesn’t mean that what came (and possibly went) before now was wasted or useless. We’ve had to try a lot of things, and to see what works and what doesn’t, we’ve learned from past experiences, and we have made a lot of progress even if the statewide breakthrough hasn’t happened yet. It would be much more concerning to me if we weren’t seeing new efforts like this, spearheaded in part by new additions to the political team, popping up and making news. We all have options for how we want to get involved now. Find the one that works best for you and get into it.

Precinct analysis: State House districts 2020, part 1

Jun 1st, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

Joe Biden carried 74 State House districts in 2020. That’s seven more than were won by Democratic candidates, but two fewer than Beto in 2018. Eight districts won by Biden were held by Republican incumbents, and there were two that were flipped one way or the other:


Dist    Biden    Trump   Biden%   Trump%
========================================
026    45,192   42,349    50.9%    47.7%
066    47,844   39,729    53.7%    44.6%
067    52,872   43,876    53.6%    44.5%
096    44,828   43,538    50.0%    48.6%
108    57,513   43,250    56.2%    42.3%
112    37,369   31,167    53.6%    44.7%
121    49,034   46,430    50.6%    47.9%
132    51,737   50,223    50.0%    48.5%
134    67,814   42,523    60.6%    38.0%
138    34,079   31,171    51.5%    47.1%

For comparison, here’s the analysis from 2018. The one Republican-held district that Beto won but Biden didn’t is HD64, which I’ll get to next. Biden won HD96, which Beto did not win. I have no idea how Morgan Meyer held on in HD108 with that strong a wind blowing against him, but you have to tip your cap. You also have to wonder how much longer he can do this – yes, I know, redistricting is coming, but Dallas is getting close to being Travis County at this point, and you just have to wonder how many seats winnable by Republicans there are if current trends continue. Note that Sarah Davis faced nearly the same conditions in 2020 as she had in 2018, except for having a stronger opponent. Meyer had the same opponent (Joanna Cattanach) as in 2018, and she raised good money, but he managed to win anyway.

I still don’t feel like we have a good understanding of why there were so many Biden/Republican voters. There’s been a lot done to try to explain why Republicans did better with Latino voters in 2020, while everyone is more or less taking it for granted that the stampede of former Republicans who are now voting Democratic is just part of the landscape. I look at these numbers and I am reminded of the same kind of splits we saw in 2016, when there were tons of people who voted for Hillary Clinton but then mostly voted Republican otherwise. I was skeptical of the optimism we had (at least initially) for CDs 07 and 32 and other districts because of those gaps, and then 2018 came along and erased those concerns. So what do we make of this? A last gasp of anti-Trump energy from people who still think of themselves (and vote like) Republicans, or a leading indicator of more to come in 2022? I wish I knew, and I wish there were people actively trying to find out. Note that doesn’t necessarily bring us closer to winning statewide, as Beto had a smaller margin than Biden did, but it does meant that the battle for the Legislature and Congress will continue to be heated, even with new maps.

Next up are the near misses, and the farther-out-but-still-within-sight districts that I had been keeping an eye on following 2018. Most of these are familiar:


Dist    Biden    Trump   Biden%   Trump%
========================================
014    30,188   33,690    45.9%    51.3%
028    60,101   63,906    47.8%    50.8%
029    45,951   51,494    46.5%    52.1%
054    35,995   36,093    48.9%    49.0%
064    42,908   46,093    47.2%    50.7%
092    39,262   39,386    49.0%    49.2%
093    40,679   43,897    47.3%    51.0%
094    37,375   38,724    48.3%    50.1%
097    41,007   42,494    48.2%    50.0%
122    57,972   68,621    45.2%    53.5%
126    36,031   38,651    47.6%    51.1%
133    43,263   47,038    47.3%    51.4%

032    31,699   38,011    44.7%    53.6%
070    53,870   75,198    40.9%    57.1%
084    24,928   34,575    41.1%    57.1%
085    34,743   43,818    43.6%    55.0%
089    45,410   55,914    44.0%    54.1%
106    59,024   70,752    44.8%    53.7%
129    38,941   47,389    44.4%    54.0%
150    42,933   55,261    43.1%    55.5%

Generally speaking, Beto did better in these districts than Biden did, which is consistent with Beto scoring higher overall, but not everywhere. Biden outpaced him in some more urban areas, like HDs 133, 122, and the aforementioned HD96. Usually where Beto did better it wasn’t by much, less than a point or so, but with bigger differences in less urban areas like HDs 14, 32, and 84. It may be that there was less-than-expected Republican turnout in 2018, so it’s hard to extrapolate to 2022, but it’s important to remember that the trend from 2016 is strongly Democratic in all of these places. And it’s happening in places you haven’t been paying attention to as well. HD70 may not look competitive, and I didn’t include it in the 2018 analysis (Beto got 40.4% there compared to 58.8% for Cruz), but in 2016 it was carried by Trump by a 61.6 to 32.2 margin. This district in northern Collin County used to be a landslide for Republicans, and now it’s on the long-range sensors for Democrats, in the same way that HDs 126 and 133 and 150 are.

Not everything is rainbows and puppies. There were two districts that Beto won and Biden lost. You can probably guess what kind of districts they were. Here they are, along with the other close and longer-term-something-to-think-about districts.


