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HD102

The filings I’m still looking for

Dec 13th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Today is Filing Deadline Day. By the end of today, we’ll know who is and isn’t running for what. While we wait for that, let’s review the filings that have not yet happened, to see what mysteries may remain.

Congress: Most of the potentially competitive districts have Democratic candidates in them. The ones that remain are CDs 22, 26, 31, and 38, though I have been told there is a candidate lined up for that latter slot. Of the rest, CD22 would be the biggest miss if no one files. I have to think someone will, but we’ll know soon enough.

For open seats, CD15 has five candidates so far, none of whom are familiar to me. CD30 has six candidates, with State Rep. Jasmine Crockett receiving the endorsement of outgoing Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson. CD34 has six, with current CD15 Rep. Vicente Gonzalez the presumed favorite. CD35 has three serious contenders – Austin City Council member Greg Casar, former San Antonio City Council Member Rebecca Viagran, and State Rep. Eddie Rodrigues – and one person you’ve not heard of. CD37 has Rep. Lloyd Doggett and former CD31 candidate Donna Imam, in addition to a couple of low-profile hopefuls, but it will not have former CD25 candidate Julie Oliver, who has said she will not run.

Democratic incumbents who have primary challengers include Rep. Lizzie Fletcher in CD07 (I’m still waiting to see if Centrell Reed makes some kind of announcement); Rep. Veronica Escobar in CD16 (I don’t get the sense her challenger is a serious one); and Rep. Henry Cuellar in CD28, who gets a rematch with Jessica Cisneros, who came close to beating him last year. The Svitek spreadsheet lists some dude as a potential challenger in CD18 against Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, but so far no filing. Reps. Al Green, Joaquin Castro, Sylvia Garcia, Colin Allred, and Marc Veasey do not appear to have any challengers as of this morning.

Statewide: Pretty much everyone who has said they are a candidate has filed. Frequent candidate Michael Cooper and someone named Innocencio Barrientez have filed for Governor, making it a four-candidate field. Two Harris County district court judges, Julia Maldonado and Robert Johnson, have filed for slots on the Supreme Court and CCA, respectively. The Svitek spreadsheet lists potential but not yet filed contenders for two other Supreme Court positions but has no listings for CCA. The one potential candidate who has not yet taken action is Carla Brailey, who may or may not file for Lt. Governor.

SBOE: As this is a post-redistricting year, all SBOE seats are on the ballot, as are all State Senate seats. Dems have four reasonable challenge opportunities: Michelle Palmer is running again in SBOE6, Jonathan Cocks switched from the Land Commissioner race to file in SBOE8, Alex Cornwallis is in SBOE12, and then there’s whatever is happening in SBOE11. The good news is that DC Caldwell has company in the primary, if he is actually allowed to run in it, as Luis Sifuentes is also running. I would advise voting for Sifuentes.

There are two open Democratic seats, plus one that I’m not sure about. Ruben Cortez in SBOE2 and Lawrence Allen in SBOE4 are running for HDs 37 and 26, respectively. There are two candidates in 2 and three candidates in 4, so far. Georgina Perez is the incumbent in SBOE1 but as yet has not filed. If she has announced that she’s not running, I have not seen it. There is a candidate named Melissa Ortega in the race.

In SBOE5, the district that was flipped by Rebecca Bell-Metereau in 2020 and was subsequently made more Democratic in redistricting, we have the one primary challenge to an incumbent so far, as a candidate named Juan Juarez has filed against Bell-Metereau. I’m old enough to remember Marisa Perez coming out of nowhere to oust Michael Soto in 2012, so anything can happen here. The aforementioned Perez (now Marisa Perez-Diaz) and Aicha Davis are unopposed so far.

Senate: Nothing much here that you don’t already know. Every incumbent except Eddie Lucio has filed for re-election, and none of them have primary opponents so far. Lucio’s SD27 has the three challengers we knew about, Sara Stapleton-Barrera, State Rep. Alex Dominguez, and Morgan LaMantia. A candidate named Misty Bishop had filed for SD07, was rejected, and has since re-filed for SD04; I’m going to guess that residency issues were at play. There are Dem challengers in SD09 (Gwenn Burud, who has run for this office before) and SD17 (Miguel Gonzalez), but no one yet for SDs 07 or 08.

House: Here’s the list of potentially competitive districts, for some value of the word “competitive”. Now here’s a list of districts on that list that do not yet have a filed candidate:

HD14
HD25
HD28
HD29
HD55
HD57
HD61
HD66
HD67
HD84
HD89
HD96
HD106
HD126
HD129
HD133
HD150

I’m told there’s someone lined up for HD133. We’ll see about the rest.

All of the open seats have at least one candidate in them so far except for HD22, the seat now held by Joe Deshotel. There’s a name listed on the Svitek spreadsheet, so I assume that will be sorted by the end of the day.

Reps. Ron Reynolds (HD27), Ana-Maria Ramos (HD102), and Carl Sherman (HD109) are incumbents who have not yet filed. No one else has filed yet in those districts as well. Svitek has a note saying that Rep. Ramos has confirmed she will file; there are no notes for the other two. There is the possibility of a last-minute retirement, with a possibly preferred successor coming in at the same time.

Here is a complete list of Democratic House incumbents who face a primary challenge: Rep. Richard Raymond (HD42) and Rep. Alma Allen (HD131). Both have faced and turned away such opponents in the past. If there was supposed to be a wave of primary opponents to incumbents who came back early from Washington, they have not shown up yet.

Rep. James Talarico has moved from HD52 to the open HD50 after HD52 was made into a lean-Republican district. Rep. Claudia Ordaz-Perez, the incumbent in HD76, will run in HD79 against Rep. Art Fierro after HD76 was relocated from El Paso to Fort Bend.

Harris County: Again, nothing new here. Erica Davis has not yet filed for County Judge. County Clerk Teneshia Hudpseth is the only non-judicial incumbent without a primary opponent so far.

Far as I can tell, all of the county judicial slots have at least one filing in them, except for a couple of Justice of the Peace positions. George Risner, the JP in Precinct 2, Place 2 (all JP Place 2 slots are on the ballot this year) has not yet filed, amid rumors that he is mulling a challenge to Commissioner Adrian Garcia. Incumbent Angela Rodriguez in JP precinct 6 has not yet filed. No Dem challengers yet in precincts 4 or 8.

Other judicial races: Sorry, I don’t have the bandwidth for this right now. I’ll review it after today.

And that’s all I’ve got. See you on the other side. As always, leave your hot gossip in the comments.

Precinct analysis: State House district changes by demography

Jun 28th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

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

I return once again to doing cycle-over-cycle comparisons in vote turnout, in this case for State House districts. There are a lot of them, and I’m not going to do them all but I am going to do enough of them that I will split this into two parts. Part One, this post, will group districts by demographic groups. Part Two, to come later, will be to group them by counties of interest.

First up, just to ease ourselves in, are the four big urban districts that are Anglo, wealthy, highly college-educated, and swung hard towards the Democrats since 2012:


Dist  12-16R  12-16D  16-20R  16-20D  12-20R  12-20D Dem net
============================================================
134  -10,943  15,312   6,540  17,771  -4,403  33,083  37,486
047   -2,005  14,218  13,145  27,678  11,140  41,896  30,756
108   -5,942  12,553   8,628  17,929   2,686  30,482  27,796
121   -4,020   6,534   6,059  15,078   2,039  21,612  19,573

As discussed before, the columns represent the difference in vote total for the given period and party, so “1216” means 2012 to 2016, “1620” means 2016 to 2020, and “1220” means 2012 to 2020. Each column has a D or an R in it, so “1216R” means the difference between 2016 Donald Trump and 2012 Mitt Romney for the Presidential table, and so forth. In each case, I subtract the earlier year’s total from the later year’s total, so the “-9,951” for SD114 in the “1216R” column means that Donald Trump got 9,951 fewer votes in 2016 in SD14 than Mitt Romney got, and the “56,887” for SD14 in the “1216D” column means that Hillary Clinton got 56,887 more votes than Barack Obama got. “Dem net” at the end just subtracts the “1220R” total from the “1220D” total, which is the total number of votes that Biden netted over Obama. Got it? Good.

Despite the large swings, only the top two are now Dem-held. HD108 managed to remain in the hands of Rep. Morgan Meyer despite being carried by statewide Dems all the way down the ballot, while HD121 still remains somewhat Republican-leaning. I don’t know what magic Republicans have in mind for redistricting, but their hold on these voters is slipping away rapidly. I can’t emphasize enough that Mitt Romney got 60% of the vote in HD134 in 2012, and look at where it is now.

I’ve written plenty about these districts, and I could have included more of them in this table. Most of those you will see later. There’s not much to add except to say that this particular demographic shift has been a huge driver in the overall blue-ing of Texas, and especially of its most populated areas. I don’t know what the future holds, but I don’t see that changing in the near term.

When I mentioned that this post was a look at the districts by demographic groups, I assume your first thought was that I’d take a closer look at Latino districts. Well, here you go:


Dist  12-16R  12-16D  16-20R  16-20D  12-20R  12-20D Dem net
============================================================
051      425  10,783   4,422  19,073   4,847  29,856  25,009
102   -4,430   5,333   2,511  10,832  -1,919  16,165  18,084
148   -1,481   8,555   5,598  10,113   4,117  18,668  14,551
107   -3,023   4,566     718   7,532  -2,305  12,098  14,403
103      -96   7,314   3,535  10,357   3,439  17,671  14,232
116     -583   6,014   3,546  10,281   2,963  16,295  13,332
117    4,532   8,828  14,927  22,921  19,459  31,749  12,290
105   -2,249   4,377   2,900   8,547     651  12,924  12,273
078   -1,129   6,723   6,731   9,618   5,602  16,341  10,739
124      330   5,077   5,877  11,756   6,207  16,833  10,626
125   -1,081   4,378   4,753   9,350   3,672  13,728  10,056
079     -453   7,038   4,976   6,495   4,523  13,533   9,010
075    1,734  11,011   9,747   8,599  11,481  19,610   8,129
104     -777   3,881   2,743   6,042   1,966   9,923   7,957
077   -1,530   5,080   3,539   3,936   2,009   9,016   7,007
119    1,062   3,428   6,041  10,507   7,103  13,935   6,832
145   -1,306   5,575   5,291   5,038   3,985  10,613   6,628
090     -180   2,391   3,170   5,496   2,990   7,887   4,897
118    1,391   3,719   6,633   7,790   8,024  11,509   3,485
076     -260   5,039   3,826   1,635   3,566   6,674   3,108
140     -733   4,433   4,140   1,810   3,407   6,243   2,836
144   -1,051   3,577   4,044   1,480   2,993   5,057   2,064
041    1,664   6,820   8,617   5,201  10,281  12,021   1,740
143   -1,038   3,244   4,483   1,446   3,445   4,690   1,245
022   -1,261  -2,280   1,510   2,254     249     -26    -275
034      620     799   6,012   3,759   6,632   4,558  -2,074
038    1,533   4,706   9,344   2,945  10,877   7,651  -3,226
040    2,384   3,753   8,981   3,433  11,365   7,186  -4,179
037      969   3,764   7,324      36   8,293   3,800  -4,493
036    1,482   5,527   9,847    -480  11,329   5,047  -6,282
039    2,071   3,256   8,411     836  10,482   4,092  -6,390
035    2,007   2,358   8,961   2,163  10,968   4,521  -6,447
042      882   2,195   7,908    -323   8,790   1,872  -6,918
043    2,532     162   8,001   1,059  10,533   1,221  -9,312
080    1,959   1,789   9,567     127  11,526   1,916  -9,610
074    1,127   2,708   9,454  -2,185  10,581     523 -10,058
031    3,017  -1,816  13,479    -412  16,496  -2,228 -18,724

A couple of notes here. Defining “Latino district” is subjective, and I make no claim that my way is optimal. What you see above is almost all of the districts that are represented by a Latino member, plus HD80, which despite being majority Latino is still represented by Democrat Tracy King. I skipped HDs 49 (Gina Hinojosa) and 50 (Celia Israel) because the’re much more Anglo than Latino. HDs 102, 105, and 107 were held by non-Latino Republicans before being flipped by Democrats in 2016 and 2018. HD43 is held by the one Latino Republican in the House, JM Lozano, who won originally as a Democrat in 2008 and then changed parties after the 2010 election. HDs 79 and 90 were held by Anglo Democrats in 2012; Lon Burnam was primaried out by Rep. Ramon Romero in 2014, and Joe Pickett resigned following the 2018 election due to health challenges.

There’s a lot of data here, and I’ll try to keep this manageable. All the districts that showed a net gain for Dems over both elections are in Bexar, Dallas, El Paso, Harris, Travis (HD51), and Tarrant (HD90), plus HD41 in Hidalgo County. In Bexar, Dallas, and Tarrant, there were net gains in each cycle. In El Paso, there were big gains in 2016 and more modest gains in 2020, with the exception of HD75, which had a slight gain for Republicans in 2020. HD75 is the easternmost and thus most rural of the El Paso districts. It also still voted 66.5% to 31.9% for Biden in 2020, just for some perspective.

In Harris, all five districts gained in 2016, but only HD148 also gained in 2020. HD145 came close to breaking even, while HDs 140, 143, and 144 all moved towards Republicans; we saw this when we looked at the Harris County Senate districts and talked about SD06. This is the first of several places where I will shrug my shoulders and say “we’ll see what happens in 2022”. Honestly, I don’t know what to expect. We’ve discussed this topic numerous times, and as there are forces moving urban and college-educated voters towards Democrats, the same forces are moving rural and non-college voters towards Republicans. The biggest of those forces is Donald Trump, whose presence on the ballot helped Republicans in 2016 and 2020 but whose absence hurt them in 2018. We just don’t know yet what 2022 will bring.

Of the districts that had net Republican gains, HD22 is in Jefferson County (basically, it’s Beaumont; Dade Phelan’s HD21 has the rest of JeffCo plus Orange County) and HD34 is in Nueces County. Jefferson County has been slowly losing population over time, and I think that was a big driver of what happened with HD22. It’s also much more Black than Latino, and thus maybe is a better fit with the next data set, but it has long been represented by Rep. Joe Deshtotel, and this is the decision I made. Nueces County also has the Republican-held HD32 in it, and it showed a net Democratic gain of 1,576 votes over the two cycles, with most of that in 2016 but still a small Dem net in 2020. Its Latino voting age population is about 46%, nearly identical to its Anglo VAP. HD34 was one of the tighter districts even before 2020, and I figure it’s on the target list for Republicans in redistricting.

Most of the other districts are in Cameron, Hidalgo, and Webb counties, and while 2020 was a better year for Republicans in all of them, I don’t think that will necessarily be the case in 2022, a belief driven in part by the incumbency theory and in part by my own wishfulness. That said, as noted before the shifts were more muted downballot, with Trump outperforming other Republicans in those districts. I had my doubts about the durability of Democratic gains in 2016 because of the disparity between the Hillary numbers and the rest of the numbers, and I think it’s fair to have those same doubts here. We do know how it went in 2018, but as before Trump is not on the ballot in 2022. Which force is stronger? Have the underlying conditions changed? I don’t know and neither does anyone else at this time.

