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HD128

Precinct analysis: How the 2022 Harris County State Rep candidates did versus the 2020 and 2018 results

Nov 28th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

I still don’t have a full canvass of Harris County, so I’m looking around to see what kind of analyses I can do in the meantime. For this post, I’m comparing how the candidates in the contested State Rep contests did against the 2020 and 2018 numbers that we saw in the redistricting reports. This isn’t my preferred kind of comparison – there are too many uncontested races, some “contested” races really aren’t because of poor candidate quality, incumbents tend to have a bit of an edge – but it’s what we’ve got for now. My impressions of the numbers for the new State Rep districts are here, and the Texas Legislative Council reports can be found here for 2020 and here for 2018. First up is 2020:


Dist   Biden   Trump   Hegar  Cornyn     Dem     Rep
====================================================
128    31.6%   67.1%   30.6%   67.2%   29.5%   70.5%
129    42.2%   56.2%   39.4%   58.0%   39.2%   60.8%
131    79.6%   19.5%   77.3%   19.9%   80.5%   19.5%
132    42.9%   55.6%   40.0%   57.6%   40.3%   59.7%
133    48.4%   50.3%   43.2%   54.9%   36.4%   61.4%
134    62.5%   36.1%   56.6%   41.7%   61.6%   37.1%
135    59.9%   38.7%   57.5%   39.4%   57.6%   42.4%
138    46.6%   52.0%   42.8%   55.0%   42.9%   57.1%
145    70.1%   28.3%   66.2%   30.8%   71.3%   28.7%
148    58.1%   40.5%   55.3%   41.7%   55.5%   42.6%
149    61.7%   37.2%   59.7%   37.5%   59.8%   37.7%
150    42.1%   56.5%   39.5%   57.9%   39.3%   60.7%

Biden generally outperformed the rest of the ticket by two or three points, more in some places like HDs 133 and 134. It’s clear he drew some crossover votes, so matching his performance is a sign of great strength. MJ Hegar was more of a typical Dem performer, and ideally a Dem in 2022 would do at least as well as she did. Note that most of the individual State Rep races were straight up D versus R, but in the cases where the percentages don’t add up to 100, assume there was a third party candidate as well. Most Dems met the Hegar standard, with incumbent Reps. Alma Allen (HD131) and Christina Morales (HD145) outdoing even the Biden number. On the other side, HD133 GOP candidate Mano DeAyala easily stomped a Democrat whose existence even I didn’t know about.

On to 2018:


Dist    Beto    Cruz  Valdez  Abbott     Dem     Rep
====================================================
128    32.6%   66.8%   29.1%   69.7%   29.5%   70.5%
129    42.8%   56.3%   36.8%   61.5%   39.2%   60.8%
131    85.2%   14.3%   80.4%   18.5%   80.5%   19.5%
132    41.8%   57.5%   36.2%   62.3%   40.3%   59.7%
133    46.1%   53.1%   37.9%   60.3%   36.4%   61.4%
134    62.4%   36.8%   52.5%   45.3%   61.6%   37.1%
135    64.4%   35.0%   59.4%   39.2%   57.6%   42.4%
138    46.4%   52.8%   39.6%   58.7%   42.9%   57.1%
145    75.0%   24.1%   67.5%   30.4%   71.3%   28.7%
148    62.7%   37.5%   56.1%   42.4%   55.5%   42.6%
149    68.7%   30.6%   64.0%   34.8%   59.8%   37.7%
150    41.2%   58.1%   36.3%   62.4%   39.3%   60.7%

Beto and Valdez represented the top and bottom of the scale for Dems this year. It’s clear that Dems fell short of the 2018 standard this year, with the 2022 version of Beto being somewhat above the Valdez line. In general, Biden did about as well in most districts as Beto had done two years before, though there are exceptions, of which HDs 135 and 149 are the most interesting. I don’t want to read too much into any single number here – this was a year I’d classify as an underperforming one for Dems overall, though at a much higher baseline than we were used to for off years, and I’d expect better numbers in 2024. Dems have the same targets as before in HDs 132 and 138, while if I were the Republicans I’d take a closer look at what’s going on in 135 and 148. The actual me really wants to see the full canvass data to see how the broader ticket did in these districts. Let me know what you think.

Endorsement watch: Yeah, I’m still mad

Oct 14th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

Here’s that Chuck Crews endorsement I thought we were going to get on Wednesday instead of that giant turd the Chron gifted us with.

Chuck Crews

State Rep. Briscoe Cain’s three terms in the Texas House could charitably be described as harmful buffoonery, full of extreme and divisive social media rhetoric that mirrors his approach to policymaking. But, as Texas Monthly rated him the state’s worst legislator in 2017 and in 2021, he’s inept even at that.

What’s clear to us is that the people in his district — which straddles the Houston Ship Channel and includes Pasadena, Deer Park, most of Baytown and La Porte — aren’t well-served by his leadership. Voters in the Republican stronghold keep returning him to office, but people in this area need a representative focused on chemical plant safety, education and air quality. Cain’s priorities? Election fraud, Twitter trolling and abortion lawsuits.