Dist    Biden    Trump   Biden%   Trump%
========================================
031    25,315   33,101    42.9%    56.1%
074    23,478   27,319    45.6%    53.1%

034    29,226   26,606    51.7%    47.0%
035    24,991   21,049    53.8%    45.3%
080    26,251   22,543    53.3%    45.8%

038    29,116   21,573    56.8%    42.1%
041    31,956   25,187    55.5%    43.7%
117    53,983   39,495    56.8%    41.6%
118    34,228   25,848    56.2%    42.4%
144    17,365   14,599    53.6%    45.0%

If you’ve been wondering why Reps like Ryan Guillen and Eddie Morales were voting for permitless carry and the bills to restrict cities’ ability to reduce police funding, that right there is the likely answer. Guillen has been around forever and likely was pretty safe even with that Trump surge, but Morales was defending an open seat. I don’t want to think about how much more obnoxious the media narrative of the 2020 election in Texas would have been had the Republicans flipped this one.

The three “near miss” districts, HDs 34, 35, and 80, look worrisome and will no doubt give the Republicans some ideas about what the 2022 map should look like, but keep two things in mind: One, as you will see in the next post, this was more of a Trump thing than anything else. Republicans did not do nearly as well farther down on the ballot. And two, nine of the Democratic “near miss” districts were closer than the 4.7 point margin in HD34. If the current map were to stay in place, we’d have more targets than they would.

The five longer-range districts don’t concern me much, especially the two Bexar County districts, where Biden had a higher percentage than Clinton in each and a bigger margin in HD117 (Clinton carried HD118 by a 55.1-40.0 margin). They were both closer than they were in 2018, but the overall trend in Bexar County is bluer.

Finally, here are the seats that the Democrats picked up in either 2016 (HD107) or 1028:


Dist    Biden    Trump   Biden%   Trump%
========================================
045    61,435   53,123    52.6%    45.5%
047    76,336   61,983    54.1%    43.9%
052    55,056   44,664    53.9%    43.7%
065    44,884   36,126    54.5%    43.9%
102    41,123   27,279    59.1%    39.2%
105    33,634   23,879    57.6%    40.9%
107    36,691   24,880    58.6%    39.8%
113    38,175   30,600    54.8%    43.9%
114    47,215   32,340    58.5%    40.1%
115    42,618   29,510    58.1%    40.3%
135    39,657   36,114    51.6%    47.0%
136    59,654   43,190    56.6%    40.9%

As we know, the narrative from the 2020 election is that Democrats went big trying to take over the State House and win a bunch of Congressional seats, but failed to do any of that and so the year was a big success for the Republicans. I don’t dispute the basic premise, but I feel like it’s only part of the story. Democrats did regain that State Senate seat they lost in the 2019 special election debacle, they won a State Board of Education seat for the first time in my memory, they won more appellate court benches, and they completed the flip of Fort Bend County. None of that gained much notice. More to the point, the Republicans had big plans to win back what they had lost in 2018, the year that they claimed was a huge fluke driven by Betomania and anti-Trump fervor. Yet they failed to retake CDs 07 and 32, and they only took back one of the 12 State House seats they had lost, which was balanced out by their loss of HD134, but somehow that’s never mentioned. They spent a ton of money on these races, Dave Carney was predicting they would gains seats overall, and they had expressed confidence in their ability to hold SD19. They not only failed broadly on all this, but Biden did better overall in the seats Beto carried in 2018, as the new Dem incumbents mostly cruised. Sometimes I wonder what the story would have been if Dems had won only six or seven seats in 2018, then picked up the others last year. Would we still think of 2020 as a failure that way? I have no idea.

So this is how things looked from a Presidential perspective. As we know, Biden ran ahead of the other Democrats on the statewide ballot, so you may be wondering how this looked from that viewpoint. The next entry in this series will be the State House districts for the Senate and Railroad Commissioner races. Tune in next time for the exciting followup to this very special episode.

We return again to the “Is Beto running for Governor” question

May 26th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

It’s all about tonal shifts.

Beto O’Rourke

There’s no road trip, no soul searching. No beard or blogging. But Beto O’Rourke is making a political life decision again.

Three years after becoming Democrats’ breakout star out of Texas, and a year removed from crashing back to Earth in a short-lived presidential run, O’Rourke is again weighing another campaign — this time for governor.

But now O’Rourke, who teased an announcement of his bid for the White House on the cover of Vanity Fair, is being quiet about it. He says he hasn’t ruled out anything, but isn’t saying much else. And Texas Democrats are itching for an answer.

“Impatience is not the word for it,” Texas Democratic Party chairman Gilberto Hinojosa said. “But anxious is.”

For months, O’Rourke has kept his options open. A top aide to the former Texas congressman and presidential candidate said O’Rouke, 48, has not ruled out challenging Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in 2022 but has taken no formal steps toward a campaign, like calling donors or recruiting staff. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss private deliberations more freely.

[…]

The decision facing O’Rourke comes at a dark moment for Texas Democrats, even by the standards of a hapless 25 years of getting clobbered in statewide elections and steamrolled in the Legislature. For one, they are still wobbling after their massive expectations for a 2020 breakthrough flopped spectacularly. The party had hoped to flip the Texas House and O’Rourke led a massive campaign to do just that, but failed to give Democrats a single extra seat.

The Election Day wipeout emboldened Texas Republicans, who have responded by muscling through staunchly conservative measures over guns, abortion and teaching curriculum that Democrats are all but powerless to stop.

Any Texas Democrat running for governor faces long odds against the well-funded Abbott, who could ultimately face a stiffer challenge from actor Matthew McConaughey and his musings about joining the race himself. Still, O’Rourke went from virtual unknown to nearly upsetting Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in 2018, and relishes the role of underdog.

You know my opinion, and the less said about McConaughey, the better. Honestly, this kind of “insider speaking anonymously to a reporter” story is an old tactic, meant to keep the name out there and gauge interest without having to make the formal commitments just yet. Not talking to a reporter, even anonymously, is always an option for someone who has no intention of being candidate, as well as their associates. In that light, this is an indicator that he really is thinking about running. But then, that is what I would think.