HDs 31, 74, and 80 are all cobbled out of smaller counties, and I have much less hope for them, but who knows what the combined effects of the freeze and the Abbott Wall will have. The main thing I took away from analyzing this data is that there was already a Republican shift in 31 and 74 in 2016 with a near miss in 80, though they all rebounded in a Democratic direction in 2018. How much of this was caused by new voters, and how much by swapping allegiances, those are big questions to ponder.

Let’s move on. These are the predominantly Black districts:


Dist  12-16R  12-16D  16-20R  16-20D  12-20R  12-20D Dem net
============================================================
046     -331   7,462   4,363  20,080   4,032  27,542  23,510
027     -461   4,708   6,324  13,724   5,863  18,432  12,569
147   -1,282   3,575   4,571   9,831   3,289  13,406  10,117
109     -914    -500   1,853  11,161     939  10,661   9,722
111   -1,449  -1,155   1,627   8,981     178   7,826   7,648
120     -184     863   4,503  10,856   4,319  11,719   7,400
100     -840    -537   2,107   7,799   1,267   7,262   5,995
142      294   2,093   4,685   8,804   4,979  10,897   5,918
131     -642   2,681   4,289   6,642   3,647   9,323   5,676
146   -1,653    -923   2,438   6,798     785   5,875   5,090
139   -1,290   1,216   4,826   6,786   3,536   8,002   4,466
095     -613  -2,745   2,727   7,752   2,114   5,007   2,893
141      218    -721   2,594   4,405   2,812   3,684     872
110     -101  -3,010   1,820   3,362   1,719     352  -1,367

HD27 is in Fort Bend, HD46 is in Travis (it’s also much more Latino than Black but has long been represented by a Black legislator, with Dawnna Dukes preceding Sheryl Cole; it is the inverse of HD22 in that way), HD95 is in Tarrant, and HD120 is in Bexar. HD101 in Tarrant County has a higher Black percentage of its population than either HDs 46 or 120, but it’s held by the Anglo Dem Chris Turner, so I skipped it. All the rest are in Harris and Dallas. The range of outcomes here is fascinating. I think what we see in the 2016 results, at least in some of these districts, is a bit of a letdown in enthusiasm from Obama to Clinton, with perhaps a bit of the campaign to dampen turnout among Black Democrats finding some success. Some districts in Harris County like HD141 have had pretty modest growth in population and voter registration as well. I don’t know what the story may have been in HD110, but if one of my Dallas readers would like to offer a few words, I’d be interested in hearing them.

There was some evidence around the country of Trump making modest gains with Black voters, mostly Black men, in 2020. I do see a case for that here, because even as Dems had net gains in 2020 – significant gains, in some of these districts – their share of the total new turnout is smaller than you’d otherwise expect. For example, HD131 voted 80.6% to 18.5% for Biden, but only 60.8% of the extra voters in 2020 voted for Biden. HD131 had voted 84.1% to 13.3% for Hillary in 2016, meaning that Trump cut almost ten points off of his deficit from 2016. This is your reminder that a shift in vote share towards one party is not the same as a shift in total votes towards one party. We’ve had this conversation about Democrats making percentage point gains in some heavily Republican areas while still falling farther behind, and this is that same conversation from the other side.

Finally, here are the four districts represented by Asian American legislators:


Dist  12-16R  12-16D  16-20R  16-20D  12-20R  12-20D Dem net
============================================================
026   -4,573   9,082   7,327  13,556   2,754  22,638  19,884
112   -2,140   4,427   5,086  10,634   2,946  15,061  12,115
137     -848   2,147   2,435   4,099   1,587   6,246   4,659
149   -2,592   3,504   8,134   4,645   5,542   8,149   2,607

This grouping is even more tenuous than the Latino districts, mostly because there’s no such thing as a plurality Asian district. Indeed, only HDs 26 and 149, which are the two most Asian districts in the state, are in the top five; HDs 66, 28, and 67 are the next three in line. They will all be covered in the next post in this series. HD137 is mostly Latino and HD112 is mostly Anglo. Like I said, these are the decisions I made. HD26 is in Fort Bend and was won in 2020 by Republican Jacey Jetton, after years of being held by Rick Miller. It was carried by Biden in 2020 and as you can see it has moved pretty heavily Democratic, but it was still Republican enough to be held by them in an open seat race. HD112 is in Dallas and is held by Angie Chen Button, and like HD108 it was otherwise Democratic in 2020. Good luck with redistricting, that’s all I can say. The other two are in Harris County, with HD137 being held by Gene Wu since 2012. It was 63-34 for Obama in 2012 and 67-31 for Biden in 2020. The most curious case for me is HD149, which as you can see followed a pattern similar to the Latino districts in Harris County; I noted this before when I did the Harris County numbers way back when. I’m not quite sure what to make of those totals, but they don’t keep me awake at night. As with the rest, we’ll see what 2022 has in store for us.

Next time, a closer look at some counties of interest. Let me know what you think.

Precinct analysis: The median districts

Jun 14th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

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

This is a straightforward post, with a simple answer to an important question. We know that Joe Biden carried 74 State House districts and 15 State Senate districts. How much better did he need to do to get a majority in each chamber? Daily Kos calls this the “median district”. In this context, that means the data for the 76th-most Democratic House district, and the 16th-most Democratic Senate district. The idea is to see how far off the Dems were from being able to win those districts and thus claim a majority in each chamber.

We’ll start with the State House. The table below gives the data for the median district in each of the last three Presidential elections for the Presidential race, the Senate race (2012 and 2020 only), and the Railroad Commissioner race:


Year    Dist      Dem      GOP   Tot D
======================================
2012   HD138   39.29%   59.16%      54
2016    HD54   43.58%   50.50%      65
2020    HD54   48.85%   48.98%      74
				
2012    HD97   38.35%   58.88%      54
2020    HD92   46.04%   51.12%      68

2012    HD97   36.16%   59.58%      54
2016    HD66   37.77%   54.46%      56
2020    HD31   46.52%   50.55%      68

In 2012, the 76th-most Democratic district was HD138, in which Barack Obama received 39.29% of the vote to Mitt Romney’s 59.16%. This is a polite way of saying that the 2011 gerrymander was super effective, and the Democrats weren’t within hailing distance of winning half the chamber. The last column shows the total number of districts carried by the Democratic Presidential candidate. In 2012, this closely mirrored the total number of seats that the Dems actually won, which was 55. One Democratic-held seat was carried by Romney – HD23, the Galveston-based district won that year (and for the final time, as he declined to run again) by Craig Eiland. As you may recall from previous analyses, that district has trended away from the Dems ever since – in 2016, it was won 56-41 by Trump, and in 2020 it was 57-41 for Trump. Obama carried zero Republican-won seats – the closest he came was a 52-47 loss in HD43, another district that has moved farther away from Dems over the decade. He came within six points in three Dallas districts that Democrats now hold – HDs 113, 107, and 105. Like I said, an extremely effective gerrymander. Also a consistent one, as Paul Sadler and Dale Henry won the same districts Obama did, no more and no less.

Until it wasn’t, of course. The cracks began to show in 2016, when Hillary Clinton carried 65 districts, though Dems still only won 55 of them overall. HD23 fell to the Republicans in 2014, but Dems earned their first flip of the decade (*) by taking HD107, which as noted above was one of the closer misses in 2012. The nine GOP-won districts that Hillary Clinton carried were HDs 113, 105, 115, 102, 112, 114, 138, 134, and 108. Seven of those are now Democratic districts, with six flipping in 2018 and one (HD134) flipping in 2020.

Note how Clinton ran ahead of other Dems as well. Perennial candidate Grady Yarbrough picked up only HD105, and that by a 45.9 to 44.6 margin (there was a lot of third-party voting in that extremely unappealing race), and it was the same at the judicial level. You may recall this is why I was more guarded in my optimism about 2018 initially – I had some doubts about what the Clinton/GOP voters would do their next time out.

We know how that turned out, and we know how Biden did, as well as how MJ Hegar and Chrysta Castaneda did in 2020. Look at how the median district shifted over time. In 2012, the 76th district was more Republican than the Presidential race was, at each level. In 2016, the median district looked a lot like the Presidential race, and to be honest a lot like the RRC race as well; Wayne Christian defeated Grady Yarbrough 53.1 to 38.4, a bit closer than the median but not far off. In 2020, at all levels, the median district was closer than the statewide race was. Republicans outperformed their baseline in the House, and they needed to because by this point their vaunted gerrymander had completely failed them. I have to think this is something they’re giving serious thought to for this time around.

Here’s the same data for the State Senate districts:


Year    Dist      Dem      GOP   Tot D
======================================
2012    SD08   36.60%   61.67%      11
2016    SD09   41.75%   53.09%      12
2020    SD09   48.30%   50.00%      15

2012    SD08   35.94%   61.05%      11
2020    SD09   45.40%   51.70%      13

2012    SD08   33.34%   62.19%      11
2016    SD08   36.19%   55.94%      11
2020    SD09   44.60%   51.60%      13

It’s a similar pattern as above. In 2012, Mitt Romney carried SD10, which Wendy Davis won in a hard-fought race. In 2016, Hillary Clinton carried SD16 by a 49.9 to 45.3 margin, and just missed in SD10, losing it 47.9 to 47.3; she also came within a point of SD17. The median district was a little friendlier to the GOP in 2016, but in 2020 as with the House it was closer than the corresponding statewide race. Again, the once-solid gerrymander buckled at the knees, aided in large part by the suburban shift. Dems also managed to hold onto all of the red-shifting Latino districts, while Biden dropped two of them in the House.

What does any of this mean going forward? I have no idea. I’m seeing map proposals for Congress that are pretty brutal, but who knows what we’ll get in 2022, and who knows how population growth and the shifts in suburban and (mostly rural) Latino areas will affect things. Texas is a more challenging state than the likes of Wisconsin or Michigan to control over an entire decade precisely because it changes so much in that time. Republicans will have some opportunities for gain in 2022, but they also have a lot of vulnerabilities, and their best defense may be to just try to shore up everything they now have. The choices they make, based to some degree on their level of risk tolerance, will be fascinating to see.

Precinct analysis: State House districts 2020, part 2

Jun 7th, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

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

Today’s post is going to be an analysis of the State House districts from the perspective of the US Senate and Railroad Commissioner races. We have already observed in other contexts how Joe Biden outran the rest of the Democratic ticket, and we will see that here as well. But it’s a little more nuanced than that, because of the Latino vote and the Trump shift, which we have characterized as being mostly about Trump. The Texas Signal boiled down one piece of research on that as follows:

In an interview with Texas Signal, the Executive Director of Cambio Texas, Abel Prado, walked us through some of the big takeaways from their post-election report. One of his first points from the report was that many of the voters who came out in the Rio Grande Valley were specifically Donald Trump voters, and not necessarily Republican voters.

Many of Trump’s traits, including his brashness, a self-styled Hollywood pedigree, his experience as a businessman, and his billionaire status, resonated with many voters in the Rio Grande Valley. “The increase in Republican vote share were Donald Trump votes, not conservative votes, and there’s a difference,” said Prado.

Hold that thought, we’ll get to it in a bit. I’m going to present the data here in the same order as I did in the previous post, with the results from the Senate race (MJ Hegar versus John Cornyn) and the RRC race (Chrysta Castaneda versus Jim Wright) grouped together. We will start with the Republican districts that Biden carried:


Dist    Hegar   Cornyn   Hegar%  Cornyn%
========================================
026    40,478   43,650    47.1%    50.8%
066    42,688   42,768    48.9%    49.0%
067    47,484   46,775    49.2%    48.5%
096    42,210   44,471    47.5%    50.0%
108    50,639   49,689    49.4%    48.5%
112    34,800   32,591    50.2%    47.0%
121    44,062   49,365    46.0%    51.2%
132    48,460   50,865    47.5%    49.8%
134    61,018   48,629    54.7%    43.6%
138    31,508   31,993    48.3%    49.1%

Dist    Casta   Wright   Casta%  Wright%
========================================
026    39,238   42,818    46.5%    50.8%
066    41,139   41,650    48.1%    48.7%
067    45,970   45,494    48.6%    48.1%
096    41,135   44,103    46.7%    50.1%
108    49,347   48,118    48.8%    47.6%
112    34,635   31,768    50.3%    46.2%
121    43,992   46,975    46.6%    49.8%
132    47,483   49,947    47.0%    49.4%
134    57,940   47,504    53.2%    43.6%
138    30,796   31,201    47.9%    48.6%

You don’t need to review the previous post to see that Hegar and Castaneda fell short of the standard Biden set. Still, they carried 70 House districts, three more than were won by the Dems, and came within a point of two more. What we see here is the same thing we saw when we looked at these races in Harris County, which is not only that Joe Biden got more votes than these two Democrats, but John Cornyn and Jim Wright outperformed Donald Trump. These are your crossover voters, and the big question going into 2022 is what potential exists to swing them again, and in which races. Dems still fell short statewide in 2020 even with all those voters, but the hill is less steep with them than without them.

UPDATE: Correction – Hegar and Castaneda carried 68 House districts, one more than the total won by Dems. They carried GOP-won HDs 67, 108, and 112 and lost Dem-won HDs 31 and 74, for a net increase of one. I managed to confuse myself with the math by basing the calculation on that table above. They were still within a point of two other districts as shown above.

Here are the near-miss and reach districts for Biden:


Dist    Hegar   Cornyn   Hegar%  Cornyn%
========================================
014    27,435   35,269    42.2%    54.3%
028    54,571   65,387    44.6%    53.4%
029    43,327   52,292    44.2%    53.4%
054    34,462   36,551    47.1%    49.9%
064    39,350   47,395    43.8%    52.8%
092    36,564   40,601    46.0%    51.1%
093    37,934   44,925    44.4%    52.6%
094    34,826   39,970    45.3%    52.0%
097    42,210   44,471    47.4%    50.0%
122    51,835   72,452    40.9%    57.1%
126    33,618   39,298    44.9%    52.5%
133    38,149   51,111    41.9%    56.2%

032    29,613   38,322    43.5%    53.4%
070    48,246   77,306    37.5%    60.1%
084    22,626   35,019    37.8%    58.5%
085    32,212   43,653    41.5%    56.3%
089    40,761   57,531    40.5%    57.1%
106    53,674   73,313    41.2%    56.3%
129    35,924   48,318    41.5%    55.8%
150    39,872   56,019    40.5%    56.9%

Dist    Casta   Wright   Casta%  Wright%
========================================
014    25,863   34,522    40.7%    54.3%
028    53,363   64,123    44.3%    53.2%
029    42,256   51,097    43.7%    52.9%
054    33,036   36,749    45.4%    50.5%
064    37,396   46,264    42.5%    52.6%
092    35,180   40,269    44.8%    51.3%
093    36,501   44,700    43.2%    52.9%
094    33,630   39,603    44.3%    52.1%
097    35,954   44,647    43.0%    53.4%
122    51,488   69,624    41.2%    55.7%
126    32,979   38,409    44.6%    52.0%
133    36,456   50,069    40.9%    56.2%

032    28,939   36,856    42.2%    53.7%
070    46,349   75,914    36.6%    60.0%
084    21,625   34,530    36.8%    58.8%
085    31,967   42,990    41.6%    55.9%
089    39,378   56,345    39.8%    56.9%
106    50,925   71,782    39.9%    56.3%
129    35,326   46,707    41.5%    54.8%
150    38,995   55,111    40.0%    56.6%

Not a whole lot to say here. The near-misses look farther away, and the reaches look out of reach. It’s important to remember that a lot of these districts weren’t on anyone’s radar going into 2016, and that the trend has been heavily favorable to the Democrats. We certainly hope those trends continue, but even if they do that doesn’t mean the district in question is on the verge of being competitive.