[…]

While Cain sets a low bar, we hope for more out of a challenger than the bare minimum. Fortunately, Democratic challenger Chuck Crews struck us as direct, capable and thoughtful, with a professional background that would help his constituents. A longtime petrochemical engineer, Crews said he’d put his extensive knowledge of the industry to use right away in the Legislature to make plants mechanically safer and environmentally cleaner for surrounding communities. He said he’d do all he could to improve the energy grid, legalize cannabis and bolster rural health care.

“You can’t throw a rock in this district without hitting a chemical plant somewhere. I’m a chemical engineer with 15 years experience in the field,” Crews told us. “I would be the better representative for this district because I know the work, I’ve crawled through distillation columns to inspect them … we need a representative who actually represents us.”

Crews, 48, said he was a field organizer in O’Rourke’s 2018 campaign for U.S. Senate, his first foray into partisan politics, though he’s also worked numerous times as an elections judge. Prior to 2020, no Democrat had even run for the District 128 seat in more than a decade.

We urge voters there to choose Crews because he is the candidate focused on policy and people, and not on partisan noise.

My interview with Chuck Crews is here. They go on at some length against harmful buffoon Cain, but I’m too bitter to enjoy it right now. You go ahead if that feels good to you, they make a solid case. I will stop here before I say something I might later regret.

They also endorsed in three SBOE races.

The culture wars have turned schools into political battlegrounds, as few things spark voters’ passions more than the future of their kids and, by extension, the future of our state. In Texas, the State Board of Education has the final say on curriculum standards, veto power over new charter schools and shared responsibility for managing the permanent fund that backs the debt schools take on.

In their meetings with the editorial board, the candidates who made the strongest case were the ones who kept the best interests of students and teachers in mind, rather than parroting party platform talking points.

They endorsed Republican incumbent Will Hickman in SBOE6 in a close call over Democrat Michelle Palmer, whose interview is here. I don’t have anything bad to say about Hickman, but Palmer is a star and I will be happily voting for her. In District 7 they endorsed Democrat Dan Hochman against a Republican wingnut, and in District 8 they endorsed Republican incumbent Audrey Young against a Libertarian perennial candidate, a fellow who has run as a Democrat and as a Republican in past elections.

Endorsement watch: Travesty

Oct 13th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

I have to link to this atrocious Chron endorsement of Republican Alexandra Mealer, but I refuse to quote from it. Instead, I’m going to crib from the daily Texas AFL-CIO email newsletter, which had its own thoughts on the matter:

Judge Lina Hidalgo

Our Brothers and Sisters in the Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation are standing tall for the reelection of County Judge Lina Hidalgo, a champion of working families. The ALF today posted a list of Hidalgo’s amazing accomplishments as she navigated a concentration of natural disasters in her first term.

The timing of the statement was appropriate. In a tortured editorial, the Houston Chronicle today endorsed Hidalgo’s Republican opponent. The editorial has so much praise of Hidalgo, so many misgivings about her opponent, and so much acknowledgment of disagreement on the editorial board that it has the clear look of a publisher’s intervention.

Hidalgo beat the Chronicle’s endorsement in 2018 and the labor movement is working overtime to make sure she does so again in 2022.

Statement from ALF Political Director Jay Malone:

“We’re incredibly disappointed in the Houston Chronicle Editorial Board’s decision to back an extremist candidate for Harris County Judge. Not only has Lina Hidalgo consistently invested in public safety – including a proposed 10% increase in next year’s budget – but she also recognizes that security and safety isn’t just about crime, it’s also about keeping families in their homes, helping them to keep the lights and heat on, and expanding opportunities for everyone, regardless of the zip code you live in.”

“Under Lina Hidalgo, Harris County has kept over 70,000 working families in their homes during the pandemic, expanded access to affordable childcare, worked to raise wages for essential workers and improve safety standards on construction sites and in retail stores, and implemented common-sense measures to keep us safe during the pandemic. And she fought back when state leadership tried to prevent Harvey recovery dollars from going where they’re needed, recovering $750 million earlier this year.

“Unlike her opponent, who is funded by West Texas billionaires and county contractors, Lina has taken a stand to end the corrupt system that puts the interests of the rich and connected first and leaves the rest of us with failed drainage, pockmarked highways, and collapsing bridges. The working people of Harris County stand with Lina.”