Oh Lord, we’re still talking about Matthew McConaughey

May 19th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

9 comments

Please make it stop. At least, please make it stop until and unless there is some actual thing that is worth talking about.

Alright, alright, alright … he might, he might, he might.

Matthew McConaughey has publicly said a run for Texas governor in 2022 is a “true consideration.”

But the Academy Award-winning actor’s interest goes a step further than musings in interviews. McConaughey has been quietly making calls to influential people in Texas political circles, including a deep-pocketed moderate Republican and energy CEO, to take their temperature on the race and to talk about seriously throwing his hat in the ring, according to multiple people familiar with the conversations.

Most political strategists say they doubt McConaughey, a Texas native, will sacrifice his status as a beloved cultural icon in the state for the dirty business of politics. They don’t see a viable path forward, either, pointing to Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s backing among the business community and millions in the bank — but the state’s political class is keeping a close eye on the Hollywood star’s plans nonetheless.

“I find it improbable, but it’s not out of the question,” said top Republican strategist Karl Rove, who relayed a recent encounter with Lawrence Wright, describing the New Yorker journalist as “hyperventilating” at the prospect that his close friend and fellow Texan might run. (Asked for comment on McConaughey, Wright replied in an email, “I’m trying to lower my profile in this, so I’ll politely decline.”)

[…]

“I’m a little more surprised that people aren’t taking him more seriously, honestly,” said Brendan Steinhauser, an Austin-based GOP strategist. “Celebrity in this country counts for a lot … it’s not like some C-list actor no one likes. He has an appeal.”

There’s little question that McConaughey — who became a household name for his starring roles in top films like “Dazed and Confused” and “Dallas Buyers Club,” delivering memorable lines in his signature languid drawl — would draw national media attention should he enter the race against Abbott.

What’s less clear is what kind of platform McConaughey would run on or even which party banner he would run under. McConaughey has been peppered with questions about politics and news of the day while promoting his memoir, “Greenlights,” but overall, has been vague about his political leanings, saying little about specific issues or policies.

The political calculations for a decision about party affiliation would also be tricky.

“The question is: Would he run as a Republican? A Democrat? Independent? And where is he on the political scale? He says he has a funny phrase about being a hardcore centrist, but what party would he run under?” said Rove.

See here and here for some background. God help me, I agree with Karl Rove, who is at least asking the right questions for these stupid articles.

There are only two types of people McConaughey could be talking to, assuming this isn’t all a bunch of hooey. One is the kind of person who could write him a very big check in the event he does run. He’s going to need a lot of those people, because Greg Abbott has a gazillion dollars in his campaign finance account. It’s true that McConaughey has more name recognition than your typical novice candidate, but he’d still have to let people know what he stands for and what he’d want to do, not to mention attack Abbott and defend himself from Abbott’s attacks. And two, he’ll need to talk to people who would be willing to work on his campaign. In the class of political professionals, there are likely two types: Those who will tell him that running a campaign will be very difficult and his odds of winning are not great, and those that will be happy to cash his checks. Good luck with that.

One more thing:

Meanwhile the Democratic Party has no announced candidate as of yet. Former Rep. Beto O’Rourke, whose 2018 Senate run against Ted Cruz vaulted him into national prominence and a failed presidential bid, has yet to make a decision about whether or not he enters the race.

Former HUD Secretary and fellow 2020 hopeful Julián Castro is another potential candidate.

“He hasn’t ruled anything out and we’re watching the race closely,” said Sawyer Hackett, executive director of Castro’s People First Future PAC.

We have discussed the Beto situation. This is the first I’ve heard from someone connected with Julian Castro on the topic in awhile, and it’s not a No. So there’s that. The Texas Signal has more.

Precinct analysis: State Senate districts 2020

May 17th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

5 comments

Hey, look, we now have some 2020 district data. I found it all on the new Texas Legislative Council redistricting landing page. As of last week, when I went digging, only the State Senate and State House have 2020 data, so I’m going to spend a little time with them.

The 2020 State Senate election results by district are here. The first thing you need to know is that Joe Biden carried 15 of the 31 Senate districts. Here they are, in descending order of Biden’s percentage:


Dist    Biden    Trump   Biden%   Trump%
========================================
23    237,533   52,415    80.9%    17.8%
13    208,895   46,896    80.8%    18.1%
14    347,953  132,727    70.8%    27.0%
29    180,899   87,022    66.5%    32.0%
26    191,570   92,307    66.4%    32.0%
06    123,709   61,089    66.1%    32.6%
15    208,552  110,485    64.5%    34.1%
27    125,040   90,758    57.3%    41.6%
16    210,107  159,233    56.0%    42.5%
19    176,256  149,924    53.3%    45.3%
21    155,987  132,733    53.2%    45.3%
10    199,896  170,688    53.1%    45.4%
20    143,598  128,363    52.2%    46.6%
17    212,242  193,514    51.6%    47.0%
08    231,252  211,190    51.3%    46.9%

For the record, Beto carried the same fifteen districts in 2018. I’ll do a separate post on comparisons with other years, but I figured that was a thought many of you might have, so let’s address it here.

Only Biden carried the two Republican districts, SD08 and SD17. The range for other Democrats in SD08 was 46.4% (Chrysta Castaneda) to 48.1% (Elizabeth Frizell), and in SD17 from 46.5% (Gisela Triana) to 49.0% (Tina Clinton). Every Democrat got over 50% in each of the 13 Dem-held districts. This is consistent with what we’ve seen in Harris and Fort Bend Counties, where Biden outperformed the rest of the ticket by three or four points. For what it’s worth, we saw a very similar pattern in 2016, when Hillary Clinton ran ahead of other Dems, in some cases by quite a bit more. I’m thinking specifically of CDs 07 and 32, but there are other examples. My big question all throughout the 2018 cycle was whether those voters who voted for Clinton but otherwise generally voted Republican downballot would be inclined to vote for more Democrats that year, and judging by the results I’d say the answer was mostly Yes. We’ll have to see what happens this time around.