Here are the districts that Trump won or came close it. For this, I’m going to reprint the Biden/Trump numbers, to make it easier to illustrate the point I want to make.


Dist    Hegar   Cornyn   Hegar%  Cornyn%
========================================
031    23,609   28,980    43.5%    53.4%
074    22,397   25,232    45.5%    51.2%

034    27,567   26,236    49.8%    47.4%
035    22,735   18,926    52.7%    43.8%
080    25,339   19,960    54.1%    42.6%

038    28,050   20,464    56.2%    41.0%
041    29,594   24,797    52.8%    44.3%
117    49,759   40,386    53.6%    43.5%
118    31,726   25,841    53.5%    43.6%
144    16,246   14,108    51.8%    45.0%

Dist    Casta   Wright   Casta%  Wright%
========================================
031    24,700   26,837    46.5%    50.5%
074    22,942   23,836    47.4%    49.2%

034    27,816   24,985    51.0%    45.8%
035    23,684   17,094    56.2%    40.5%
080    25,945   18,750    56.2%    40.6%

038    29,097   18,502    59.2%    37.7%
041    30,611   22,881    55.5%    41.5%
117    49,871   38,567    54.2%    41.9%
118    32,568   24,454    55.2%    41.5%
144    16,851   13,251    54.1%    42.6%

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%

We don’t see the same pattern here that we did before. In these districts, Trump is outrunning Cornyn and Wright. Biden is still outperforming Hegar and Castaneda, but not by as much. That makes HDs 31 and 74 closer, especially for Castaneda. This suggests two things to me. One is that as was claimed in that Texas Signal story, there really was more of a Trump effect than a Republican shift. It also appears that Castaneda benefitted from her Latina surname; one could also argue that Cornyn got some incumbent benefit as well. The main point is that the story of these districts is a little more nuanced than some of the discourse would have you believe. Doesn’t mean there aren’t issues for Dems to confront, just that it’s not a one-dimensional situation.

Finally, here are the districts that the Dems picked up in the 2016 and 2018 cycles.


Dist    Hegar   Cornyn   Hegar%  Cornyn%
========================================
045    57,413   54,996    49.5%    47.4%
047    69,906   66,452    50.2%    47.7%
052    51,448   45,369    51.6%    45.5%
065    40,789   38,039    50.3%    46.7%
102    37,879   29,970    54.5%    43.1%
105    31,769   24,477    54.8%    42.2%
107    34,360   26,248    55.1%    42.1%
113    36,185   31,239    52.2%    45.0%
114    42,291   36,918    52.3%    45.6%
115    39,307   31,859    53.8%    43.6%
135    37,050   36,728    48.9%    48.4%
136    55,420   44,710    53.8%    43.4%

Dist    Casta   Wright   Casta%  Wright%
========================================
045    54,943   53,725    48.2%    47.1%
047    66,419   64,426    48.7%    47.3%
052    48,688   44,402    49.7%    45.3%
065    39,040   36,949    49.2%    46.6%
102    37,549   28,844    54.5%    41.9%
105    31,723   23,639    55.2%    41.1%
107    34,364   25,234    55.5%    40.8%
113    36,116   30,540    52.4%    44.3%
114    42,043   35,411    52.6%    44.3%
115    38,704   30,803    53.5%    42.6%
135    36,487   35,845    48.6%    47.8%
136    52,576   43,535    52.0%    43.0%

Even with the erosion of support from the top of the ticket, Dems still held these districts at the Senate and RRC level. The gain were maintained. I know what the narrative for 2020 was, but it’s hard for me to see that as anything but a rousing success.

Precinct analysis: State House districts 2020, part 1

Jun 1st, 2021
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

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

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.

So now we start to prep for redistricting

Nov 29th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

It’s gonna make for a long session, or more likely sessions.

Wielding the map-drawing power will not be entirely painless for Republicans, who have seen their grip on dozens of state and federal districts erode since the last round of redistricting. Though Democrats failed to flip any of their targeted congressional seats in 2020 and fared about as poorly in state House contests, their single-digit defeats in once ruby red districts point to Democrats’ growing advantages in urban and suburban counties, even as Republicans retain an overwhelming advantage in rural Texas.

Republicans, then, will have to decide how aggressive they want to be in redrawing political boundaries to their benefit, balancing the need to fortify their numbers in battleground districts with the opportunity to flip back some of the districts they lost in 2018, when Democrats picked up 12 seats.

“I see this redistricting opportunity for Republicans as more of a defensive play than an offensive play,” said Texas Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak. “This is one of the tough things when you’re engaging in redistricting if you’re the party in power, because you can be sort of allured by the short-term potential to win an extra seat or two. But you can take two steps forward to eventually take three steps back if you’re not thinking about demographic changes over a 10-year period.”

For now, the looming redistricting fight is far from the minds of most state lawmakers. Though the U.S. Census Bureau is supposed to deliver updated population data to states by April 1 next year, the agency suspended field operations for the 2020 Census due to the COVID-19 pandemic and wrapped up the count in October, well after the original July 31 deadline. Bureau officials also sought to push back the deadline for sending data to the states until July 2021, prompting speculation that Texas may not get the census numbers until after the Legislature gavels out in late May.

“If the data is not delivered during the regular session, it creates a whole set of cascading problems that impact the drawing of lines, even down to the county and municipal levels, because everyone is going to be put on an even greater time crunch,” said Eric Opiela, an attorney and former executive director of the Texas Republican Party who has worked on prior redistricting efforts.

During normal times, officials might already be using population data from the Census Bureau’s annual American Community Survey (ACS) to strategize or even draw up preliminary maps. But the pandemic has forced census workers to adopt unconventional survey tactics and generated unprecedented population shifts due to the rise in remote working, factors that make any pre-2020 population data highly unreliable, Opiela said.

“Those (ACS) projections can be used to allow you to do things like work through scenarios before the official data comes, and it’s actually fairly accurate,” Opiela said. “I don’t know that that’s going to be the case this time. I think it’s going to be very important to wait until the official data is received to draw any conclusions as to where Texans live.”

It’s not just the uncertain timeline. Even if the Census data arrived on time, COVID-19 would likely hamper redistricting efforts by forcing lawmakers to prioritize filling the state’s pandemic-inflicted budget gap and perhaps providing economic and medical relief to COVID-19 victims.

“The challenge with redistricting is it’s such a naturally partisan issue that it’s really hard to sort of box half the day and then be ballet dancers the other half of the day,” Mackowiak said. “It’s hard to be bipartisan on other issues but then super, super partisan during redistricting. So, having a special session just related to redistricting after the major issues are taken care of seems to me to be the smartest pathway.”

See here for the most recent news on the Census situation. I think it’s very likely that we don’t get the data in time for the regular session, in which case redistricting will be done in a special session later in the year. Depending on how late that is, and on how long it takes to hammer out maps, and whether any initial court challenges result in temporary restraining orders, we could see the 2022 primaries get pushed back. The filing period begins in mid-November, after all, so there’s a non-zero chance of it being affected by how this plays out.

It’s worth remembering that if the Dems had managed to win the State House, they still would have had limited influence over redistricting. As the story correctly notes, the Legislative Redistricting Board, a five-member panel that would have had only one Democrat (the House Speaker, in this hypothetical), would draw the State House, State Senate, and SBOE maps if the House and Senate had been unable to agree on them. The Congressional maps would go to a federal court, however, and that’s where the Dems might have had some influence. If Republicans didn’t want to take the chance of putting map-drawing power in a third party like that, they might have been open to some compromises on the other maps. We’ll never know now, but that was the basic idea.

As it is, how this goes with Republicans once again in full control will come down to how they answer a few key questions. (For the purposes of this post, I’m focusing on the State House. The issue are mostly similar for Congress and the State Senate, but my examples will come from House elections.) Will they be constrained by established rules like the county line rule, which puts only whole House seats in sufficiently large counties (this is why all Harris County State House seats are entirely within Harris County), or do they change that? How constrained do they feel by the Voting Rights Act, and by other established redistricting precedents – in other words, do they bet big on the courts overturning past rulings so that they can more or less do whatever they want, or do they pull it in so as not to risk losing in court?

Most of all, what do they consider a “safe” seat to be? Look at it this way: In 2012, Republicans won 16 of the 95 seats they took with less than 60% of the vote. Of those, only five were decided by fewer than ten points:

HD43 – Won in 2010 by then-Democrat JM Lozano, who subsequently switched parties.
HD105 – Barely won by the GOP in 2008, by less than 20 votes.
HD107 – Won by a Dem in 2008, it became the first Republican-held seat to flip in this decade, won by Victoria Neave in 2016.
HD114 – Nothing special, it was won by eight points in 2012.
HD134 – The perennial swing district.

Note that four of those five are now Democratic. Other “less than 60%” seats from 2012 now held by Dems include HDs 45, 47, 65, 102, 115, and 136. (*) The point is, that looks like an extremely durable majority, with enough 60%+ seats on their own to ensure a mostly Republican House. And indeed it was for the first three elections of the decade. There will be books written about why all of a sudden it became precarious, but you’d be hard pressed to do a better job than the Republicans did in 2011.

But as noted, things look different now. In 2020, Republicans won 26 of the 87 seats they took with less than 60% of the vote. Of those, seventeen were won by less than ten points:

HD26, HD54, HD64, HD66, HD67, HD92, HD93, HD94, HD96, HD97, HD108, HD112, HD121, HD126, HD132, HD138

We can talk all we want about how things might have gone differently in 2020, but the fact remains that it wouldn’t have taken much to change many of those outcomes. How many Republican incumbents will insist on a 55%+ district for themselves? Whatever assumptions you make about the 2020 electorate and what it means for the future, that’s going to be a tall order in some parts of the state.

This more than anything will drive their decision-making, and may well be the single biggest source of friction on their side. Who is willing to accept a 51% Republican district, and who will have to take one for the team? In 2011, Republicans were coming off an election that they had won by more than 20 points statewide. This year they won at the Presidential level by less than six points, and at the Senate level by less than ten. They have a smaller piece of the pie to cut up. They have full control over how they do it, but the pie isn’t as big as it used to be. What are they going to do about that?

(*) In 2012, Cindy Burkett had no Democratic opponent in HD113, and Gary Elkins was re-elected in HD135 with 60.36% of the vote. Both of those districts are now held by Democrats. Always in motion, the future is.

A slightly less rosy view of Democratic prospects

Aug 1st, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

Here’s the latest race ratings from Texas Elects:

Texas Election Source has updated 27 race ratings based on the latest polling, July campaign finance reports and primary runoff results. Twenty of those races moved one column toward the Democrats’ advantage. Our complete ratings are located here. Thirteen Republican-held seats in the legislature or congressional delegation are rated Toss-up or Lean Democratic. No Democrat-held seat is rated below Lean Democratic after several seats formerly in the Toss-up column were shifted into the Lean Democratic column.

The most significant impact of the new ratings on our projections is in the Texas House. Democrats need a net of nine seats to retake a majority in the chamber. We project they will get six, up three from our April ratings, which would cut the Republicans’ advantage to 77-73 entering the 2021 legislative session. Seven more Republican-held seats are projected to be within 1.5 percentage points of the range we consider a toss-up race. Only two Democrat-held seats are projected to be within 1.5 percentage points of a toss-up.

Four Republican-held seats are rated Lean Democratic, listed from greatest to least lean:

  • HD134 – Rep. Sarah Davis (R-Houston) vs. Ann Johnson (D)
  • HD138 open – Lacey Hull (R) vs. Akilah Bacy (D)
  • HD108 – Rep. Morgan Meyer (R-Dallas) vs. Joanna Cattanach (D); and
  • HD66 – Rep. Matt Shaheen (R-Plano) vs. Sharon Hirsch (D).

Since 2010, the four House seats on the list have drifted an average of 7.3 percentage points bluer, relative to the state as a whole. Two seats in other chambers – CD23 and SD19 – are also rated Lean Democratic. They have gotten relatively redder but remained 3.9 and 9.1 percentage points bluer than the state as a whole in 2018. We are projecting SD19 to get another 1.4 percentage points redder, but even that keeps it just .07% from being labeled as Likely Democratic.

Incidentally, HD134 would rate as Likely Democratic but for Davis’s consistent over-performance of other Republicans in the district. In 2018, the average Democrat received 55% of the vote in her district measured head-to-head against the Republican, but Davis survived thanks to ticket-splitting voters. Longtime political observers will remember former Rep. Jim McReynolds (D-Lufkin) who held onto his district by finishing as much as 19 points better than the rest of the Democratic slate. He was overwhelmed by rising Republican leanings in 2010 but still over-performed the rest of the ticket by 12 points. We project Davis’s ability to win over ticket-splitting voters will not be enough this year.

Dallas Co. was the epicenter of the Democratic surge in 2018. Only two Republicans represent the county in the state House currently, and we project that number will be zero after November. Tarrant Co., home to five races rated Toss-up or Lean Republican, and Fort Bend Co., with three seats in the Lean and Likely Republican columns, are expected to be the chief battleground counties in the House this year.

There’s more, so go read the rest. Texas Elects has a lot of premium content, but the free stuff is worth checking regularly.

Unlike the exuberant Capitol Inside projections, Texas Elects has the Dems falling short of a majority in the House, though it does expect three Congressional seats and SD19 to flip, and it has all of the statewide races as “Lean Republican”. You might be wondering about the inclusion of some Dem-held seats on the table, but as noted before, HDs 31, 34, and 74 are three of the four most purple districts out there that were held by Dems prior to 2018. They could be vulnerable in a bad year for Dems, though I don’t think this is that kind of year. As for HD41 and HD144, I can’t say I’m worried about them.

As that Capitol Inside projection was ebullient for Dems, this one is more sober. It sounds a little crazy to say when you think of the decade in total, but a six-seat pickup by Dems in the Lege would feel disappointing. It’s well within the range of possibility, and if all we ever think about is the best case scenario we’re not being honest with ourselves. All projections are art as well as science, in that you have to decide which factors are the most important and by how much. Individual candidates and fundraising prowess mean a lot, but so does the national environment, and so do demographic trends.