Throughout her tenure in office, Judge Hidalgo has worked closely with the labor movement to develop, pass, and implement policies to expand opportunity and keep working people safe, healthy, and in their homes. Among the accomplishment of Harris County Commissioner’s Court since Lina was sworn into office in 2019:

I completely agree. I was especially angered when they blamed the Republican quorum breaking on the Democrats on the Court, for not being flexible enough in their negotiations, as if they somehow could not grasp that Commissioners Cagle and Ramsey have no incentive to bargain in good faith. They get what they want if nothing happens! Even better, they get simps like the Chron editorial board to blame the other guys for their actions. I don’t know if they’re being deeply naive or willfully blind, but it’s infuriating that they can’t see this basic fact. Their ending note that they hope Mealer will somehow overcome her partisan preferences and govern in a manner that is completely at odds with her own campaign has big “endorse Ted Cruz in 2012 on the hope that he’ll somehow morph into Kay Bailey Hutchison 2.0″ energy. How’d that one work out?

And to think, my day started by reading the print edition endorsement of Chuck Crews in HD128, in which they gave a proper lashing of Briscoe Cain, and thinking I’d get to blog about that and it would all be puppies and sunshine. But that one still isn’t on their site (at least as of last night when I drafted this), and instead this turd is. Where do I send the invoice for that new bottle of Tums I had to buy?

Interview with Chuck Crews

Sep 12th, 2022
by Charles Kuffner.
8 comments

Chuck Crews

This week I have two interviews with candidates for State Representative. Chuck Crews knows that he’s running in one of the reddest districts in Harris County in HD128, but he’s also running against one of the worst people in the Legislature. I’m talking about Briscoe Cain, avid election denier and forced-birth fanatic whose stated priorities for the next session are to punish everyone who has ever had anything to do with abortion. You couldn’t find a better contrast in Crews, a chemical engineer who has also worked in the insurance business before joining the Beto for Senate campaign in 2018 and becoming a fulltime activist, and who has both a deep understanding of issues as well as actual compassion and empathy. He has a tough challenge ahead of him but he’s facing it head on. You can hear us talk about it all here:

PREVIOUSLY:

All interviews and Q&As through the primary runoffs
Michelle Palmer – SBOE6

As always, everything you could want to know about the Democratic candidates can be found at the Erik Manning spreadsheet.

Precinct analysis: County Attorney 2020 and 2016

Jan 5th, 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

The office of County Attorney gets less attention than District Attorney, but as we have seen it’s vitally important. Vince Ryan held the office for three terms before being ousted in the primary by Christian Menefee. Menefee’s overall performance was similar to Ryan’s in 2016 – I’ll get to that in a minute – but as we saw in the previous post that doesn’t mean there can’t be a fair bit of variance. Let’s see where that takes us. Here’s the 2020 breakdown:


Dist     Nation  Menefee  Nation% Menefee%
==========================================
CD02    178,265  154,520   53.57%   46.43%
CD07    149,139  151,213   49.65%   50.35%
CD08     25,809   14,986   63.27%   36.73%
CD09     37,016  119,594   23.64%   76.36%
CD10    102,438   59,410   63.29%   36.71%
CD18     58,121  179,867   24.42%   75.58%
CD22     21,591   20,074   51.82%   48.18%
CD29     48,935  100,744   32.69%   67.31%
CD36     82,457   48,040   63.19%   36.81%
				
SBOE4   104,688  334,552   23.83%   76.17%
SBOE6   380,793  351,322   52.01%   47.99%
SBOE8   218,290  162,575   57.31%   42.69%
				
SD04     55,522   22,733   70.95%   29.05%
SD06     56,939  117,097   32.72%   67.28%
SD07    235,108  171,376   57.84%   42.16%
SD11     76,866   46,710   62.20%   37.80%
SD13     36,807  159,259   18.77%   81.23%
SD15    112,115  194,216   36.60%   63.40%
SD17    115,210  125,384   47.89%   52.11%
SD18     15,204   11,676   56.56%   43.44%
				
HD126    38,751   33,320   53.77%   46.23%
HD127    53,950   35,101   60.58%   39.42%
HD128    48,046   21,796   68.79%   31.21%
HD129    47,571   35,152   57.51%   42.49%
HD130    69,976   32,109   68.55%   31.45%
HD131     9,822   44,446   18.10%   81.90%
HD132    50,540   47,980   51.30%   48.70%
HD133    49,624   36,901   57.35%   42.65%
HD134    46,775   58,410   44.47%   55.53%
HD135    36,489   36,696   49.86%   50.14%
HD137    10,191   20,871   32.81%   67.19%
HD138    31,535   30,924   50.49%   49.51%
HD139    15,325   44,753   25.51%   74.49%
HD140     9,241   21,586   29.98%   70.02%
HD141     6,943	  35,992   16.17%   83.83%
HD142    13,733   41,540   24.85%   75.15%
HD143    11,934   24,039   33.17%   66.83%
HD144    13,762   16,387   45.65%   54.35%
HD145    14,777   26,896   35.46%   64.54%
HD146    11,016   43,379   20.25%   79.75%
HD147    14,738   53,266   21.67%   78.33%
HD148    21,758   36,937   37.07%   62.93%
HD149    21,400   30,636   41.13%   58.87%
HD150    55,873   39,332   58.69%   41.31%
				