I’m sure you’ve noticed the lower-than-expected percentages in the Latino districts. SD20 is Chuy Hinojosa, and he won re-election by a 58.5% to 48.5% margin. SD21 is Judith Zaffirini, and she cruised 60.1% to 39.9%, while our old friend Eddie Lucio took SD27 64.8% to 35.2%. You may recall that in an earlier post on the Latino vote in 2020, one factor put forward for Trump’s better-than-expected performance was incumbency. As you can see, these incumbent Dems all ran comfortably ahead of Joe Biden. Now take a look at SD19, where Roland Gutierrez knocked out incumbent Pete Flores with a seemingly unimpressive 49.9% to 46.7% score. However much stock you put in the overall hypothesis, I’d say Flores’ incumbency helped him here. Not enough, thankfully. As for the two urban districts, SDs 06, 26, and 29, I’ve discussed SD06 before, so I’ll skip it. SD26 is basically on par with 2016, while SD29 slipped a bit from then but improved by a little bit over 2012. Again, I’ll get into more detail in a subsequent post.

Where Democrats really improved is in the whiter urban and suburban districts. SD14 was always a Democratic stronghold, but it really punched above its weight in 2020. No Republican district generated as many votes for Trump as SD14 did for Biden, and only one Republican district had a wider margin for Trump. We Dems maybe don’t appreciate Travis County as much as we should. I’ve discussed SD15 and how it went from a solid Dem district to a powerhouse in 2020. Look at SD16, which was a Dem takeover in 2018, and marvel at how Mitt Romney won it in 2012 with 57% of the vote. This is the kind of voting behavior shift that should have Republicans worried, and as you’ll see there’s more where that came from. Similar story at a lesser scale in SD10, which Trump carried in 2016 by a fraction of a point.

And then we have the two Republican districts that Biden carried. Both were battlegrounds in 2018, and I think the closeness of the race in SD08 was a genuine surprise to a lot of people, myself included. That’s a district that has shifted enormously, but it’s got more company than you might think. To understand that better, let’s look at the districts that Trump won, as above sorted by the percentage that Biden got.


Dist    Biden    Trump   Biden%   Trump%
========================================
09    161,000  166,632    48.3%    50.0%
25    256,178  302,919    45.1%    53.3%
07    188,150  232,201    44.1%    54.5%
05    199,253  250,002    43.4%    54.5%
12    211,292  270,287    43.2%    55.2%
11    161,818  232,156    40.4%    58.0%
02    138,917  208,774    39.4%    59.2%
18    161,933  271,898    36.8%    61.9%
22    128,415  253,102    33.2%    65.4%
04    142,522  281,331    33.2%    65.5%
24    126,340  257,861    32.3%    65.9%
30    121,646  329,601    26.5%    71.9%
01     92,593  265,715    25.5%    73.3%
28     76,925  222,872    25.3%    73.3%
03     77,364  294,559    20.6%    78.4%
31     59,684  229,768    20.3%    78.2%

Biden came within less than six thousand votes of taking a 16th Senate district, which would have been a majority. SD09 was Beto’s nearest miss for a sixteenth as well, though he came a little closer. The top five here for Biden are the same for Beto, with SDs 05 and 07 flipped; indeed, all of these districts are more or less sorted in the same way for both years.

I will have more numbers in the next post to show just how much movement there’s been, but in the meantime feel free to look at the 2012 district results and see for yourself just how uncompetitive these district used to be. The 2011 Senate map gerrymander was extremely effective, until all of a sudden it wasn’t. The Republicans will have some challenges ahead of them this fall.

There is of course some spare capacity for the Republicans to use, but it’s not as simple as it looks. Here’s the current map, to illustrate. None of SDs 01, 28, or 31 is anywhere near a Democratic stronghold. SDs 03 and 30 do border on Dem areas, and of course those other three districts can be sliced and diced to siphon off some Dem support, but it’s not quite that simple. For one thing, shifting the center of gravity in these districts from their rural centers towards the urban and suburban parts of the state means that their rural constituents – the Republican base – get less attention and power. They also increase the risk of a primary challenge from an opponent in a higher population area. I think playing defense will be a more urgent priority for the Republicans – they may try to carve out a more amenable South Texas district to capitalize on the Latino shift, but it’s not clear how persistent that will be, and there are still Voting Rights Act protections in place to guard against that, however tenuously – but maybe they could take a shot at Sen. Powell in SD10. As with the Congressional map, it’s a question of their risk tolerance as well as their appetite for gain. We’ll know in a few months.

Beto and Julian rally against voter suppression

May 10th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

4 comments

Good to see after a couple of brutal weeks.

Beto O’Rourke

Democrats Beto O’Rourke and Julián Castro joined forces at the Texas Capitol on Saturday to rally against election reform bills that they called blatant attempts to suppress voters in Black and Hispanic communities.

As statewide elections near, Castro said Republicans in the Texas Legislature are responding with numerous bills aimed at suppressing minority voters.

“We are here today to say ‘No, we will not stand for that,’” the former San Antonio mayor told hundreds of activists who gathered on the south steps of the Capitol less than 24 hours after the Texas House approved an election reform that Democrats have vocally opposed.

O’Rourke, the former El Paso Congressman who is weighing a potential run for governor, said Republicans are focusing on restricting voting when there are much bigger issues facing the state.

“These jokers can’t even keep the lights on, or the heat on, or the water running when the temperature drops in Texas, now they want to take over our elections,” O’Rourke said in reference to the deadly February storms that left millions without electricity.