As far as candidates mattering goes, read that analysis of the HD134 race carefully. I come back to this a lot, but the key thing that happened in HD134, and in CD07 (which includes almost all of HD134) is exactly that the Democratic shift from 2016 to 2018 went much deeper than the top of the ticket. The average Republican judicial candidate won CD07 by thirteen points in 2016, and won HD134 by eight. In 2018, the average Republican judicial candidate barely won CD07. I didn’t do the exact same analysis for the State House districts, because I spent so much time talking about straight tickets and undervoting, but in service of that analysis I did this sample of judicial races, and as you can see each Dem was over fifty percent in HD134, by varying amounts. The point is, the fundamental nature of HD134 has shifted from “a Republican district that will sometimes support specific Democrats” to “a Democratic district that has – at least till now – supported Sarah Davis”. That’s what she’s up against this year, not just her November opponent but the baggage of the entire Republican Party and the prospect of a Democratic Speaker. She could hang on, and for sure she should not be underestimated, but this year, for the first time, she’s the underdog.

Anyway. I love this kind of analysis because it makes me think about my own assumptions and expectations for the year. Go take a look and see what you think.

Precinct analysis: 2018 State House

Mar 26th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
11 comments

Beto O’Rourke won 76 State House districts. Out of 150. Which is a majority.

Let me say that again so it can fully sink in.

BETO O’ROURKE WON 76 STATE HOUSE DISTRICTS.

Remember that after the 2016 election, Democrats held 55 State House Districts. They picked up 12 seats last year, thanks in large part to the surge that Beto brought out. But there were nine other districts that Beto carried where the Dem candidate fell short. Let’s start our review of the State Rep districts by looking at those nine.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
HD26   47.6%   50.5%   43.4%   47.8%   48.9%   48.5%   44.9%
HD64   44.5%   49.8%   43.9%   46.8%   47.4%   46.5%   44.0%
HD66   49.7%   52.5%   44.1%   49.2%   50.4%   48.8%   45.7%
HD67   48.8%   52.3%   44.5%   49.2%   50.4%   48.8%   45.7%
HD108  49.9%   57.2%   46.0%   52.7%   54.2%   51.9%   46.5%
HD112  49.0%   54.4%   47.5%   51.4%   52.5%   51.7%   48.7%
HD121  44.7%   49.7%   42.0%   46.9%   48.4%   47.7%   42.4%
HD134  46.8%   60.3%   50.4%   57.9%   59.1%   57.5%   48.6%
HD138  49.9%   52.7%   46.6%   50.6%   51.5%   51.1%   47.5%

Some heartbreakingly close losses, some races where the Republican winner probably never felt imperiled, and some in between. I don’t expect HD121 (Joe Straus’ former district) to be in play next year, but the shift in HD134 is so dramatic it’s hard to see it as anything but a Democratic district that just needs a good Dem to show up and take it. 2012 candidate Ann Johnson has declared her entry into the race (I am aware of one other person who was looking at it, though I do not know what the status of that person’s intent is now), so we have that taken care of. I won’t be surprised to see other candidates start to pop up for the other districts.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
HD45   51.6%   55.1%   47.9%   51.8%   52.6%   52.2%   49.3%
HD47   52.4%   54.9%   46.7%   51.7%   52.9%   51.6%   48.4%
HD52   51.7%   55.7%   48.0%   52.0%   53.3%   52.2%   49.3%
HD65   51.2%   54.1%   46.6%   50.8%   51.8%   50.6%   47.6%
HD102  52.9%   58.5%   50.1%   55.5%   56.7%   55.1%   51.3%
HD105  54.7%   58.7%   52.5%   55.5%   56.8%   56.1%   53.7%
HD113  53.5%   55.5%   49.4%   53.1%   53.9%   53.4%   51.4%
HD114  55.6%   57.1%   47.2%   54.1%   55.5%   53.4%   48.4%
HD115  56.8%   58.2%   49.9%   54.8%   56.1%   55.5%   51.2%
HD132  49.3%   51.4%   46.3%   49.5%   50.2%   50.0%   47.6%
HD135  50.8%   52.9%   47.3%   50.8%   51.6%   51.5%   48.8%
HD136  53.4%   58.1%   49.9%   54.2%   55.5%   54.2%   51.3%

These are the 12 seats that Dems flipped. I’m sure Republicans will focus on taking them back, but some will be easier than others. Honestly, barring anything unexpected, I’d make these all lean Dem at worst in 2020. Demography and the Trump factor were big factors in putting these seats in play, and that will be the case next year as well.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
HD14   43.6%   48.4%   40.9%   45.3%   45.0%   44.5%   41.1%
HD23   41.4%   44.0%   39.6%   42.7%   43.5%   43.3%   41.1%
HD28   45.8%   48.1%   41.8%   45.7%   46.5%   46.4%   43.2%
HD29      NA   47.0%   41.2%   44.9%   45.7%   45.9%   42.9%
HD32      NA   47.0%   38.9%   44.9%   45.2%   45.9%   42.2%
HD43   38.9%   44.1%   37.4%   43.4%   43.3%   43.9%   42.3%
HD54   46.2%   49.0%   43.8%   46.5%   47.0%   46.8%   45.0%
HD84   39.8%   43.1%   37.4%   41.5%   41.2%   39.8%   37.7%
HD85   43.5%   44.7%   39.8%   43.2%   44.1%   44.1%   41.6%
HD89   40.5%   43.5%   37.1%   41.1%   41.7%   40.5%   38.0%
HD92   47.4%   48.3%   41.9%   45.6%   46.5%   45.8%   43.1%
HD93   46.1%   48.2%   42.1%   45.6%   46.3%   45.5%   42.9%
HD94   43.9%   47.9%   41.1%   44.9%   46.0%   45.1%   42.2%
HD96   47.2%   49.5%   43.9%   47.6%   48.1%   47.6%   45.3%
HD97   44.9%   48.6%   41.3%   45.7%   46.5%   45.4%   42.4%
HD106  41.7%   44.2%   37.1%   41.3%   42.0%   41.0%   38.1%
HD122  38.1%   43.4%   36.1%   40.5%   41.9%   41.2%   36.7%
HD126  45.2%   47.8%   42.5%   46.1%   46.7%   46.3%   43.5%
HD129  41.8%   45.2%   39.1%   43.4%   44.3%   44.2%   40.0%
HD133  41.9%   45.0%   36.6%   43.4%   44.2%   42.8%   36.3%

Here are the generally competitive districts, where Dems can look to make further inroads into the Republican majority. Well, mostly – HD23 in Galveston, formerly held by Craig Eiland, and HD43 in South Texas, held by Rep. JM Lozano, are going in the wrong direction. I wouldn’t say that Dems should give up on them, but they should not be a top priority. There are much better opportunities available.

To say the least, HD14 in Brazos County is a big surprise. Hillary Clinton got 38.1% of the vote there in 2016, but Beto came within 1100 votes of carrying it. It needs to be on the board. Rep. Todd Hunter in HD32 hasn’t had an opponent since he flipped the seat in 2010. That needs to change. HD54 is Jimmy Don Aycock’s former district, won by Rep. Brad Buckley last year. It’s been at least a light shade of purple all decade, but it’s non-traditional turf for Dems, who never felt much need to go after Aycock anyway. It’s split between Bell and Lampasas counties, and will need a big win in Bell to overcome the strong R lean of Lampasas. HD84 in Lubbock isn’t really a swing district, but Beto improved enough on Hillary’s performance there (34.8% in 2016) to put it on the horizon. The Dem who won the primary in HD29 wound up dropping out; we obviously can’t have that happen again. All of the HDs in the 90s are in Tarrant County, and they include some of the biggest anti-vaxxers in the House – Stickland (HD92), Krause (HD93), and Zedler (HD96). You want to strike a blow against measles in Texas, work for a strong Democratic performance in Tarrant County next year.


Dist  18 Dem    Beto    Lupe Collier  Nelson   Olson McAllen
============================================================
HD31  100.0%   54.5%   47.3%   53.6%   54.5%   54.3%   53.7%
HD34   61.1%   54.6%   46.5%   53.5%   53.6%   54.8%   52.2%
HD74  100.0%   55.9%   50.4%   53.9%   54.1%   55.0%   53.3%
HD117  57.4%   58.3%   50.7%   54.3%   56.3%   55.9%   53.4%

These are Dem-held districts, and they represent the best opportunities Republicans have outside of the districts they lost last year to win seats back. HD117 went red in 2014 before being won back in 2016, so at least in low-turnout situations these districts could be in danger. Maybe the 2018 numbers just mean that Greg Abbott with a kazillion dollars can do decently well in traditionally Democratic areas against a weak opponent, but this was the best Dem year in a long time, and if this is how they look in a year like that, you can imagine the possibilities. If nothing else, look for the Republicans to use the 2021 redistricting to try to squeeze Dem incumbents like these four.

Initial thoughts: The Lege

Nov 12th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Live by the gerrymander, die by the gerrymander.

At the end of the 2011 legislative session, state Rep. Rafael Anchia, a Dallas Democrat, sat down to dinner with a Republican colleague from the Texas House. Anchia was exhausted and incensed.

It had been a brutal six months for House Democrats, who were down to 48 seats in the 150-seat chamber. After riding a red wave in the 2010 election, Republicans used their new House supermajority to redraw Texas’ political maps following the once-a-decade census in a way that would help them hold onto their gains. They all but assured GOP control of the House for the next decade and secured almost 60 percent of the seats in Dallas County, even though the county was already reliably blue.

Anchia recalled telling the Republican colleague, who he declined to name, that Dallas Democrats were “getting screwed.” But the colleague offered a puzzling piece of solace: “There’s not going to be one [Dallas] Republican left by the end of this decade.”

Seven years later, that political forecast almost became reality. Amid their zeal for control, Republicans in 2011 opted for keeping their numbers up in the county and dismissed the possibility of creating a district with a black and Hispanic majority that could’ve made their seats safer in a Democratic wave election. Going into Election Day, Republicans held seven of the 14 House seats in Dallas County. But a collapse of the Republican-leaning redistricting scheme has left them with just two seats — and even those were won by narrow margins.

“The lesson is you can get too clever in gerrymandering,” said Michael Li, a redistricting expert with the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

[…]

As far as Democrats and redistricting experts are concerned, Republicans could have opted to create a new “opportunity district” for the county’s growing population of color. That would’ve reduced the number of voters of color in Republican districts, giving the GOP more of a cushion through the decade, but it would have also likely added another seat to the Democrats’ column.

Opting instead for more power, the Democrats alleged, the Republicans packed and cracked Latino voters across the county to diminish their voting strength overall and ensure a GOP majority.

But Republicans “shaved those things off a little too close because they got greedy,” said Jose Garza, a voting rights lawyer who helped challenge the GOP’s mapmaking. And in a wave election like this, the vulnerable Republican majority loses its edge, he added.

Here’s my precinct analysis from 2016 for Dallas County. I had some thoughts about how this year might go based on what happened in 2016, so let me quote myself from that second post:

“So the best case for the Republicans is a clear win in six districts, with two tossups. Democrats can reasonably hope to have an advantage in eight districts, and in a really good year could mount a decent challenge in 11. These are Presidential year conditions, of course, though as we’ve discussed several times, there’s every reason to believe that 2018 will not be like 2010 or 2014. It still could be bad – Dems will definitely have to protect HD107 – but if the off-year cycle has been broken, there are a lot of opportunities in Dallas to make gains.”

In actuality, Dems won twelve of fourteen races, with a recount possible in one of the two losses. Clearly, I did not see that coming. The supercharged performance in Dallas County overall contributed not only to these results, but also the wins in SD16 and CD32. If this is the new normal in Dallas County, Republicans are going to have some very hard choices to make in 2021 when it’s time to redraw the lines.

And by the way, this lesson about not being too greedy is one they should have learned in the last decade. In 2001, they drew the six legislative districts in Travis County to be three Ds and three Rs. By 2008, all six districts were in Democratic hands. The Republicans won HD47 back in the 2010 wave, and the map they drew this time around left it at 5-1 for the Dems. Of course, they lost HD47 last week too, so maybe the lesson is that the big urban areas are just unrelentingly hostile to them. Not a very useful lesson, I suppose, but not my problem.

Anyway. Here were the top legislative targets for 2018 that I identified last cycle. Let’s do an update on that:


Dist  Clinton% Burns%  Dem18%  Rep18%
=====================================
105     52.1%   49.0%   54.7%   45.3%
113     49.1%   46.4%   53.5%   46.5%
115     51.5%   45.8%   56.7%   43.3%
134     54.7%   45.4%   46.8%   53.2%
102     52.3%   45.3%   52.8%   47.2%
043     43.6%   44.3%   38.9%   61.1%
112     48.3%   43.9%   48.9%   51.1%
135     46.6%   43.7%   50.8%   47.7%
138     47.6%   43.6%   49.9%   50.1%
114     52.1%   43.3%   55.6%   44.4%
132     45.5%   42.7%   49.2%   49.1%
136     46.7%   42.7%   53.3%   43.8%
065     46.1%   42.4%   51.1%   48.9%
052     45.3%   42.2%   51.7%   48.3%
054     43.6%   42.0%   46.2%   53.8%
045     44.2%   41.7%   51.6%   48.4%
026     45.5%   41.0%   47.5%   52.5%
047     46.5%   40.5%   52.3%   47.7%
126     42.7%   39.8%   45.2%   54.8%
108     50.3%   39.6%   49.7%   50.3%
066     45.5%   39.5%   49.7%   50.3%
067     43.9%   38.9%   48.9%   51.1%
097     42.1%   38.5%   47.2%   50.9%
121     42.7%   38.0%   44.7%   53.2%

“Clinton%” is the share of the vote Hillary Clinton got in the district in 2016, while “Burns%” is the same for Court of Criminal Appeals candidate Robert Burns. I used the latter as my proxy for the partisan ratio in a district, as Clinton had picked up crossover votes and thus in my mind made things look better for Dems than perhaps they really were. As you can see from the “Dem18% and “Rep18%” values, which are the percentages the State Rep candidates got this year, I was overly pessimistic. I figured the potential was there for growth, and hoped that people who avoided Trump could be persuaded, but I did not expect this much success. Obviously Beto was a factor as well, but it’s not like Republicans didn’t vote. They just had nowhere near the cushion they were accustomed to having, and it showed in the results.

All 12 pickups came from this group, and there remain a few key opportunities for 2020, starting with HDs 138, 54, 26, 66, and 67. I’d remove HD43, which is moving in the wrong direction, and HD134 continues to be in a class by itself, but there are other places to look. What’s more, we can consider a few districts that weren’t on the radar this year to be in play for 2020:


Dist  Clinton% Burns%  Dem18%  Rep18%
=====================================
014     38.1%   34.7%   43.6%   56.4%
023     40.7%   40.5%   41.1%   56.8%
028     42.7%   38.9%   45.8%   54.2%
029     41.0%   38.9%   
032     41.9%   39.5%
064     39.5%   37.4%   44.5%   52.8%
070     32.2%   28.8%   38.2%   61.8%
084     34.8%   32.1%   39.8%   60.2%
085     40.9%   39.7%   43.5%   46.5%
089     35.4%   32.1%   40.4%   59.6%
092     40.2%   37.9%   47.4%   49.8%
093     40.0%   37.5%   46.1%   53.9%
094     40.5%   37.7%   43.9%   52.5%
096     42.3%   40.6%   47.2%   50.9%
129     39.8%   36.3%   41.8%   56.5%
150     36.3%   33.5%   42.2%   57.8%

Dems did not field a candidate in HD32 (Nueces County), and while we had a candidate run and win in the primary in HD29 (Brazoria County), he must have withdrawn because there’s no Dem listed on the SOS results page. Obviously, some of these are reaches, but given how much some of the districts above shifted in a Dem direction, I’d want to see it be a priority to get good candidates in all of them, and find the funds to help them run robust campaigns.