CC1      90,530  280,069   24.43%   75.57%
CC2     149,810  143,859   51.01%   48.99%
CC3     224,601  210,646   51.60%   48.40%
CC4     238,830  213,877   52.76%   47.24%
				
JP1      90,035  165,193   35.28%   64.72%
JP2      33,965   48,473   41.20%   58.80%
JP3      51,412   67,741   43.15%   56.85%
JP4     233,642  184,203   55.92%   44.08%
JP5     201,673  214,852   48.42%   51.58%
JP6       7,971   26,993   22.80%   77.20%
JP7      17,824  100,329   15.09%   84.91%
JP8      67,249   40,667   62.32%   37.68%

Menefee scored 54.66% of the vote, better than Ogg by almost a point, and better than Ryan’s 53.72% in 2016 by slightly more. Ryan was consistently an upper echelon performer in his three elections, and that was true in 2016 as well, as only Ogg, Hillary Clinton, and judicial candidate Kelly Johnson had more votes than his 685,075, with those three and Mike Engelhart being the only ones with a larger margin of victory than Ryan’s 95K. Menefee, who collected 848,451 total votes and won by a margin of 145K, was also top tier. His vote total trailed all of the statewide candidates except Chrysta Castaneda and Gisela Triana (one better than Kim Ogg), though his percentage was better than everyone except Joe Biden and Tina Clinton. He outpaced three of the four appellate court candidates (he trailed Veronica Rivas-Molloy) and all but four of the local judicial candidates. His margin of victory was eighth best, behind Biden, Castaneda, two statewide judicials, and three local judicials. (And Ed Gonzalez, but we’ll get to him next.)

Here’s my 2016 precinct analysis post for the County Attorney race, and here’s the relevant data from that year:


Dist    Leitner     Ryan  Leitner%   Ryan%
==========================================
CD02    158,149  113,363    58.25%  41.75%
CD07    135,129  116,091    53.79%  46.21%
CD09     25,714  106,728    19.42%  80.58%
CD10     80,244   36,703    68.62%  31.38%
CD18     46,062  154,354    22.98%  77.02%
CD29     35,312   93,732    27.36%  72.64%
				
SBOE6   331,484  269,022    55.20%  44.80%
				
HD126    34,999   25,571    57.78%  42.22%
HD127    47,719   24,876    65.73%  34.27%
HD128    40,809   17,464    70.03%  29.97%
HD129    41,206   26,677    60.70%  39.30%
HD130    58,268   21,630    72.93%  27.07%
HD131     6,719   39,011    14.69%  85.31%
HD132    37,294   30,571    54.95%  45.05%
HD133    46,509   28,002    62.42%  37.58%
HD134    42,937   44,634    49.03%  50.97%
HD135    31,651   27,468    53.54%  46.46%
HD137     8,661   17,869    32.65%  67.35%
HD138    26,893   23,486    53.38%  46.62%
HD139    11,874   39,721    23.01%  76.99%
HD140     6,316   20,762    23.33%  76.67%
HD141     4,969   32,887    13.13%  86.87%
HD142    10,179   34,249    22.91%  77.09%
HD143     8,745   23,486    27.13%  72.87%
HD144    10,725   16,024    40.09%  59.91%
HD145    10,858   22,921    32.14%  67.86%
HD146     9,532   38,323    19.92%  80.08%
HD147    11,719   45,087    20.63%  79.37%
HD148    17,529   29,206    37.51%  62.49%
HD149    15,405   27,290    36.08%  63.92%
HD150    48,085   26,950    64.08%  35.92%
				
CC1      70,740  240,579    22.72%  77.28%
CC2     123,739  124,368    49.87%  50.13%
CC3     188,415  160,213    54.04%  45.96%
CC4     206,707  158,990    56.52%  43.48%

Kim Ogg did slightly better in the districts in 2016 than Vince Ryan did (most notably in CD02, though Ryan outdid her in HD134), which is what you’d expect given her overall better performance. In a similar fashion, Menefee did slightly better in the districts than Ogg did, as expected given his superior totals. He won CD07 by a thousand more votes than Ogg did, and carried HD135 where Ogg did not. He lost CC2 by two points and 6K votes, while Ogg lost it by four points and 12K votes. His lead in CD29 was 6K smaller than Ryan’s was, while Ogg lost 10K off of her lead in CD29 from 2016.

Overall, Menefee improved on Ryan’s 2016 totals, and made larger gains than Ogg did over her 2016 numbers. Like Ogg, he lost ground in the Latino districts – CD29, HD140, HD143, HD144, CC2 – but not by as much. He had higher vote totals in the Latino State Rep districts, though by small amounts in HDs 140, 143, and 144, and increased the lead over what Ryan had achieved in HDs 145 and 148. Like Ogg, he also lost ground in HD149, going from a 12K lead to a 9K lead, and in HD128, going from a 23K deficit to a 27K deficit (Ogg went from down 21K to down 27K). He gained ground in HD127 (from down 23K to down 19K; Ogg stayed roughly the same) and lost only about a thousand net votes in HD130 as Ogg went from down 34K to down 39K. He posted strong gains in HD126 (down 9K to down 5K), HD133 (down 18K to down 13K), and HD150 (down 21K to down 16K).