First of all, that’s a good line. Could use a little tightening up, but it can be applied to a lot of things as we go forward. Maybe if we all make a commitment to starting sentences with “They couldn’t keep the heat/lights on, but they still [did whatever]”, we might get some rhetorical advantage. You have to start somewhere.

Second, I note that the article that is linked to in that penultimate paragraph is one of the stories that ran where the initial headlines were that Beto was not going to run for Governor. Usually since then, the accepted journalistic usage has been something like “has not announced any plans”, or some other variation that suggests Beto is just living his life. This formulation is different, and it leans more in the direction that Beto is actively thinking about maybe running for Governor. Is that based on anything – background chatter, idle speculation from other pundits/reporters, the need for Something To Happen – or is it just a random variation that means nothing? I have no idea. It was just a think I noticed, and it made me raise my eyebrows a bit.

For what it’s worth, and I realize this may become a Freezing Cold Take down the line, I’m inclined to think Beto will in fact run for Governor. I think the fact that he has been extremely tight-lipped about it to this point is a strategic choice meant to keep the focus on what the Legislature has been doing on them and on the Republican leadership. In a world where he was already an announced, or even seriously rumored candidate, he’d be a foil for Abbott and the rest to play off of. Is this a sure thing? No, it’s second-rate tea leaf reading by someone who can easily shrug his shoulders if this turns out to be incorrect. Does this mean Julian Castro is a no go for Governor? No, it just means that I think the (subtle and possibly ephemeral) signs point more towards Beto. They’re not both running for Governor, I’m confident of that. I’ve been Team Julian all along, and if it turns out that he’s taking the plunge this time while Beto warms up for a Ted Cruz rematch (or open seat) in 2024, I’ll happily admit my error.

That’s what I think. Any wagers you place based on this are entirely your responsibility.

To Beto, or not to Beto

Apr 24th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

Comments are off for this post

That is the question. Whether tis nobler…oh, screw it. That’s far enough.

Beto O’Rourke

The midterm general election is more than a year away, but for O’Rourke, one of the most prominent Democrats in Texas, the grind of civic engagement never stops. Through his political organization, Powered by People, O’Rourke has been regularly hosting live and virtual events, whether it’s a canvassing event in the political hotbed of South Texas or phone banking sessions on Zoom.

And it’s not just events. O’Rourke has made himself visible during most of the biggest news stories in the state this year, raising questions about whether he’s got his eye on the race for governor in 2022.

In the past few months, Powered by People has hosted “vaccination canvasses” in 17 Texas cities “in some of the hardest-hit zip codes in the state, helping those who might not have access to the internet, or a cell phone or who might not speak English, a shot at getting the shot,” O’Rourke said in an email to supporters. O’Rourke activated his network during February’s winter storm, reportedly raising more than $1 million for recovery efforts and organizing volunteers to knock on doors and conduct wellness checks for seniors. O’Rourke himself delivered water in his pickup truck, broadcasting his efforts on Facebook Live.

And he has been engaged in the current session of the Texas Legislature, specifically pushing back against House Bill 6 and Senate Bill 7, two Republican-backed election bills that would beef up voting restrictions, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud. O’Rourke was in Austin a few weeks ago to testify against HB 6 but wasn’t able to after the chair of the committee that would have listened pushed back the hearing. He did testify against the Senate bill, calling it “unjust” and “undemocratic.”

“You realize how important your vote is when someone’s trying so hard to take it from you. And they wouldn’t be working so hard to stop people from voting if those votes and voters weren’t so important,” O’Rourke said in a phone call with the Tribune.

When asked in an interview about his future, the former congressman from El Paso said working in politics and civic engagement “just seems like the most important work that I could ever be a part of.”

But many, of course, see other motives. O’Rourke is frequently asked whether he plans to challenge Gov. Greg Abbott next year. His answer is almost always noncommittal. Earlier this month, he told a TV interviewer that he had “no plans” to run. When that generated a headline in The Dallas Morning News, O’Rourke reached out to the Tribune to clarify that “nothing I said would preclude me from considering a run in the future.”

We covered that little kerfuffle, and no more need be said about it. Look, I don’t know if Beto is going to run for Governor. You don’t know if Beto is going to run for Governor. I’m not sure Beto knows if Beto is going to run for Governor. If he is, what he’s doing now is a damn fine preparation for it, and I can’t think of anything else I’d rather he be doing. If he isn’t, what he’s doing now and would presumably continue to do in support of someone else is also exactly what I’d want him to be doing. At some point, either he will tell us whether or not he’s a candidate, or his silence will become enough of an indicator for us to conclude that on our own. In the meantime, maybe join a Powered By People event and give a hand to whoever does run.

What is the point of this Matthew McConaughey poll?

Apr 19th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

6 comments

I have questions about this.

Matthew McConaughey commands more support to be Texas’ next governor than incumbent Greg Abbott, according to a poll released Sunday by The Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler.

However, the film actor and political newcomer could hit potholes in either major party’s primary if he enters next year’s governor’s race, the poll found.

For months, McConaughey has teased political pundits and TV talk show hosts with musings that he might enter politics in his home state.

If he were to take the plunge and run for governor, the poll found, 45% of Texas registered voters would vote for McConaughey, 33% would vote for Abbott and 22% would vote for someone else.

McConaughey’s double-digit lead over the two-term Republican incumbent is significant. The poll, conducted April 6-13, surveyed 1,126 registered voters and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.92 percentage points.

But 56% of Republican voters said they’d vote for Abbott, compared with only 30% for McConaughey.

While Democrats broke 66% to 8% for McConaughey, and independents 44% to 28%, more than twice as many Democratic primary voters — 51% — said they wanted a progressive candidate for governor than wanted a centrist — 25%.