Two other points to note. One is that the number of LGBTQ members of the House went from two (Reps. Mary Gonzalez and Celia Israel) to five in this election, as Reps-elect Erin Zwiener, Jessica Gonzalez, and Julie Johnson join them. We just missed adding one to the Senate as Mark Phariss lost by two points to Angela Paxton. Other LGBTQ candidates won other races around the state, and that list at the bottom of the article omits at least one I know of, my friend and former blogging colleague KT Musselman in Williamson County.

And on a related note, the number of Anglo Democrats, a subject that gets discussed from time to time, has more than tripled, going from six to seventeen. We began with Sens. Kirk Watson and John Whitmire, and Reps. Donna Howard, Joe Pickett, Tracy King, and Chris Turner, and to them we add Sens-elect Beverly Powell and Nathan Johnson, and Reps-elect Erin Zwiener, Vikki Goodwin, James Talarico, Michelle Beckley, John Turner, Julie Johnson, Gina Calanni, Jon Rosenthal, and John Bucy. You can make of that what you want, I’m just noting it for the record.

UPDATE: As noted in the comments, added Rep. Tracy King to the list of Anglo Dems.

Omnibus election report

Nov 7th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
13 comments

It’s after midnight, I’ve mostly posted stuff on my long-dormant Twitter account (@kuff), and I will have many, many thoughts in the coming days. For now, a brief recap.

– As you know, neither Beto nor any other Dem won statewide, thus continuing the shutout that began in 1996. However, as of this writing and 6,998 of 7,939 precincts counted, O’Rourke had 3,824,780 votes, good for 47.86% of the total. In 2016, Hillary Clinton collected 3,877,868 votes. It seems very likely that by the time all is said and done, Beto O’Rourke will be the biggest vote-getter in history for a Texas Democrat. He will have built on Hillary Clinton’s total from 2016. That’s pretty goddamn amazing, and if you’re not truly impressed by it you’re not seeing the whole picture. We’re in a different state now.

– Beto may not have won, but boy howdy did he have coattails. Colin Allred won in CD32, and Lizzie Fletcher won in CD07. Will Hurd is hanging on to a shrinking lead in CD23, up by less than 1,200 votes with about 14% of the precincts yet to report. He was leading by 6,000 votes in early voting, and it may still be possible for Gina Ortiz Jones to catch him. Todd Litton (45.30% in CD02), Lorie Burch (44.21% in CD03), Jana Lynne Sanchez (45.25% in CD06), Mike Siegel (46.71% in CD10), Joseph Kopser (47.26% in CD21), Sri Kulkarni (46.38% in CD22), Jan McDowell (46.91% in CD24), Julie Oliver (44.43% in CD25), and MJ Hegar (47.54% in CD31) all came within ten points.

– Those coattails extended further down the ballot. Dems picked up two State Senate seats, as Beverly Powell defeated Konni Burton in SD10 (Wendy Davis’ old seat) and Nathan Johnson trounced Don Huffines in SD16. Rita Lucido was at 46.69% in SD17, but she wasn’t the next-closest competitor – Mark Phariss came within three points of defeating Angela Paxton in SD08, a race that wasn’t really on the radar. Oh, and in an even less-visible race Gwenn Burud scored 45.45% in SD09, while Meg Walsh got to 41.60% against Sen. Charles Schwertner in SD05 (he was just over 55% in that race). We could make things very, very interesting in 2022.

– And down in the State House, Dems have picked up 11 seats:

HD45, Erin Zwiener
HD47, Vikki Goodwin
HD52, James Talarico
HD65, Michelle Beckley
HD102, Ana-Marie Ramos
HD105, Terry Meza
HD113, Rhetta Bowers
HD114, John Turner
HD115, Julie Johnson
HD135, Jon Rosenthal
HD136, John Bucy

Note that of those seven wins, a total of four came from Denton, Hays, and Williamson Counties. The Dems have officially gained a foothold in the suburbs. They also lost some heartbreakingly close races in the House – I’ll save that for tomorrow – and now hold 12 of 14 seats in Dallas County after starting the decade with only six seats. This is the risk of doing too precise a gerrymander – the Republicans there had no room for error in a strong Democratic year.

– Here in Harris County, it was another sweep, as Dems won all the judicial races and in the end all the countywide races. Ed Emmett lost by a point after leading most of the evening, while the other Republicans lost by wide margins. Also late in the evening, Adrian Garcia squeaked ahead of Commissioner Jack Morman in Precinct 2, leading by a 112,356 to 111,226 score. Seems fitting that Morman would lose a close race in a wave year, as that was how he won in the first place. That means Dems now have a 3-2 majority on Commissioners Court. Did I say we now live in a different state? We now live in a very different county.

– With 999 of 1,013 precincts in, Harris County turnout was 1,194,379, with about 346K votes happening on Election Day. That puts turnout above what we had in 2008 (in terms of total votes, not percentage of registered voters) but a hair behind 2012. It also means that about 71% of the vote was cast early, a bit less than in 2016.

– Oh, and the Dems swept Fort Bend, too, winning District Attorney, County Judge, District Clerk, all contests judicial races, and County Commissioner in Precinct 4. Maybe someone can explain to me now why they didn’t run candidates for County Clerk and County Treasurer, but whatever.

– Possibly the biggest bloodbath of the night was in the Courts of Appeals, where the Dems won every single contested race in the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 13th, and 14th Courts. I count 16 incumbent Republican judges losing, with several more open Republican-held seats flipping. That is utterly amazing, and will have an impact far greater than we can imagine right now.

– Last but not least, both Houston propositions passed. Expect there to be a lawsuit over Prop B.

Endorsement watch: Nine from Obama

Oct 3rd, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

I don’t know what the practical effect of this is, but I’m happy for the attention.

Former President Barack Obama has backed nine more Democratic candidates in Texas as part of his second round of midterm endorsements.

The nine candidates include challengers in two of Texas’ most competitive congressional races: Lizzie Fletcher, who is running against U.S. Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, and Gina Ortiz Jones, who is taking on U.S. Rep. Will Hurd, R-Helotes. The Texans that Obama endorsed also include two who are likely to become the state’s first Latina congresswomen: Veronica Escobar, who is running to replace U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, and Houston state Sen. Sylvia Garcia, who is vying for the seat being vacated by retiring U.S. Rep. Gene Green, D-Houston.

Rounding out the list of Obama’s latest endorsements in Texas are five state House candidates. One is Dallas state Rep. Eric Johnson, who is running for re-election, and the four others are all in races that Democrats are targeting as pick-up opportunities.

These nine were part of a much bigger group nationwide. All four of those State House endorsed challengers are also from Dallas: Ana-Marie Ramos (HD102), Terry Meza (HD105), Rhetta Bowers (HD113), and Julie Johnson (HD115). As the story notes, Obama had previously endorsed two Congressional candidates, Colin Allred and Adrienne Bell. I’m sure this will help everyone’s fundraising, though by how much is a question I can’t answer, and it’s certainly a lovely feather in one’s cap – I’d be over the moon as a candidate to get this kind of recognition. But at the end of the day, it’s about where and by how much the needle gets moved. These are all top-tier races, and the candidates deserve the support. What I’d really like to see is more attention to and support of the candidates in the second- and third-tier races, both as a means of trying to maximize the effect of the beneficial environment, and to recognize the great work that so many people have been doing without that kind of support. We’re going to need more of these candidate in 2020 and beyond, so let’s make sure no one walks away from this year feeling like it wasn’t worth the effort.

July 2018 campaign finance reports: State House

Aug 9th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

We’e seen a lot of very good campaign finance reports, all of which speak to the enthusiasm and engagement of Democrats this cycle. This batch of reports is not as good. These are July reports from State House candidates, take from the most competitive districts based on 2016 results. Let’s see what we’ve got and then we’ll talk about it.

Amanda Jamrok – HD23
Meghan Scoggins – HD28
Dee Ann Torres Miller – HD43
Erin Zwiener – HD45
Vikki Goodwin – HD47
James Talarico – HD52
Michelle Beckley – HD65
Sharon Hirsch – HD66
Beth McLaughlin – HD97
Ana-Maria Ramos – HD102
Terry Meza – HD105
Rep. Victoria Neave – HD107
Joanna Cattanach – HD108
Brandy Chambers – HD112
Rhetta Bowers – HD113
John Turner – HD114
Julie Johnson – HD115
Natali Hurtado – HD126
Alex Karjeker – HD129
Gina Calanni – HD132
Allison Sawyer – HD134
Jon Rosenthal – HD135
John Bucy – HD136
Adam Milasincic – HD138


Dist  Name             Raised    Spent    Loans   On Hand
=========================================================
023   Jamrok            3,914    4,244      323       191
028   Scoggins         15,545    8,516    3,000     6,499
043   Torres Miller    10,043    9,109   10,000    10,934
045   Zwiener          42,493   30,608    3,100     5,341
047   Goodwin          97,681  112,871   55,000    46,515
052   Talarico        118,017  120,938   25,000    71,428
065   Beckley          20,609   18,785   10,000     5,143
066   Hirsch           28,597    7,042        0    35,387
097   McLaughlin       19,154   14,713        0    12,314
102   Ramos            28,157   19,562      650    18,205
105   Meza             19,439   10,899        0    10,179
107   Neave           133,759   68,017        0    95,765
108   Cattanach        71,919   17,855        0    53,234
112   Chambers         51,220   22,778        0    23,000
113   Bowers           11,541   14,055        0       216
114   Turner          205,862  103,338    7,000   259,765
115   Johnson         204,965  143,261        0   201,005
126   Hurtado           2,989       90        0     1,906
129   Karjeker         59,746   24,474        0    34,527
132   Calanni           3,939      634      750     3,305
134   Sawyer           22,510   16,559        0    20,973
135   Rosenthal        11,143    2,830    1,750     7,312
136   Bucy             90,301   66,723   46,375    69,680
138   Milasincic       35,762   23,553        0    42,009

As with the State Senate candidates, some of these candidates’ reports reflect the full January through June time frame, some begin eight days before the March primary (for those who had a contested primary), and the reports for Erin Zwiener and Vikki Goodwin begin eight days before the May runoff, as they had to win those races to get this far. Some of the candidates for districts you saw in that earlier posts are not here because they didn’t raise anything worth mentioning. Victoria Neave in HD107 is an incumbent, having flipped that district in 2016; everyone else is a challenger. What’s here is what we’ve got to work with.

The numbers speak for themselves, and I’m not going to review them district by district. Candidates in Dallas County have done pretty well overall, though we could sure stand to do better in HDs 105 and 113, which are two of the best pickup opportunities out there. James Talarico and John Bucy in Williamson County are both hauling it in, but I wonder what they’re spending all that dough on, as neither of them had primary opponents. Alex Karjeker in HD129 is off to a strong start, but he’s not exactly in the most competitive district in Harris County. The good news here is that Annie’s List recently announced their endorsements of Gina Calanni and Allison Lami Sawyer, which ought to boost their numbers. *They also endorsed Lina Hidalgo for County Judge, which is great for her but outside the scope of this post.) Prior to that, the only challengers among the Annie’s List candidates were Julie Johnson in HD115 and Senate candidate Beverly Powell. I very much hope they will ramp up their support of legislative contenders, because we can clearly use all the help we can get.

Now to be sure, there’s a lot of money out there going to turn out Democratic voters. It’s likely that money going to the campaigns for Congressional candidates and Beto O’Rourke will bring them out for the other races as well. But this is an all-hands-on-deck situation, and State Rep campaigns are very well suited for door-knocking and other close-to-the-ground efforts. If you’ve already made donations to Beto or a Congressional candidate, that’s great! But if you haven’t given yet or you’re looking to give again, consider dropping a few coins on a State Rep candidate or two. That looks to me to be your best bang for the buck.

Precinct analysis: Dallas County Presidential numbers

Jan 31st, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

News flash: Hillary Clinton won every Dallas County State Rep district. See for yourself:


Dist      Trump  Clinton  Johnson  Stein
========================================
CD32    117,758  127,824    5,751  1,056
				
HD100     8,405   33,647      647    217
HD102    24,768   30,291    1,312    287
HD103     8,710   28,689      683    205
HD104     6,941   25,168      414    200
HD105    20,979   25,087      855    246
HD107    24,162   29,159      991    274
HD108    34,621   39,583    2,106    290
HD109    10,714   53,220      573    247
HD110     4,006   31,137      248    128
HD111    11,700   44,926      599    262
HD112    26,081   26,735    1,119    231
HD113    26,468   27,530      898    261
HD114    29,221   35,259    1,586    246
HD115    26,158   30,895    1,501    319

CD32     46.66%   50.65%    2.28%  0.42%
				
HD100    19.58%   78.40%    1.51%  0.51%
HD102    43.71%   53.46%    2.32%  0.51%
HD103    22.75%   74.93%    1.78%  0.54%
HD104    21.21%   76.91%    1.27%  0.61%
HD105    44.48%   53.19%    1.81%  0.52%
HD107    44.26%   53.42%    1.82%  0.50%
HD108    45.20%   51.67%    2.75%  0.38%
HD109    16.55%   82.19%    0.88%  0.38%
HD110    11.28%   87.66%    0.70%  0.36%
HD111    20.35%   78.15%    1.04%  0.46%
HD112    48.15%   49.36%    2.07%  0.43%
HD113    47.99%   49.91%    1.63%  0.47%
HD114    44.07%   53.17%    2.39%  0.37%
HD115    44.43%   52.48%    2.55%  0.54%

I included the CD32 numbers as well since we were just discussing CD32. As before, remember that CD32 also includes part of Collin County, so this is not all of CD32.

You know by now that the Clinton numbers do not tell the most accurate story about the partisan levels in a given district. I have relied on judicial race numbers to highlight swings, trends, and opportunities, and I will do the same here in subsequent posts. I can tell you from the numbers that you will see in these posts that there were probably 20K to 25K crossover voters for Clinton, and it seems clear that a lot of them came in the most Republican districts in Dallas. A big difference between Dallas and Harris is that while the latter has several untouchably red districts, Dallas really doesn’t. HD108 is the closest thing Dallas has to that, and it was 59-39 for Romney in 2012. By contrast, eight of the 11 districts won by Romney in Harris County were redder than that, three of them by double digits. Dallas is a solid blue county (57-42 for Obama over Romney in 2012) drawn to give the Republicans an 8-6 majority of their legislative caucus. There’s no margin for error here.

And they didn’t have that margin in this election. Dems picked up HD107, and lost HD105 by 64 votes. As you will see, three other districts – HDs 102, 113, and 115 – present strong opportunities to accompany HD105 going forward. The Republicans are going to have some interesting decisions to make when it comes time to redraw the lines in 2021.