On the whole, a very strong initial performance by Menefee. As I said, County Attorney is generally a lower-profile job than District Attorney and Sheriff, but between bail reform, the multiple election lawsuits, and the forthcoming Republican legislative assault on local control, there should be many chances for Menefee to make statements about what he does and can do. He’ll have a solid chance to build on what he did this year when he’s next up for election.

Precinct analysis: Comparing to 2012 and 2016

Dec 14th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

Introduction
Congressional districts
State Rep districts
Commissioners Court/JP precincts

I had meant to get to this last week, but SeditionPalooza took up too much of my time, so here we are. The intent of this post is to compare vote totals in each of the State Rep districts from 2012 to 2016, from 2016 to 2020, and from 2012 to 2020. The vote totals compared are from the Presidential and Railroad Commissioner races for each of these years, and for the Senate races from 2012 and 2020, as there was no Senate race in 2016.

President 

								
Dist   12-16 R   12-16D   16-20R   16-20D   12-20R   12-20D
===========================================================
HD126   -3,207    5,285    6,100    9,611    2,893   14,896
HD127     -931    6,042    8,547   12,707    7,616   18,749
HD128      124    2,272    8,728    6,208    8,852    8,480
HD129   -3,226    5,992    8,844   11,033    5,618   17,025
HD130    2,216    6,749   14,229   13,325   16,445   20,074
HD131     -649    2,707    4,306    6,683    3,657    9,390
HD132    3,065   10,267   15,786   20,304   18,851   30,571
HD133   -7,791    8,688    5,592   12,018   -2,199   20,706
HD134  -10,938   15,346    6,692   17,904   -4,246   33,250
HD135   -2,571    6,505    6,664   11,473    4,093   17,978
HD137     -537    2,443    2,451    4,167    1,914    6,610
HD138   -2,804    6,451    6,537    9,433    3,733   15,884
HD139   -1,294    1,187    4,847    6,854    3,553    8,041
HD140     -733    4,416    4,146    1,855    3,413    6,271
HD141      222     -681    2,604    4,453    2,826    3,772
HD142      290    2,084    4,703    8,880    4,993   10,964
HD143   -1,042    3,226    4,500    1,495    3,458    4,721
HD144   -1,039    3,561    4,057    1,523    3,018    5,084
HD145   -1,291    5,594    5,310    5,088    4,019   10,682
HD146   -1,633     -884    2,459    6,864      826    5,980
HD147   -1,272    3,583    4,602    9,933    3,330   13,516
HD148   -1,489    8,544    5,634   10,180    4,145   18,724
HD149   -3,879    3,420    8,154    4,696    4,275    8,116
HD150      503    8,228   10,180   15,037   10,683   23,265
							
Total  -39,906  121,025  155,672  211,724  115,766  332,749

Senate 

	
Dist    12-20R   12-20D
=======================
HD126    3,705   13,479
HD127    8,876   16,687
HD128    8,999    7,330
HD129    7,238   14,684
HD130   18,113   17,564
HD131    3,413    8,389
HD132   19,527   28,278
HD133    2,610   16,268
HD134    3,330   27,237
HD135    4,898   16,279
HD137    2,129    6,023
HD138    4,594   14,227
HD139    3,602    6,608
HD140    2,611    5,499
HD141    2,460    2,779
HD142    4,903    9,702
HD143    2,619    4,082
HD144    2,577    4,485
HD145    3,562   10,103
HD146    1,337    4,811
HD147    4,019   12,164
HD148    5,762   16,497
HD149    4,282    7,157
HD150   11,865   20,878
		
Total  137,031  291,210

RRC 

								
Dist   12-16 R   12-16D   16-20R   16-20D   12-20R   12-20D
===========================================================
HD126   -1,676    3,559    4,735   10,131    3,059   13,690
HD127    1,006    4,180    6,933   13,217    7,939   17,397
HD128      989    1,200    7,749    6,681    8,738    7,881
HD129   -1,550    3,595    7,325   12,422    5,775   16,017
HD130    4,403    4,540   13,107   12,954   17,510   17,494
HD131     -465    1,814    3,419    6,824    2,954    8,638
HD132    4,638    8,171   14,267   19,768   18,905   27,939
HD133   -4,382    3,417    5,039   14,285      657   17,702
HD134   -5,177    6,106    5,497   23,976      320   30,082
HD135   -1,163    4,634    5,398   11,950    4,235   16,584
HD137     -132    1,538    1,929    4,571    1,797    6,109
HD138   -1,483    4,248    5,378   10,328    3,895   14,576
HD139     -551      -83    3,837    7,033    3,286    6,950
HD140     -321    2,969    2,874    2,855    2,553    5,824
HD141      181     -896    2,165    3,773    2,346    2,877
HD142      844    1,204    3,814    8,568    4,658    9,772
HD143     -550    1,586    3,148    2,910    2,598    4,496
HD144     -530    2,677    2,993    2,255    2,463    4,932
HD145     -531    3,369    3,983    7,142    3,452   10,511
HD146   -1,047   -2,256    1,853    7,402      806    5,146
HD147      104      536    3,510   11,837    3,614   12,373
HD148      665    4,416    4,945   12,352    5,610   16,768
HD149   -3,089    2,133    6,698    5,331    3,609    7,464
HD150    2,552    6,010    8,826   14,942   11,378   20,952
								