That could pose a problem. McConaughey, who has criticized both major parties, has suggested he’s more of a moderate.

And in the GOP gubernatorial primary, that’s also not obviously a ticket to success. Solid majorities of poll respondents who described themselves as conservative, evangelical or retirement-age Republican primary voters said they’d vote for Abbott.

[…]

Jason Stanford, who managed the campaign of second-place finisher and Democrat Chris Bell in the 2006 gubernatorial race, said McConaughey poses no threat to Abbott.

“There doesn’t appear to be a huge groundswell of discontent for Abbott,” Stanford said. Once McConaughey declares as a Democrat or Republican, reality will set in with Texas voters, he added.

“If you ID as a Democrat or a Republican, you’re going to get different answers about him in polls,” Stanford said. “He’s fun, but once you put him in a political context, things will change.”

Poll details can be found here. There’s some issues and approval polling that I’ll get to in a separate post and which is actually kind of interesting, but as for the Abbott/McConaughey question, the only thing you need to read is what Jason Sanford said, because he’s 100% correct.

The first problem with this poll question is in the question itself, which is worded as follows: “Matthew McConaughey has been talked about as a potential candidate for Governor of Texas. If he ran, would you be likely to support him more than Governor Abbott?” Do you see what’s missing in that question? It’s any mention of what (if any) party McConaughey would be claiming. If he’s running as a Democrat against Abbott, then there’s no way in hell he gets 30% of Republicans to support him. Even getting ten percent would be seismic and likely enough to win, but we can’t tell what kind of actual crossover appeal he might have because the question is asked without that piece of information, leaving the respondent to assume that this is some theoretical, non-partisan race. You know, the kind that we don’t have for state elections.

If McConaughey were to run as an independent, then this would need to be polled as a three-way race, because the Democrats would surely have a candidate as well. One could possibly imagine a scenario in which McConaughey mounted an independent campaign and the Texas Democratic Party decided as a tactical matter to support him, the way Dems have supported independent candidates for Senate or Governor in Maine and Kansas and Alaska in recent years. The problem with that scenario is that while McConaughey could announce his independent candidacy now and start staffing up for it, he can’t begin the petition process to get on the ballot until after the primary election, or after the primary runoff if there was one for Governor, and there’s nothing to stop someone from filing to run as a Democrat in the primary in the meantime. Any Democratic nominee, whether a candidate who might be viable against Abbott on their own or a more marginal type who still has appeal to some part of the Democratic base, will draw enough support to make an independent far less competitive in the general. To put it another way, it’s extremely unlikely Matthew McConaughey gets 66% of the Democratic vote in a three-way race.

Maybe I’m wrong about these assertions. You could ask again and name McConaughey as the Democratic nominee, and see how much Republican support he gets. You could also ask about a three-way race that features Abbott and McConaughey and an actual, named Democrat. And if you’re going to do that, why not also ask the horse-race question about just Abbott and that same Dem? Why not ask the Abbott-versus-Beto and/or Abbott-versus-Julian question, which would allow a comparison to McConaughey as a Dem, then ask again with McConaughey in there as an independent? We all understand that at this point in the calendar all these questions are mostly for funsies, but with some useful information in there if you know how to look for it. At least the Abbott/Beto or Abbott/Julian questions would give a data point about whether Dems have any cause to feel optimistic or not, and the three-way race question might tell us something about how much Republican support for Abbott is softer than it looks. Any of it would tell us more than the actual question did.

And of course, if McConaughey were to run against Abbott in a Republican primary, then asking this question in a sample that includes more non-Republicans than Republicans is going to give you a nonsense answer. Point being, if I haven’t beaten it to a sufficiently bloody pulp yet, identifying McConaughey’s partisan affiliation in this question matters. Not including it makes this whole exercise useless for anything that blog fodder and Twitter posts. Which they got, so mission accomplished.

One more thing, before I end this post and write the other one about approvals and issues polling: For some reason, the sample – which as before is partly phone and partly web panel, and all made up of registered voters – voted in the 2020 Presidential election as follows:

Trump – 36%
Biden – 32%
Other – 1%
Did not vote – 30%
Refused to say – 1%

If you’re thinking that’s an awfully large “did not vote” percentage, consider how the sample from their March poll answered the same question:

Trump – 43%
Biden – 38%
Other – 4%
Did not vote – 11%
Refused to say – 4%

Why so different? I have no idea. Why do we think we can draw reasonable conclusions from a poll sample that includes such a large number of people who didn’t vote in the highest turnout election in Texas history? Again, I have no idea. To be sure, the 2022 election will have smaller turnout, and an RV sample is all that makes sense at this time. But maybe weighting the sample a bit more towards actual voters might make any projections about the next election more accurate.

Mike Collier gearing up again

Apr 7th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

9 comments

I was hoping he’d be back.

Mike Collier

Mike Collier, the 2018 Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor who lost to Dan Patrick by 5 percentage points, is gearing up for another run.

Collier is launching an exploratory committee to challenge Patrick again next year, though he said it is more of a “confirmatory” committee and that he is “intent on doing this.”

“This is a rematch, and it’s all about holding Dan Patrick accountable,” Collier said in an interview, arguing that two major recent events — the winter weather emergency and coronavirus pandemic — have shown “what poor leadership does in the state of Texas.”

Collier, a Houston-area accountant, said he plans to pitch himself much like he did in 2018, playing the mild-mannered policy wonk to Patrick’s conservative firebrand. But he said he believes he has additional factors working in his favor this time, and not just the recent crises that have put a harsh spotlight on Texas Republican leaders. He has assembled a top-flight campaign team, is better-known statewide than ever and believes President Joe Biden will be an asset, not a liability, next year in Texas.