Races I’ll be watching on Tuesday, Legislative edition

Nov 7th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

vote-button

Here are the legislative races I’ll be looking at to see what kind of a day it has been for Texas Democrats. After the 2012 general election, the Dems had 55 seats in the Lege. Thee Democrats lost in 2014, lowering that total to 52. As things stand right now, Dems are at 50 seats, with one seat being lost early this year in a special election, and another later on to an independent in a special election that basically no one paid any attention to. I’m going to group the races into four tiers with decreasing levels of likelihood and expectation, and we’ll see where we might wind up.

Group 1: Back to parity

HD117 – Obama 2008 52.5%, Obama 2012 51.8%
HD118 – Obama 2008 55.1%, Obama 2012 55.2%
HD120 – Obama 2008 62.9%, Obama 2012 64.6%
HD144 – Obama 2008 48.0%, Obama 2012 51.0%

HDs 117 and 144 were the seats lost in 2014 (along with HD23, which is in a different category). HDs 118 (Farias) and 120 (McClendon) had specials due to the early retirement of their Dem incumbents. Note that Mary Ann Perez won HD144 in 2012 by 6.5 points over a stronger Republican opponent than the accidental incumbent she faces now. Phillip Cortez, running to reclaim HD117 after losing it in 2014, defeated a 2010-wave Republican by nearly eight points in 2012. I expect all four to be won by Democrats on Tuesday, which puts the caucus at 54.

Group 2: It sure would be nice to win these in a year like this

HD43 – Obama 2008 46.9%, Obama 2012 47.9%
HD105 – Obama 2008 46.1%, Obama 2012 46.5%
HD107 – Obama 2008 46.7%, Obama 2012 46.9%
HD113 – Obama 2008 46.1%, Obama 2012 46.3%

These are the white whales for Texas Democrats in recent elections. HD43 is home of the turncoat JM Lozano, who switched parties after the 2010 wipeout after having won a Democratic primary against an ethically-challenged incumbent in March. Now-former Rep. Linda Harper-Brown, who lost a primary in HD105 in 2014 to Rep. Rodney Anderson, had two of the closest victories in recent years, hanging on in 2008 by twenty votes and in 2012 by fewer than 800 votes. Similarly, Rep. Kenneth Sheets won in 2012 by 850 votes. The map designers in 2011 did a great job of keeping eight out of 14 districts in strongly Democratic Dallas County just red enough to win so far. I have to feel like this is the year their luck runs out. I’ll be disappointed if Dems don’t win at least two of these races, so let’s put the caucus at 56.

Group 3: Pop the champagne, we’re having a great night

HD23 – Obama 2008 47.5%, Obama 2012 44.2%
HD54 – Obama 2008 47.9%, Obama 2012 45.7%
HD102 – Obama 2008 46.6%, Obama 2012 45.3%
HD112 – Obama 2008 44.0%, Obama 2012 43.5%
HD114 – Obama 2008 46.6%, Obama 2012 43.5%
HD115 – Obama 2008 43.9%, Obama 2012 43.2%
HD134 – Obama 2008 46.5%, Obama 2012 41.7%

That’s most of the rest of Dallas County, the seat held by former Rep. Craig Eiland till he retired before the 2014 election, Rep. Sarah Davis’ perennial swing seat, and the Killeen-based district now held by the retiring Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock. It’s this last one that I think is most likely to flip; there were a few maps drawn during the 2011 session that made this a fairly solid blue seat. The main hesitation I have with this one is that I don’t know what kind of Dem infrastructure exists out there to take advantage of the conditions. Aycock never faced much of a challenge though he won in 2012 by the skinny-for-this-gerrymandering margin of 57.5% to 42.5%, partly because that district is off the beaten path for Dems and partly (I suspect) out of respect for Aycock, who was a really good Public Ed committee chair. If even one of these seats flip, I’d assume all four of the ones in the level above did, so we’ll increment the county to 59.

Group 4: Holy crap, how did that happen?

HD47 – Obama 2008 44.8%, Obama 2012 39.3%
HD52 – Obama 2008 46.2%, Obama 2012 42.4%
HD65 – Obama 2008 43.0%, Obama 2012 40.8%
HD85 – Obama 2008 40.7%, Obama 2012 38.0%
HD108 – Obama 2008 44.9%, Obama 2012 39.3%
HD135 – Obama 2008 38.7%, Obama 2012 39.8%
HD136 – Obama 2008 45.9%, Obama 2012 41.2%

Now we’re starting to get into some unfamiliar territory. HD47 is the lone Republican district in Travis County. Dems captured it in the wave of 2008 then lost it in the wave of 2010, and it was shored up as a genuine Republican district in 2011, with the side effect of making HDs 48 and 50 more solidly blue. HD108 is in the Highland Park part of Dallas, so who knows, maybe Donald Trump was the last straw for some of those folks. I’ve talked a few times about how HDs 135 and 132 were the two red districts in Harris County trended bluer from 2008 to 2012; I don’t expect it to go all the way, but I’ll be shocked if there isn’t some decent progress made. HD52 was won by a Dem in 2008 but was drawn to be more Republican in 2011. HD136, like HD52 in Williamson County, was a new district in 2012 and has been represented by a crazy person since then. HD65 is in Collin County, and HD85 is primarily in Fort Bend. Winning any of these would help tamp down the narrative that Dems are only creatures of the urban counties and the border.

If somehow Dems won all of these districts – which won’t happen, but go with it for a minute – the caucus would be at 73 members, which needless to say would have a seismic effect on the 2017 session and Dan Patrick’s ambitions. Putting the number above 60 would be a very nice accomplishment given all that’s stacked against such a thing happening, though it’s hard to say how much effect that might have on the session. Note that I have not put any Senate races in here. This is not because the Senate has a more diabolical gerrymander than the House does, but because the four most purple Senate districts – SDs 09, 10, 16, and 17 – were all up in 2014, and thus not on the ballot this year. You can bet I’ll be looking at their numbers once we have them.

There are a few districts that I would have included if there had been a Dem running in them (specifically, HDs 32, 45, and 132), and there are a few with numbers similar to those in the bottom group that I didn’t go with for whatever the reason. Tell me which districts you’ll be looking out for tomorrow. I’ll have a companion piece to this on Tuesday.

An early look ahead to the legislative races

Jun 12th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

The Trib takes a look at the legislative races that could end with a seat changing parties.

vote-button

• HD-23. Freshman state Rep. Wayne Faircloth, R-Dickinson, against former state Rep. Lloyd Criss, R-La Marque.

• HD-43. State Rep. J.M. Lozano, R-Kingsville, will face Democratic challenger Marisa Yvette Garcia-Utley.

• HD-54. State Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen, decided not to seek reelection in a district where Republicans have only a narrow advantage over Democrats in presidential election years like this one. Killeen Mayor Scott Cosper apparently won the Republican runoff, but his 43-vote margin over Austin Ruiz has prompted a recount. The winner will face Democrat Sandra Blankenship in November.

• HD-78. State Rep. Joe Moody, D-El Paso, will contend with Jeffrey Lane, a Republican in a district where Democrats have demonstrated a slight advantage.

• HD-102. Freshman Rep. Linda Koop, R-Dallas, will face Democrat Laura Irvin.

• HD-105. State Rep. Rodney Anderson, R-Grand Prairie, currently holds this swing district. He’ll battle Democrat Terry Meza in November.

• HD-107. State Rep. Ken Sheets, R-Dallas, has fended off a series of challenges in his narrowly Republican district; this time, the chief opponent is Democrat Victoria Neave.

• HD-113. Like Sheets in the district next door, state Rep. Cindy Burkett, R-Sunnyvale, has a district where the incumbent is always under attack. Her Democratic opponent this time is Rhetta Andrews Bowers.

• HD-117. State Rep. Rick Galindo, R-San Antonio, is one of two House Republicans defending a district where Democrats generally win statewide races. He’ll face the guy he beat, former Rep. Philip Cortez, a Democrat, in November.

• HD-118. The other of those Republicans is John Luhan, also of San Antonio, who won a special election earlier this year to replace Democrat Joe Farias, who retired. He’ll face Democrat Tomás Uresti — the loser of that special election — in a November rematch.

• HD-144. State Rep. Gilbert Peña, R-Pasadena, represents a district that has gone for Republicans in some years and Democrats in others. And it’s another rematch: He will face former Rep. Mary Ann Perez, the Democrat who lost in 2014 by 152 votes out of 11,878 cast.

Several incumbents got free passes in districts where an able opponent might have been dangerous. In HD-34, state Rep. Abel Herrero, D-Robstown, drew no Republican challenger. In HD-45, Republican Jason Isaac didn’t draw a Democratic opponent.

That’s a pretty comprehensive list. Because I like numbers, I went and dug up the 2012 district results so you can get some idea of how steep a hill these are to climb for the Democrats:


Dist    Romney    Obama    Romney%   Obama%    Diff   Boost
===========================================================
023     31,282   25,365     54.56%   44.24%   5,917   23.3%
043     25,017   22,554     52.05%   46.92%   2,463   10.9%
054     25,343   21,909     52.90%   45.73%   3,434   15.7%
102     29,198   24,958     53.01%   45.31%   4,240   17.0%
105     23,228   20,710     52.11%   46.46%   2,518   12.2%
107     27,185   24,593     51.81%   46.87%   2,592   10.5%
112     28,221   22,308     55.01%   43.48%   5,913   26.5%
113     27,098   23,893     52.51%   46.30%   3,205   13.4%
114     35,975   28,182     55.21%   43.47%   7,793   27.7%
115     29,861   23,353     55.26%   43.22%   6,508   27.9%
136     35,296   26,423     55.06%   41.22%   8,873   33.6%

“Diff” is just the difference between the Romney and Obama totals. “Boost” is my way of quantifying how wide that gap really is. It’s the ratio of the Diff to the Obama total, which put another way is how big a turnout boost Democrats would need in 2016 over 2012 to match the Republican total. That doesn’t take into account any other factors, of course, it’s just intended as a bit of context. Note that for HDs 78 (where Obama won by more than ten points in 2012), 117, 118, and 144, Democrats already had a majority of the vote in 2012, so in theory all that is needed is to hold serve. Individual candidates matter as well, of course, though in 2012 there was literally only on State House race in which the winner was not from the party whose Presidential candidate carried the district, that being then-Rep. Craig Eiland in HD23. Point being, you can swim against the tide but it’s a lot more challenging to do so these days. I went and added a couple more races to the list that the Trib put together just for completeness and a sense of how big the difference is between the top tier and the next tier. I don’t have a point to make beyond this, I’m just noting all this for the record.

More Congressional seats are likely on the way

Mar 28th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

If current trends continue, that is.

Texas could pick up two, perhaps three, new congressional seats following the 2020 decennial Census if current population growth continues through the decade, political and demographic experts said Thursday.

With continued growth in Texas’ four major metropolitan areas, they said, the state could almost match the gains it made in political representation after the 2010 Census, when it added four seats in Congress.

The Houston metropolitan area has led the way this decade, according to Census Bureau data released Thursday, potentially positioning the area for two additional seats in fast-growing Fort Bend and Montgomery counties.

The San Antonio area likely would be at the top of the list for an additional congressional seat, as well, said state demographer and University of Texas at San Antonio professor Lloyd Potter.

All told, the state’s largest metro areas – anchored in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin and San Antonio – added about 400,000 people last year, more than any other state in the country.

[…]

The greater Houston area, which includes The Woodlands and Sugar Land, added about 159,000 residents between July 2014 and July 2015, while the second-fastest-growing Texas metro area, Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, saw an increase of 145,000.

The state’s population growth was led by Latinos in the last decade, Potter said, a trend that has accelerated.

“I can see areas that, maybe historically, were largely non-Hispanic white shifting and becoming more integrated in terms of having people of Hispanic descent, Asian and even African-American in them,” Potter said.

Under those circumstances, it could become increasingly difficult for Republicans, who will control the state legislature for the foreseeable future, to draw the new congressional and state district lines in ways that favor their party.

In the short term, given the party’s firm grip on power in Texas, growth in the state will favor the GOP, but that political calculus cannot last in the long-term, according to Bob Stein, a political science professor at Rice University.

“There simply aren’t enough bodies to go around to draw what we might call safe Republican districts,” Stein said. “Nonetheless, I think Republicans will find a way to advantage themselves, particularly in the statehouse. But increasingly, what you’re going to find is a black and Hispanic population become an obstacle to drawing districts.”

Let’s not get too far ahead of ourselves here. As I said before, let’s wait and see what the next estimates have to say, because things could slow down considerably before the actual Census takes place if the oil and gas industry is still in a slump. There’s also the matter of that pesky never-ending litigation spawned by the 2011 redistricting (technically, we’re fighting over the 2013 maps), which if nothing else may offer some direction on how the GOP might proceed in 2021. With all that said, here are a few thoughts:

– If trends continue and Texas does get three new Congressional seats, I fully expect two of them to be drawn as Republican districts. Never mind that it was almost entirely growth in the minority population drove the increase – that didn’t matter to the Republican map-drawers in 2011, and it won’t matter to them in 2021 unless they are forced to take it into consideration by the courts. Even then, the only scenario under which I see more than one Democratic district being drawn is if the Republicans conclude that they can’t draw any more GOP districts without putting their incumbents at risk.

(I will stipulate here that the Democrats thought this way when they were in charge, too, and that we’d be having a different conversation now if we had some kind of independent redistricting commission in place. That ain’t gonna happen, and I will further stipulate that it won’t happen if by some miracle the Dems seize control of the Lege in 2021. Let’s keep our eye on the ball that is actually in play.)

– I fully expect the Republicans to try once again to draw Lloyd Doggett out of a district. They tried in 2003, they tried in 2011, why wouldn’t they try in 2021? Death, taxes, and Lloyd Doggett has a target on his back in redistricting.

– You can also be sure that they will try to make CD23 as Republican-friendly as possible. That district is one of the few that is still under dispute in the ongoing litigation, and if there’s one lesson to be taken from the 2011 experience it’s that whatever egregious thing you do in drawing the maps, you’re going to get at least two cycles of benefit from it before any corrections are made, so why not go for broke? That will be the case in 2021, and assuming President Trump doesn’t dissolve Congress in his second term, I’d bet it’s a point of contention in 2031, too.

– Moving on to other entities, I wonder if the Republicans will try to do to Kirk Watson in the Senate what they’ve tried to do to Doggett in Congress. It amazes me that Travis County has pieces of so many Congressional districts in it – I joked back in 2011 that if the GOP could have figured out a way to put a piece of all 36 Congressional districts in Travis County they would have – all but one of which is held by a Republican, yet the large majority of SD14 is in Travis County, and the large majority of Travis County is represented by good old liberal Watson. Maybe it’s harder to stick a shiv in a colleague than some chump in Washington, I don’t know. But if SD14 survives more or less intact in 2021, I will begin to wonder just what Sen. Watson has on his fellow Senators.