Total   -7,265   68,667  129,422  233,507  122,157  302,174

The columns represent the difference in vote total for the given period and party, so “12-16” means 2012 to 2016, “16-20” means 2016 to 2020, and “12-20” means 2012 to 2020. Each column has a D or an R in it, so “12-16R” 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 “-3,207” for HD126 in the “12-16R” column for President means that Donald Trump got 3,207 fewer votes in HD126 than Mitt Romney got, and the “5,285” for HD126 in the “12-16D” column for President means that Hillary Clinton got 5,285 more votes than Barack Obama got. Clear? I hope so.

Note that there were 130K more votes cast in Harris County as a whole in 2016 than there were in 2012, and 320K more votes cast in the county in 2020 over 2016, which makes a grand total of 450K more votes in 2020 than 2012. Some districts grow faster than others, but as a general rule given the overall totals you should expect increases in each district to some extent.

I have left percentages and third party totals out of this discussion. As I have shown before, tracking changes in vote percentages can give a misleading view of whether the actual gap is growing or narrowing, and by how much. I also want to emphasize that in 2012, Harris County was very much a 50-50 proposition, and now it is very much not. Doing it this way help illustrate how and where that has happened, and by how much.

And yet, with all that said, I’m going to start with an observation about percentages. In 2012, Mitt Romney got 60% or more of the vote in eight State Rep districts – HDs 126, 127, 128, 129, 130, 133, 138, and 150. Ted Cruz, running for Senate against Paul Sadler, got 60% or more of the vote in ten State Rep districts, the same eight as Romney plus HDs 132 and 135 – yes, the same 132 and 135 that Dems won in 2018. I didn’t publish an analysis of the RRC race from that year, but a review of the spreadsheet that I created at the time confirmed that Christi Craddick, running against Dale Henry, got 60% or more of the vote in eleven State Rep districts, the same ten as Cruz plus HD134. In other words, every single Republican-held State Rep district in Harris County in 2012 was at least a 60% Republican district in the Railroad Commissioner race. Mitt Romney, it should be noted, just missed getting to 60% in HDs 132 and 135, and was over 57% in HD134, as was Cruz. (Let’s just say Cruz fell way short of that mark in 2018.)

You can see how much the vote totals shifted at the Presidential level from 2012 to 2016. Trump got nearly 40K fewer votes than Romney, a combination of crossovers, third-party and write-in voting, and just the gentle degradation of the Republican brand, as you can see by Wayne Christian’s reduced vote totals from Christie Craddick. Still, in 2016, Donald Trump scored 60% or more of the vote in three State Rep districts: HDs 127, 128, and 130. In 2016, Wayne Christian, running for RRC against Grady Yarbrough, scored 60% or more of the vote in four State Rep districts: the three that Trump got plus HD150. And finally, in 2016, Eva Guzman, running for State Supreme Court, scored 60% or more of the vote in six State Rep districts: the four Christian got plus HDs 129 and 133. HDs 132 and 135 were clearly competitive at the Presidential level – Trump won 132 by four points and 135 by two points; he also lost HD138 by a hair. He lost votes compared to Romney in 18 of 24 districts.

It is certainly true that Republicans in general and Donald Trump in particular did better in 2020 than most people expected them to do – surely, they did better than I expected them to do. Trump gained 155K votes over his 2016 total, which put 2020 Trump more than 100K votes ahead of Mitt Romney. Even though Joe Biden gained 211K votes over Hillary Clinton, for a net gain of 56K, Trump had net gains on Biden in seven districts – HDs 128, 130, 140, 143, 144, 145, and 149, with the latter five being Democratic districts and four of the five being Latino. Still, Dems had a net gain from 2012 to 2020 in every district except HD128, and some of those gains were truly huge – just look at 133 and 134, for starters. And Trump’s gains in the Dem districts largely melted away by the time you got to the RRC race, with Chrysta Castaneda coming close to matching Jim Wright’s increases in 140, 143, and 144, and far exceeding him in 145. It’s hard to say from this what if any staying power the Trump gains may have, though Dems should be paying close attention to what happened there regardless.