“Biden, I believe, is going to be a very popular president because his policies make sense, and then we have COVID, and then we have an insurrection, and then we have a power crisis, and all sorts of reasons for people to pay attention,” Collier said. “So you roll all that together, and I think it’s a very winnable race.”

Collier remained politically active after his 2018 run, continuing to criticize Patrick and endorsing Biden early in the 2020 primary. Collier went on to serve as a senior adviser to Biden’s Texas campaign in the general election.

Collier’s campaign-in-waiting includes alumni of Biden’s campaign both nationally and in Texas. Collier is working with ALG Research, Biden’s pollster, as well as Crystal Perkins, the former Texas Democratic Party executive director who was Biden’s finance director for a region that included Texas.

Collier acknowledged he needs to raise more money than he did in 2018, when he collected $1.3 million over the two-year election cycle, a fraction of Patrick’s fundraising. However, Collier said his team has “already been in communication with the donors [for 2022] and we feel very bullish about that.”

I’m a longtime fan of Mike Collier, and I think he’s an asset on the ticket. He’s correctly identified his main weakness from 2018, and appears to be working on it. The thing about running against Dan Patrick is that you can let him grab most of the attention – it’s not like you can prevent him from doing that – but you do need to be able to remind everyone that they have another choice. Collier was a top performer in 2018 because he was an acceptable choice to voters who were sick of Patrick. If he can build on that – and if he’s right about the national atmosphere and President Biden’s relative popularity – he can win. The Chron has more.

More local pushback against SB7 and HB6

Apr 7th, 2021

by Charles Kuffner.

3 comments

From the inbox:

Mayor Sylvester Turner invited a diverse group of elected officials, community leaders, and business executives to stand in solidarity against voter suppression bills in the Texas Legislature.

More than 50 individuals and organizations have vowed to fight Senate Bill 7 and House Bill 6, which would make voting more difficult and less accessible to people of color and people with disabilities.

“The right to vote is sacred. In the 1800’s and 1900’s in this country, women, and people of color had to fight to obtain that right to vote,” Mayor Turner said. “In 2021, we find ourselves again fighting bills filed in legislatures across this country that would restrict and suppress the right of people to vote. These bills are Jim Crow 2.0.”

In addition to elected and appointed officials from Harris and Fort Bend Counties, prominent attorneys, Christian, Jewish and Muslim faith-based leaders joined the mayor Monday afternoon.

Representatives from the following organizations were also present:

NAACP, Houston Area Urban League, Houston LGBT Chamber of Commerce, Houston Asian Chamber of Commerce, League of Women Voters Houston, Houston in Action, FIEL, ACLU, Communications Workers of American, IAPAC, Mi Familia Vota, Houston Black Chamber of Commerce, Southwest Pipe Trades Association, National Federation for the Blind of Texas, Houston Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Employment & Training Centers, Inc. and others.

Watch the entire voter suppression news conference here.

I’ll get to the Chron story on this in a minute. The TV stations were at this presser, and KTRK had the best coverage.

Mayor Sylvester Turner hit at a GOP-led effort that lawmakers say protects the integrity of Texas ballots, but what leaders around Houston believe do nothing but suppress the right to vote.

Turner was joined by leaders including Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo and Fort Bend County Judge K.P. George at the George R. Brown Convention Center on Monday.

Multiple major corporations based in Texas have already spoken out in opposition to Republican-led legislative proposals to further restrict voting in Texas.

[…]

Both measures are legislative priorities for Texas Republicans, who this year are mounting a broad campaign to scale up the state’s already restrictive voting rules and pull back on local voting initiatives championed in diverse urban centers, namely in Harris County, during a high-turnout election in which Democrats continued to drive up their margins. That push echoes national legislative efforts by Republicans to change voting rules after voters of color helped flip key states to Democratic control.

Click over to see their video. One more such effort came on Tuesday.

The press conference was convened by the Texas Voting Rights Coalition and included statements from MOVE Texas, Black Voters Matter, Texas Organizing Project, Texas Civil Rights Project and the Barbara Jordan Leadership Institute. Beto O’Rourke, who traveled to the Texas State Capitol to testify against HB 6, and Julián Castro also spoke at the press conference.

This latest move comes after American Airlines became the largest Texas-based company to announce their opposition to voter suppression bills in Texas. Several of the speakers specifically called out Dallas-based AT&T for their silence in the wake of voter suppression legislation.

Cliff Albright from Black Voters Matter, which is based out of Georgia but has several statewide chapters, cited the corporate accountability campaign that took place in his own state after the governor signed sweeping legislation targeting the right to vote, which prompted Delta Airlines and Coca-Cola to belatedly issue statements against that legislation. “If AT&T can convince folks to upgrade a phone every few months, certainly they can convince folks that voter suppression is bad,” Albright said. He also mentioned companies with a national profile should be speaking out in favor of voting rights legislation, like H.R. 1, which recently passed the U.S. House of Representatives.

O’Rourke also leaned into the pressure that Texans can place on companies like AT&T. He also mentioned several other Texas-based companies like Toyota, Frito Lay, and Southwest Airlines as organizations that should lend their voice against voter suppression. “Reach out to these companies, you are their customer you have some leverage, ask them to stand up and do the right thing while we still have time,” he said.

Castro was blunt about SB7 and HB6. “This is a Republican party power grab,” he said. Castro also called on companies to develop a consciousness regarding the right to vote. “Companies in the state of Texas and outside of it who do business here can choose to either stand on the side of making sure people have the right to vote and are able to exercise that right, or they can stand on the side of a party that is only concerned with maintaining its power and want to disenfranchise especially black and brown voters to do that.”

Castro also emphasized that the legislation in Texas is also about voter intimidation. The former mayor of San Antonio pointed out that one of the provisions in the legislation allows for the videotaping of any voter suspected of committing fraud, even though voter fraud almost never happens.