– I also wonder if SD19, which has a lot of overlap with CD23, might get tinkered with in a way that would make it more of a district that could be won by either party based on whether or not it’s a Presidential year. SD19 isn’t that heavily Democratic, though Sen. Uresti survived 2010 intact and is on a Presidential cycle this decade. There’s less pressing a need for this from a GOP perspective since the two thirds rule was killed, and there’s still that pesky litigation and the queasiness they may feel about knifing a colleague, but hey, a seat’s a seat.

– The GOP will likely try to make SD10 a little redder, and if they think about it, they might take a look at SD16, too. That district can be pretty purple in Presidential years (it’s on a non-Presidential cycle this time around), and with a less-congenial member in place now than John Carona was, it could be a tempting target. Major surgery isn’t required to shore it up, just a little nip and tuck. Just a thought.

– As for the State House, the two main questions for me are whether Harris County will get 25 members again, and if Dallas County, which lost two seats in 2011, will get one or more back. We won’t know the answer to these questions until the Redistricting Committee gets down to brass tacks in 2021.

– The ongoing litigation is as much about the State House as it is Congress, though in both cases the number of districts currently in dispute is small. As with the Congressional districts, I fully expect that the same fights will occur over the same places, which includes the places where the court ruled against the plaintiffs initially. Some of those places – western Harris County (HD132), Fort Bend (HD26), the Killeen/Fort Hood area (HD54) – could support districts that are tossup/lean Dem right now if one were inclined to draw such things. I suspect that battleground will be bigger in 2021.

– Since the debacle of 2010, much has been written about the decline of Anglo Democrats in the Lege. That number has dipped again, thanks to the retirement of Rep. Elliott Naishtat and subsequent primary win by Gina Hinojosa. What could at least temporarily reverse that trend is for Dems to finally win a couple of the swingy Dallas County seats that are currently held by Republicans, specifically (in order of difficulty) HDs 114, 115, and 102. (HDs 105 and 107 are far closer electorally, but checking the candidates‘ websites, the Dems in question are both Latinas.) Longer term, if the Dems can make themselves more competitive in suburban areas, that number will increase. This is a corollary of Mary Beth Roger’s prescription for Texas Dems, and it’s something that needs more emphasis. Texas Dems ain’t going anywhere till we can be a credible electoral threat in suburban counties. Our pre-2010 caucus was bolstered by the presence of legacy rural incumbents. We’re not winning those seats back any time soon. The good news is that we don’t need to. The opportunities are elsewhere. The bad news is that we haven’t figured our how to take advantage of it, and it’s not clear that we’re putting that much effort into figuring it out.

Redistricting update

Feb 6th, 2015
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

From Russ Tidwell, writing at Letters from Texas:

Plan H382

There is well-established case law around redistricting that calls for creating a new minority opportunity district anytime a compact majority of a single minority group can be established (i.e., majority Black or majority Hispanic), but a combination of the two doesn’t necessarily count.

While Texas is seeing explosive growth in its various minority populations, much of that growth is not concentrated in single minority neighborhoods. Rather, much of this population has been diffused into the close-in suburbs of our major urban counties and other small cities. Multi-ethnic communities of Hispanics, Blacks, Asians and Anglos have emerged in Mesquite, Garland, Irving, Arlington, Grand Prairie, Killeen, Waco, Sugar Land, and western Harris County.

It is literally impossible to draw compact districts here that have a majority of any single minority.

As noted in a previous post, by 2008, minority citizens in many of these naturally-occurring suburban concentrations had elected the candidates of their choice to the Texas House, and this made a difference. The House was closely divided and all minority legislators had the opportunity to be “at the table.”

The 2010 electoral tsunami swept out the minority candidates of choice in all swing districts. The resulting Anglo supermajority in the legislature attempted to make its status permanent by dismantling the districts that had given minority citizens voice. Alternatively packing and fragmenting those voters was the process. Litigation ensued.

Do those minority citizens in ethnically diverse communities have voting rights? That is what the redistricting litigation is about in large part. The State of Texas, in closing arguments at trial, says they do not. The state, in effect, says that if a minority citizen cannot be drawn in to a district with a majority of the population from a single minority group, they have no other voting rights protection. Believe it or not, that is the state’s position in federal court.

The Perez Plaintiffs published a demonstration map (view the map and view the analysis) showing eleven hypothetical State House districts in suburban Texas where this fragmentation occurred. This map reverses that fragmentation and produces eleven compact districts where minority citizens would have the opportunity to elect the candidates of their choice.

These demonstration districts have a total population of 1,834,145. Just over a million of them are Black or Hispanic (1,002,389); another 184,802 are Asian. Almost 65% of this population is minority, yet it is impossible to draw one district in this territory that has a majority of a single minority group. The population is too diffused.

This map would recognize voting rights for almost 1.2 million people who are disenfranchised under the state’s enacted plan. That is the significance of this litigation.

Tidwell notes that final arguments and briefs have been filed with the three-judge panel in San Antonio, so one presumes we will get a ruling sometime in the next few months, with the possibility of new maps being in place for the 2016 election. The Perez plaintiffs’ map and associated data can be found here. There’s also a Plan 381, which shows all of the districts that would be affected after these 11 were changed. In any event, the point is that either the state will get some number of these minority fusion districts or it won’t. That’s the question for the court. There is no election data analysis for the Perez plan, but based on the data I recall seeing for maps that got proposed during the redistricting process in 2011, it’s fair to say all 11 districts in the Perez map would be friendlier to Dems, in some cases tilting competitive but red-leaning districts blue, and in others (such as HD26) turning solid red districts into competitive ones. How likely any of this is to happen, including at the appellate levels, I don’t know. But this is where we are as of today.

Primary results: Legislature and Congress

Mar 5th, 2014
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Rep. Lon Burnam

The big news on the Democratic side is the close loss by longtime Rep. Lon Burnam in HD90, who fell by 111 votes to Ramon Romero Jr. I know basically nothing about Rep.-elect Romero, but I do know that Rep. Burnam has been a progressive stalwart, and it is sad to see him go. His district is heavily Latino, and he defeated a Latino challenger in 2012, but fell short this year. Congratulations to Rep.-elect Romero. Also in Tarrant County, Annie’s List-backed Libby Willis will carry the Democratic banner in SD10 to try to hold the seat being vacated by Wendy Davis. Elsewhere in Democratic legislative primaries, Rep. Naomi Gonzalez, who earned a Ten Worst spot this past session for a DUI bust during the session, was running third for her seat. Cesar Blanco, a former staffer for Rep. Pete Gallego, was leading with over 40% and will face either Gonzalez or Norma Chavez, whom Gonzalez had defeated in a previous and very nasty primary. I’m rooting for Blanco in either matchup. All other Dem incumbents won, including Rep. Mary Gonzalez in HD75. Congressional incumbents Eddie Berniece Johnson and Marc Veasey cruised to re-election, while challengers Donald Brown (CD14), Frank Briscoe (CD22), and Marco Montoya (CD25) all won their nominations.

On the Republican side, the endorsements of Rafael Cruz and Sarah Palin were not enough for Katrina Pierson in CD32, as Rep. Pete Sessions waltzed to a 68% win. Rep. Ralph Hall, who was born sometime during the Cretaceous Era, will be in a runoff against John Ratcliffe in CD04. All other GOP Congressional incumbents won, and there will be runoffs in CDs 23 and 36, the latter being between Brian Babin and Ben Streusand. I pity the fool that has to follow Steve Stockman’s act.

Some trouble in the Senate, as Sen. Bob Deuell appears headed for a runoff, and Sen. John Carona appears to have lost. Sen. Donna Campbell defeats two challengers. Those latter results ensure the Senate will be even dumber next session than it was last session. Konni Burton and Marc Shelton, whom Wendy Davis defeated in 2012, are in a runoff for SD10.

Multiple Republican State Reps went down to defeat – George Lavender (HD01), Lance Gooden (HD04), Ralph Sheffield (HD55), Diane Patrick (HD94), Linda Harper-Brown (HD105), and Bennett Ratliff (HD115). As I said last night, overall a fairly tough night for Texas Parent PAC. Rep. Stefani Carter (HD102), who briefly abandoned her seat for an ill-fated run for Railroad Commissioner, trailed Linda Koop heading into a runoff.

I’ll have more thoughts on some of these races later. I’d say the “establishment” Republican effort to push back on the Empower Texas/teabagger contingent is at best a work in progress. May open an opportunity or two for Dems – I’d say HD115 is now on their list in a way that it wouldn’t have been against Rep. Ratliff – but barring anything strange we should expect more of the same from the Lege in 2015.

Endorsement watch: The Parent PAC November slate

Oct 26th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

For your approval.

Texas Parent PAC is delighted to endorse the following candidates in the general election.  They are men and women of integrity, open and responsive to parents, actively involved in their communities, and committed to investing in public education to achieve economic prosperity in Texas.

Please vote for these endorsed candidates and encourage your friends and family to vote as well!  Early Voting is October 22 – November 2 and Election Day is Tuesday, November 6.

Read about the endorsement process here.  To find out your district number for State Senator and State Representative, look on your voter registration card or enter your address on the “Who Represents Me?” section at the Capitol web site.

Texas Parent PAC is a bipartisan political action committee.  In the 2012 Texas primary and general elections, the PAC has endorsed 28 Republicans and 25 Democrats.

Texas Senate
S.D. 10: Sen. Wendy Davis, D-Fort Worth  www.wendydavisforsenate.com
S.D. 25: John Courage, D-San Antonio www.couragefortexassenate.org
S.D. 29: Sen. José Rodríguez, D-El Paso www.senatorjoserodriguez.com

Texas House of Representatives
H.D. 23: Rep. Craig Eiland, D-Galveston  www.craigeiland.net
H.D. 24: Greg Bonnen, R-Friendswood  www.drgregbonnen.com
H.D. 29: Ed Thompson, R-Pearland  www.electedthompson.com
H.D. 34: Abel Herrero, D-Robstown  www.abelherrero.com
H.D. 41: Bobby Guerra, D-McAllen  www.voteguerra.com
H.D. 43: Yvonne Gonzalez Toureilles, D-Alice  www.voteyvonne.com
H.D. 45: John Adams, D-Dripping Springs  www.votedonna.com
H.D. 54: Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock, R-Killeen   www.jdaycock.com
H.D. 59: J. D. Sheffield, R-Gatesville  www.jdfortexas.com
H.D. 74: Poncho  Nevárez, D-Eagle Pass  www.ponchonevarez.com
H.D. 78: Joe Moody, D-El Paso  www.moodyforelpaso.com
H.D. 85: Dora Olivo, D-Richmond  www.doraolivo.com
H.D. 94: Rep. Diane Patrick, R-Arlington  www.dianepatrick.org
H.D. 95: Nicole Collier, D-Fort Worth  www.votenicolecollier.com
H.D. 101: Chris Turner, D-Arlington  www.votechristurner.com
H.D. 102: Rich Hancock, D-Richardson   www.hancockfortexas.com
H.D. 105: Dr. Rosemary Robbins, D-Irving   www.voterosemaryrobbins.com
H.D. 107: Robert Miklos, D-Dallas  www.robertmiklos.com
H.D. 115: Bennett Ratliff, R-Coppell  www.bennettratliff.com
H.D. 117: Philip Cortez, D-San Antonio   www.philipcortez.com
H.D. 118: Rep. Joe Farias, D-San Antonio  www.joefarias.com
H.D. 125: Justin Rodriguez, D-San Antonio  www.justin125.com
H.D. 134: Ann Johnson, D-Houston  www.voteannjohnson.com, TV spot
H.D. 136: Matt Stillwell, D-Cedar Park  www.mattstillwell.com
H.D. 137: Gene Wu, D-Houston  www.genefortexas.com
H.D. 144: Mary Ann Perez, D-Pasadena   www.votemaryannperez.com
H.D. 149: Rep. Hubert Vo, D-Houston   www.hubertvo.com

Here was their slate from the primaries, and an accounting of who won among those candidates. You may notice that there are four candidates that were endorsed in the GOP primary that are not on this list – Cecil Bell (HD02), Chris Peddie (HD09), Trent Ashby (HD57), and Jason Villalba (HD114). The first three have no Democratic opponents and are therefore for all intents and purposes already elected. As for Villalba, I asked Carolyn Boyle about that race, and received this response:

From the beginning, Jason was a “primary only endorsement” because Texas Parent PAC had endorsed Carol Kent in the past and she is great. Jason agreed that once the primary was over he would delete any reference to the Parent PAC endorsement for the primary, and the PAC did as well. It was important to defeat Bill Keffer in the primary, and Jason is a supporter of public education. We are staying out of the general election with Jason vs. Carol…let the voters decide, as both will advocate for public education.

So there you have it. As I did with the primary, I’ll check the scoreboard for Parent PAC after the election is over.

30 Day campaign finance reports, selected legislative races

Oct 24th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
21 comments

Here’s a sampling of 30 day finance reports from state legislative campaigns. I used the Back to Blue list as a starting point and added a few races of interest to me from there.


Dist   Candidate       Raised    Spent     Loan       Cash
==========================================================
SD10       Davis      843,878  346,466        0  1,537,783
SD10     Shelton      606,586  153,204        0    566,825

SD25     Courage       27,603   14,791        0     14,546
SD25    Campbell      566,920  592,332   90,000      7,407

HD12        Stem       29,228   23,325        0     24,566
HD12       Kacal       58,460   33,438        0     30,196

HD23      Eiland      134,051   80,923        0    101,419
HD23   Faircloth       92,890   46,816   30,000     43,089

HD26      Nguyen       12,051   22,808        0     10,840
HD26      Miller       45,765   27,995    1,000      9,496

HD34     Herrero       69,722   49,667        0     25,655
HD34       Scott      125,430   68,349        0    255,629

HD43  Toureilles       46,170   23,973        0     11,585
HD43      Lozano      260,590  185,421        0     89,770

HD45       Adams       48,020   25,800   36,000     32,241
HD45       Isaac      128,502   44,595  140,250     69,918

HD78       Moody       73,754   48,371        0     21,858
HD78       Margo      306,071   82,170        0    202,898

HD85       Olivo        9,738    3,490    2,150     10,143
HD85  Stephenson       34,696   16,146        0     21,677

HD102    Hancock       27,245    4,924        0      7,380
HD102     Carter      112,821  109,543        0     66,776

HD105    Robbins       24,687   36,999    1,505     30,583
HD105    H-Brown      123,449   68,244   52,615     87,997

HD107     Miklos       74,020   56,401        0     24,707
HD107     Sheets      280,354   96,777        0    146,778

HD114       Kent      121,236   89,824        0    132,748
HD114   Villalba      172,885  147,326        0     42,612

HD117     Cortez       48,015   44,610    1,844     18,620
HD117      Garza       52,559   72,669        0     62,371

HD118     Farias       51,015   34,925        0     25,482
HD118     Casias       23,730   21,714        0        852

HD134    Johnson      217,346  103,699        0    263,301
HD134      Davis      332,120   99,582        0    232,383

HD136  Stillwell       61,060   20,842    2,000      8,632
HD136       Dale      112,273   22,798   35,000     82,853

HD137         Wu       58,221   55,152   50,000     32,263
HD137       Khan       55,351   40,877   10,000     23,894

HD144      Perez      104,939   30,082        0    107,729
HD144     Pineda       77,357   49,460        0     33,428

HD149         Vo       38,665   27,632   45,119     48,768
HD149   Williams      134,990   56,342    1,500     74,222

Here’s a sampling of July reports for comparison. A few thoughts:

– I don’t think I’ve ever seen a greater disparity in amount raised and cash on hand as we see here with Donna Campbell. Campbell, of course, had a runoff to win on July 31, which covers the first month of this filing period, and a cursory perusal of her detailed report shows the vast majority of the action was in July, as you’d expect. I’d still have thought she’d collect more cash after the runoff, since she’s a heavy favorite to win in November. Assuming she does win, we’ll need to check out her January report from 2013.