Anyway, back to the percentages: In 2020, Donald Trump, John Cornyn, and Jim Wright scored 60% or more of the vote in two State Rep districts: HDs 128 and 130. The only statewide Republicans to score 60% or more in a third State Rep district were the statewide judicial candidates who did not have a Libertarian opponent – Jane Bland, Bert Richardson, Kevin Patrick, and David Newell – who also reached that level in HD127. I haven’t published the statewide judicial race analysis yet so you’ll have to take my word for it for now, but in any event I trust you see the pattern. This is what I mean when I say that Republicans just don’t have any spare capacity in Harris County, and that will present problems for them in redistricting. Look at the numbers in districts like 126 and 129 and 133 and 150 in 2020, and compare them to the numbers in 132 and 135 and 138 in 2012. Where do you think things are going to be in another couple of cycles?

I’ve thrown a lot of words and numbers at you, so I’ll wrap it up here. I hope this helps illustrate what I’ve been saying, about how Dem gains have largely come from huge steps forward in formerly Republican turf, and how there’s still very much room for Dems to improve in their strongholds. We need to keep building on our gains from this past decade as we proceed into the 20s. I’ll have a look at the statewide judicial races next. Let me know what you think.

Precinct analysis: State Rep districts

Dec 9th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Introduction
Congressional districts

We move now to State Rep districts, which is my usual currency since they provide complete coverage of the county with no partial pieces. You can also get a much more nuanced view of how things have shifted over time. There are more numbers here since there are more districts, so buckle up.


Dist    Trump   Biden    Lib    Grn  Trump%  Biden%   Lib%   Grn%
=================================================================
HD126  38,651  36,031    740    264  51.07%  47.61%  0.98%  0.35%
HD127  53,644  38,409  1,024    215  57.50%  41.17%  1.10%  0.23%
HD128  49,349  23,343    742    198  67.02%  31.70%  1.01%  0.27%
HD129  47,389  38,941  1,125    246  54.03%  44.40%  1.28%  0.28%
HD130  69,369  35,958  1,298    220  64.92%  33.65%  1.21%  0.21%
HD131  10,508  45,904    331    192  18.46%  80.63%  0.58%  0.34%
HD132  50,223  51,737  1,190    360  48.52%  49.98%  1.15%  0.35%
HD133  47,038  43,262    965    201  51.43%  47.30%  1.06%  0.22%
HD134  42,523  67,811  1,356    238  37.99%  60.58%  1.21%  0.21%
HD135  36,114  39,657    862    246  46.98%  51.58%  1.12%  0.32%
HD137  10,382  22,509    308    144  31.14%  67.51%  0.92%  0.43%
HD138  31,171  34,079    703    226  47.10%  51.50%  1.06%  0.34%
HD139  15,691  46,918    511    241  24.76%  74.05%  0.81%  0.38%
HD140  10,259  22,819    227    150  30.67%  68.21%  0.68%  0.45%
HD141   7,443  37,222    289    178  16.49%  82.47%  0.64%  0.39%
HD142  14,187  43,334    469    189  24.39%  74.48%  0.81%  0.32%
HD143  13,229  25,318    282    141  33.95%  64.97%  0.72%  0.36%
HD144  14,598  17,365    308    150  45.03%  53.56%  0.95%  0.46%
HD145  15,393  28,572    462    185  34.50%  64.05%  1.04%  0.41%
HD146  10,938  45,784    439    204  19.07%  79.81%  0.77%  0.36%
HD147  14,437  56,279    734    278  20.13%  78.46%  1.02%  0.39%
HD148  20,413  41,117    901    203  32.59%  65.65%  1.44%  0.32%
HD149  22,419  32,886    428    172  40.10%  58.82%  0.77%  0.31%
HD150  55,261  42,933  1,125    287  55.48%  43.10%  1.13%  0.29%

Dist   Cornyn   Hegar    Lib    Grn Cornyn%  Hegar%   Lib%   Grn%
=================================================================
HD126  39,298  33,618  1,343    535  52.54%  44.95%  1.80%  0.72%
HD127  54,433  35,689  1,690    543  58.94%  38.64%  1.83%  0.59%
HD128  48,646  22,029  1,323    447  67.15%  30.41%  1.83%  0.62%
HD129  48,318  35,924  1,715    603  55.82%  41.50%  1.98%  0.70%
HD130  70,329  32,961  1,933    551  66.49%  31.16%  1.83%  0.52%
HD131  10,557  43,670    938    621  18.92%  78.28%  1.68%  1.11%
HD132  50,865  48,460  2,011    774  49.81%  47.46%  1.97%  0.76%
HD133  51,111  38,148  1,232    471  56.19%  41.94%  1.35%  0.52%
HD134  48,629  61,015  1,408    489  43.60%  54.70%  1.26%  0.44%
HD135  36,728  37,050  1,427    628  48.43%  48.86%  1.88%  0.83%
HD137  10,617  20,914    629    343  32.66%  64.34%  1.94%  1.06%
HD138  31,993  31,508  1,183    486  49.09%  48.35%  1.82%  0.75%
HD139  15,984  44,273  1,168    647  25.75%  71.33%  1.88%  1.04%
HD140   9,771  21,167    630    423  30.54%  66.17%  1.97%  1.32%
HD141   7,409  35,278    820    511  16.83%  80.14%  1.86%  1.16%
HD142  14,269  41,061  1,055    562  25.06%  72.10%  1.85%  0.99%
HD143  12,535  23,679    737    511  33.46%  63.21%  1.97%  1.36%
HD144  14,107  16,246    629    374  44.99%  51.81%  2.01%  1.19%
HD145  15,236  26,758    899    490  35.12%  61.68%  2.07%  1.13%
HD146  11,598  43,259    938    563  20.58%  76.76%  1.66%  1.00%
HD147  15,359  53,237  1,359    707  21.74%  75.34%  1.92%  1.00%
HD148  22,087  37,707  1,303    489  35.86%  61.23%  2.12%  0.79%
HD149  22,329  30,630    888    471  41.11%  56.39%  1.63%  0.87%
HD150  56,019  39,872  1,959    650  56.87%  40.48%  1.99%  0.66%