Mimi Marziani, the President of the Texas Civil Rights Project (TCRP), also spoke about the grave effects this legislation would have on communities of color. Marziani highlighted some findings that TCRP is releasing later in the week from renowned economist Dr. Ray Perryman that shows that voter suppression leads to less political power, lower wages, and even decreased education.

Marziani also mentioned that voter suppression bills have a track record of impacting states and their ability to generate tourism. “Big event organizers might choose to avoid a state altogether and avoid any appearance of approving a controversial policy,” she said. Marziani cited the decision of Major League Baseball to relocate their All-Star Game out of Atlanta as a recent example.

In terms of direct action towards Texas-based companies, the event organizers indicated that there are going to be several ongoing calls to actions including email campaigns and phone drives. Jane Hamilton, from the Barbara Jordan Leadership Institute, said her organization (along with the Texas Organizing Project) would be holding a press conference outside of AT&T’s Dallas headquarters later this week to engage with them directly.

And one more:

Major League Baseball’s decision to pull the 2021 All-Star Game from Atlanta over Georgia’s recent controversial voter law is sparking calls for other organizations to do the same but in Texas.

Progress Texas says that the NCAA should reconsider holding men’s basketball games in Texas in the coming years due to election bills currently on the table in the Texas Legislature.

[…]

“Since Texas Republicans insist on pushing Jim Crow voter suppression efforts, the NCAA basketball tournament should insist on pulling next year’s first and second-round games out of Fort Worth and San Antonio,” said Ed Espinoza, executive director at Progress Texas in a release. “The NCAA can join American Airlines, Dell, Microsoft, and Southwest Airlines and send a message to Texas lawmakers: we won’t stand for voter suppression.”

[…]

According to the NCAA’s men’s basketball calendar, Texas Christian University in Fort Worth and the University of Texas at San Antonio in San Antonio are currently set to hold preliminary rounds in 2022, and Houston and San Antonio are set to host the national championship games in 2023 and 2025 respectively.

The NCAA has previously pulled games due to controversial legislation. In 2016, the NCAA relocated seven previously awarded championship events from North Carolina over the since-repealed HB 2, a law that required transgender people to use public bathrooms that conform to the sex on their birth certificate.

Swing for the fences, I say. All this is great, and I’m delighted to see companies like AT&T come under increased pressure. There’s a lot to be said about the national response from businesses in favor of voting rights, and the whiny freakout it has received in response from national Republicans, but this post is already pretty long.

I applaud all the effort, which is vital and necessary, but it’s best to maintain some perspective. These bills are Republican priorities – emergency items, you may recall – and they say they are not deterred.

State Sen. Bryan Hughes, R-Mineola, the author of SB7, said some of the bill’s anti-fraud measures are being lost in the “national narrative” about it. He pointed to improved signature verification rules to make sure absentee ballots are thrown out when they don’t match. Another provision would allow people to track their absentee ballots so they can see that they arrived and were counted.

Still, critics have focused on how the legislation will end drive-thru voting and 24-hour early voting locations, both of which were popular in Harris County during the 2020 election, which saw record turnout statewide.

One of those businesses trying to make itself heard is American Airlines.

“To make American’s stance clear: We are strongly opposed to this bill and others like it,” the carrier said in a statement released Friday.

[Lt. Gove Dan] Patrick fired back a short time later.

“Texans are fed up with corporations that don’t share our values trying to dictate public policy,” Patrick said. “The majority of Texans support maintaining the integrity of our elections, which is why I made it a priority this legislative session. Senate Bill 7 includes comprehensive reforms that will ensure voting in Texas is consistent statewide and secure.”

Patrick is scheduled to hold a news conference Tuesday to further defend the election reform bill against such criticism.

Hughes said he’s willing to listen to the business leaders upset with the bill, but he said many haven’t been clear about exactly what they want changed in the legislation.

“They haven’t told us what about the bill they don’t like,” Hughes said.

We’ll get to Dan Patrick in a minute. As for Sen. Hughes, the problem with signature verification rules is that there’s no standard for matching signatures, it’s just the judgment of whoever is looking at the ballot. People’s signatures change over time – mine certainly has, from a mostly-readable cursive to an unintelligible scrawl. More to the point, various studies have shown that the mail ballots for Black voters get rejected at a higher rate than they do for white voters. As for what the corporations don’t like about SB7, that’s easy: They don’t like the bill. It’s a kitchen sink of bad ideas for non-problems. Just take out everything except for the provision to allow people to track their absentee ballots online.

I am generally pessimistic about the chances of beating either of these bills, but there may be some hope:

.
1. You might think that there is no chance to stop voter suppression legislation in Texas because Republicans control everything.

But passage is not certain.

The key chamber is the Texas House.

Follow along if interested.

— Judd Legum (@juddlegum) 7:39 AM – 05 April 2021

Legum notes that there are at least two House Republicans who have publicly voiced criticisms of SB7 and HB6, and if they are actual opponents of the bills it would only take seven of their colleagues to have a majority against them. Still seems like a steep hill to climb, but maybe not impossible. If you have a Republican representative, you really need to call them and register your opposition to these bills.

As for Dan Patrick and his Tuesday press conference, well…

.
Q: “If all 3 cases in Pennsylvania do lead to convictions, do you plan on giving the lieutenant governor his reward money?”

Patrick: “You know, just go — you know, don’t ask me a stupid question. I didn’t come here to take stupid questions from the media. It’s ridiculous, OK?”

— Patrick Svitek (@PatrickSvitek) 10:59 AM – 06 April 2021

Is there a bigger crybaby in Texas than Dan Patrick? None that I can think of. His little diatribe was also covered, with a reasonable amount of context.

Beto O’Rourke

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