– Overall, the Republicans have done a very good job of raising money to protect their vulnerable incumbents. The main exception to this is John Garza in HD117, though he still leads his opponent, Phillip Cortez. The difference between Rs and Ds on amount spent is a lot smaller, which may indicate that their strategy is to do a late blitz, or it may mean they’re just sitting on a lot of cash.

– Turncoat Rep. JM Lozano initially filed a report with almost no cash raised and no expenses listed. Apparently, he “forgot” over $250K in contributions. That total includes $100K from Associated Republicans of Texas, almost $68K from Texans for Lawsuit Reform, $25K from Texas Republican Representatives Campaign Fund, $6K from the Texas House Leadership Fund, $15K from Bob Perry, and just for good measure, $2K from Koch Industries. Hey, I’d want to forget about all that, too. Here’s his current corrected report; there may be another to come.

– After a somewhat anemic July report, Rep. Sarah Davis kicked into overdrive for this period. Ann Johnson, who has an ad I’ve seen a few times on the Headline News Network, did a pretty good job keeping pace, and still has a cash on hand advantage. I presume Davis has some ads running as well, since she got a $100K in kind contributions from Texans for Lawsuit Reform for TV advertising, but I have not seen any such ads myself. She also collected $100K total from Associated Republicans of Texas ($65K) and Texas Republican Representatives Campaign Fund ($35K), plus $20K from Bob Perry.

– Mary Ann Perez had the next most impressive haul after Ann Johnson, showing some very strong numbers for that open swing seat. I presume her strategy is the do a late push as well, given the cash she has on hand. And given the money they’ve sloshed around to so many other candidates, I’m surprised David Pineda hasn’t been the beneficiary of a few wads of dough from the usual suspects. We’ll see what his 8 day report looks like.

– If your eyes bugged out at Dianne Williams’ totals in HD149, I assure you that mine did as well. A closer look at her detailed report shows that nearly $115K of her total came from one person, a Mrs. Kathaleen Wall. Another $5K or so was in kind from various Republican PACs. Take all that out and her haul is much less impressive. The money is hers to spend, of course, it’s just not indicative of some broad-based support.

That’s all I’ve got. Anything interesting you’ve seen in the reports?

Back to Blue

Aug 14th, 2012
by Charles Kuffner.
6 comments

The Texas House Democratic Campaign Committee has announced its list of targeted districts for 2012. From their press release:

The list of nine includes five former House members — Abel Herrero (HD 34), Yvonne Gonzales Toureilles (HD 43), Carol Kent (HD 114), Robert Miklos (HD 107), and Joe Moody (HD 78); and four new candidates — Phil Cortez (HD 117), Ann Johnson (HD 134), Mary Ann Perez (HD 144), and Rosemary Robbins (HD 105).

The organization also announced that two of their major donors have pledged to match up to $75,000 in contributions to kick off the “Back to Blue” effort.

“The HDCC has a proven track record of helping Democratic House candidates win,” said state Representative and HDCC Board Member Jessica Farrar, “Our mission is to turn Texas House seats blue and with these candidates on our team in 2012, we will be successful.

“Thanks to our generous contributors, we have an incredible opportunity to double down and raise the money needed to win these seats,” continued Farrar.

In addition to organizational assistance, staff support, and message training, candidates targeted by the HDCC will receive financial support.

“My campaign has knocked on over 25,000 doors in Dallas County and from the conversations I’ve had with voters, I know that Democrats are on the right side of the issues. We continue to support our neighborhood schools, fight to protect women’s health and stand up to Republican lawmakers who chose not to play by the rules,” said Robert Miklos. “I know that with the HDCC’s support, the hard work of my campaign team, and the generous help of those who care about the future of our state, I will win on Election Day.”

“I am proud to have the support of the Texas HDCC and to be recognized as a ‘Back to Blue’ candidate. This shows our hard work in Houston is paying off,” said Ann Johnson. “Our voters and the people we’ve talked to don’t want politics as usual. They want someone they can count on and will be held accountable for the promises they make.”

See here for more; the HDCC is also on Facebook and Twitter. In addition to those nine, they have a five-member second tier, and three incumbents they’ve identified as in need of some protection – Reps. Craig Eiland, Joe Farias, and Hubert Vo. The five B-listers are Robert Stem (HD12), John Adams (HD45), Dora Olivo (HD85, another former member), Rich Hancock (HD102), and Matt Stilwell (HD136). I’m a numbers guy, so here are some numbers:


Top tier

Dist   Incumbent   Obama   Houston
==================================
034        Scott   52.58     58.83
043       Lozano   47.94     54.68
078        Margo   55.31     56.84
105 Harper-Brown   46.14     48.18
107       Sheets   46.71     48.46
114         Open   46.57     45.66
117        Garza   52.52     52.76
134        Davis   46.68     42.56
144         Open   47.95     54.53


Second tier

Dist   Incumbent   Obama   Houston
==================================
012         Open   39.38     46.67
045        Isaac   46.92     45.84
085         Open   40.68     45.22
102       Carter   46.64     46.75
136         Open   45.92     42.93


Incumbent protection

Dist   Incumbent   Obama   Houston
==================================
023       Eiland   47.77     54.22
118       Farias   55.10     57.61
149           Vo   55.52     56.35


Others of interest

Dist   Incumbent   Obama   Houston
==================================
017 Kleinschmidt   41.93     47.24
032       Hunter   42.57     46.20
041        Open*   57.05     59.68
047      Workman   44.75     41.27
052     Gonzales   46.18     45.01
054       Aycock   47.93     49.01
065         Open   43.04     42.36
074        Open*   57.91     61.32
113      Burkett   46.05     47.87
115         Open   43.86     43.24

Electoral data can be found here; look in the RED206 for the relevant information. The “others of interest” are my own selections. The two starred seats are open D seats; HD41 was Veronica Gonzales and HD74 was Pete Gallego.

Democrats are going to pick up three seats by default: HDs 35, 40, and 101. The former two were left open by Reps. Aliseda and Pena, the latter is a new district in Tarrant County. Strictly by the numbers, I’d classify HDs 34 and 78 are Democratic Favored; HD117 as Lean Democratic; HDs 43 and 144 as Tossup; HDs 105 and 107 as Lean Republican; and HDs 114 and 134 as Republican Favored. There are plenty of other factors to consider – candidate quality, fundraising, demographic change since 2008, etc – but let’s stick with just the numbers for now. Let’s be optimistic and say Dems can pick up seven of these nine top tier seats and not lose any they currently hold; honestly, only Eiland would seem to be in real danger. That’s a ten-seat net, which with Lozano’s switch gets them to 57. Better, but still a long way to go. The map for 2012 is unlikely to expand beyond the indicated second tier, as not all of the “other districts” I’ve identified have Dems running in them.

Certainly it’s possible for things to go better for the Dems, but worse is also in play. You could imagine a true disaster in which they get nothing but the three gimmes and lose Eiland along the way for a net +2 and only 49 seats, or one more than they had in 2011. I don’t think that’s likely, but it’s not out of the question. The long-awaited ruling from the DC Court will almost certainly trigger a new map from the San Antonio court, and for all we know the Lege may take another crack at drawing a map. The original San Antonio Court interim map made a 60-member Dem caucus likely, with friendlier Dallas districts, a Dem-favored HD54, and a tossup HD26 in Fort Bend among the differences. All I can say at this point is that I don’t believe we should get too accustomed to this interim map.

So that’s the state of play for this cycle. Go look at the candidates, pick a few favorites, and give to them or give to the HDCC. Change isn’t going to happen without your help.

New map, new opportunities: The Metroplex

May 9th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Dallas and Tarrant Counties will each have eight districts drawn to elect Republicans in them. For this entry, I’m going to look at each of these districts.

Dallas and Tarrant Counties

First up is Tarrant County, which gains a district (HD101) for a total of eleven. HD101 was drawn to elect a Democrat – Barack Obama received 61.59% of the vote, and no Democrat received less than 60%. The interesting question is what kind of Democrat it will elect. According to the district information, HD101 has a voting age population of 29.5% Anglo, 27.0% African-American, 32.5% Hispanic, and 11.6% Other. (Yes, I know that doesn’t add to 100%. I’m just telling you what it says.) VAP is not the same as Citizen Voting Age Population, however, and in general the Hispanic number will drop a lot more for that than other demographic groups. As such, if I were a betting man, I’d wager on African-American. But don’t be surprised if he or she gets a primary challenge from a Hispanic candidate before the decade is over.

So chalk up one sure gain for the Dems. For the eight Republican districts in Tarrant County, here’s the tale of the tape:


Dist    Incumbent Elected  08 Dem High Score
============================================
091     K Hancock    2006     Houston, 35.10
092       T Smith    1996     Houston, 39.76
093        B Nash    2010       Obama, 41.60
094     D Patrick    2006     Houston, 39.63
096      B Zedler    2010     Houston, 42.35
097     M Shelton    2008       Obama, 41.41
098      V Truitt    1998       Obama, 28.12
099       C Geren    2000     Houston, 38.38

None of these stand out as obvious pickup opportunities. Both HDs 93, which had been won by a Democrat in 2006, and 96, won be a Dem in 2008, were made redder to protect their new and recycled incumbents. I suspect that what looks safe now may not be in a couple of cycles. As Tarrant County got less white over the past decade, it also got less red. I don’t think either of those trends are likely to reverse themselves. It’ll be very interesting to see what the landscape looks like for the 2016 election.

Along those lines, I thought it would be worthwhile to compare the new districts to the old ones, to see who got what kind of protection. Here’s a look at the 2004 numbers in the old district for JR Molina, who was generally the high scoring Democrat that year, with the 2008 Sam Houston numbers in the new district:


Dist    04 Molina   08 Houston
==============================
091          34.1         35.1
092          33.2         39.8
093          46.0         41.5
094          34.1         39.6
096          40.0         42.3
097          36.9         41.3
098          36.9         26.7
099          23.9         38.4

I’m not sure what the deal is with the Truitt and Geren districts, but those numbers sure do stand out. Both districts 93 and 96 were made redder, though the latter only in comparison to what it would have been with no changes. Basically, the creation of a 60%+ Dem district in the county gave mapmakers a lot of room to spread the Republican population around enough to make sure no one was in any imminent danger. You can’t fight demography, but you can delay it a bit.

That will become more clear as we look over in Dallas County. First, the numbers for the eight remaining Republican-drawn districts:


Dist    Incumbent Elected  08 Dem High Score
============================================
102      S Carter    2010     Houston, 46.75
105   * L H-Brown    2002     Houston, 48.18
107      K Sheets    2010     Houston, 48.46
108      D Branch    2002       Obama, 44.88
112      A Button    2008     Houston, 45.68
113    * J Driver    1992     Houston, 47.87
114    W Hartnett    1990     Houston, 45.66
115     J Jackson    2004     Houston, 43.24

Driver was paired with freshman Cindy Burkett (HD101), and Harper-Brown with freshman Rodney Anderson (HD106). Here in a county that’s ten to fifteen points bluer to begin with, the most Republican district is bluer than the swingiest district in Tarrant. It ain’t easy making 57% of the legislative seats Republican in a county that’s 57% Democratic. Here the question isn’t if some of these seats will be ripe for the taking but when. Anywhere from two to six seats could be vulnerable right away, and for sure all of them need to be strongly challenged. While we have seen individual districts that are bluer, there’s no one place that has as many opportunities for gain as Dallas.

Here’s the same Molina/Houston comparison for Dallas:


Dist    04 Molina   08 Houston
==============================
102          43.3         46.7
105          42.8         48.2
107          43.0         48.5
108          39.8         42.2
112          36.0         45.7
113          37.4         47.9
114          38.1         45.7
115          32.7         43.2

Every district is bluer than it once was, some by ten points. Some day Dallas County will look like Travis. It’s already most of the way there. Next up, Harris County.

Endorsement watch: ParentPAC

Oct 17th, 2010
by Charles Kuffner.
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I haven’t mentioned the Texas ParentPAC lately, as there’s been so much other stuff going on lately, but they are as busy with endorsements as ever. Here’s a list of candidates that they have announced they are backing for the general election. The links are to the press releases they sent out in each case:

State Rep. Robert Miklos, HD101

State Rep. Carol Kent, HD102

State Rep. Joe Moody, HD78

Loretta Haldenwang, HD105

State Rep. Ellen Cohen, HD134

State Rep. Joe Heflin, HD85

I’ll pass along any others that come my way.

UPDATE: Add the following to the tally:

State Rep. Chris Turner, HD96

State Rep. Allen Vaught, HD107

Dallas Dems look to 2010

Apr 2nd, 2009
by Charles Kuffner.
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Never too early to be thinking about these things.

“I don’t think it’s a big stretch to say we can do 57 percent [countywide] in 2010,” said Darlene Ewing, chairwoman of the Dallas County Democratic Party.

Because of that comfort level, Ewing said, the county party is targeting Dallas County commissioner Precinct 4, held by Republican Ken Mayfield.

Mayfield won in narrow victory in 2006, as his Republican-leaning area in western Dallas County continued to see demographic shifts that resulted in more Hispanic voters.

Dallas Mayor Pro Tem Elba Garcia, a Democrat, is expected to challenge Mayfield next year.

Ewing said Democrats are also eying state House District 105, where last year Republican Linda Harper Brown of Irving held on by 19 votes to beat little-known Democrat Bob Romano.

HD105 is a given; it really should have been won in 2008, but that’s water under the bridge at this point. It gets harder after that – HDs 108, 112, 113, and 114 are all within numerical reach, though they all present challenges. If they can find and fund quality candidates, anything is possible. Some defense will be in order as well, especially in HD 101, where the Obama wave was helpful to Robert Miklos’ victory.

Beyond that, I sure hope their sights are set a little higher than this. Winning a County Commissioner’s seat is big, but there’s another prize out there that’s just begging for a claim to be put in. I’m speaking about CD32, where Pete Sessions will be operating as the chair of the NRCC in a district that’s trending strongly Democratic – as the Swing State Project documented, where George W. Bush won 64% in CD32 in 2000, and 60% in 2004, John McCain could muster only 53% last year. With the DCCC having already targeted Sessions on the airwaves, and with a lack of any countywide races to take over, why not take aim here? The Dems had a candidate in 2006 who had money but no visible campaign that I could discern, and a candidate in 2008 who ran an active campaign but had little money. Surely in 2010 they could find someone to put both halves of the formula together. Thanks to BOR for the link.