Dist   Wright   Casta    Lib    Grn Wright%  Casta%   Lib%   Grn%
=================================================================
HD126  38,409  32,979  1,562    942  51.98%  44.63%  2.11%  1.27%
HD127  53,034  35,348  1,948  1,026  58.05%  38.69%  2.13%  1.12%
HD128  47,576  22,153  1,382    605  66.34%  30.89%  1.93%  0.84%
HD129  46,707  35,326  2,084  1,095  54.81%  41.46%  2.45%  1.29%
HD130  69,295  31,825  2,387    981  66.32%  30.46%  2.28%  0.94%
HD131   9,786  43,714    930    899  17.69%  79.01%  1.68%  1.62%
HD132  49,947  47,483  2,288  1,389  49.40%  46.96%  2.26%  1.37%
HD133  50,069  36,455  1,636    998  56.16%  40.89%  1.83%  1.12%
HD134  47,504  57,938  2,155  1,239  43.65%  53.23%  1.98%  1.14%
HD135  35,845  36,487  1,706    988  47.78%  48.63%  2.27%  1.32%
HD137  10,168  20,606    695    589  31.72%  64.28%  2.17%  1.84%
HD138  31,201  30,796  1,377    859  48.57%  47.94%  2.14%  1.34%
HD139  15,235  44,188  1,166    895  24.78%  71.87%  1.90%  1.46%
HD140   8,840  21,955    515    509  27.78%  69.00%  1.62%  1.60%
HD141   6,885  35,470    766    654  15.73%  81.03%  1.75%  1.49%
HD142  13,584  41,134  1,041    788  24.02%  72.74%  1.84%  1.39%
HD143  11,494  24,467    657    563  30.91%  65.81%  1.77%  1.51%
HD144  13,250  16,851    603    417  42.58%  54.15%  1.94%  1.34%
HD145  14,246  27,135    903    703  33.14%  63.12%  2.10%  1.64%
HD146  10,964  42,686  1,034    947  19.71%  76.73%  1.86%  1.70%
HD147  14,711  52,289  1,554  1,199  21.09%  74.96%  2.23%  1.72%
HD148  21,527  36,656  1,580    869  35.50%  60.46%  2.61%  1.43%
HD149  21,458  30,419    976    727  40.05%  56.77%  1.82%  1.36%
HD150  55,111  38,995  2,186  1,127  56.57%  40.03%  2.24%  1.16%

There’s a lot here, and I’m going to try to limit the analysis in this post to just what’s here, since I will have a separate post that looks back at previous elections. I’m going to pick a few broad themes here and will continue when I get to that subsequent post.

It’s clear that the big districts for Republicans crossing over to vote for Biden were HDs 133 and 134. Biden basically hit Beto’s number in 134, and he made 133 nearly as competitive as 126. The same effect is visible but smaller in 126, 129, 138, and 150, but it’s more noticeable in the lower downballot Democratic total than the Republican number. Some of those votes migrate to third party candidates, some may be people just voting at the Presidential level – it’s hard to say for sure. In 2016, there were bigger third party totals at the Presidential level, but this year those numbers were more like prior norms.

However you look at this, the fact remains that Republicans don’t have a lot of areas of strength. Only HDs 128 and 130 performed consistently at a 60% level for them; as we will see with the judicial races, some candidates reached that number in HD127 as well. Spoiler alert for my future post: That’s a big change from 2012. We’ll get into that later, but what that means for now is what I was saying in the Congressional post, which is that there’s little spare capacity for Republicans to distribute. There’s some red they can slosh into HDs 132, 135, and 138 if they want, but it’s going to be hard to make more than a few Republican incumbents feel safe.

I’m still not comfortable calling HD134 a Democratic district – which is a bit meaningless anyway as we head into redistricting – but the numbers are what they are. There’s still some volatility, mostly in judicial races as you’ll see, but this district just isn’t what it used to be. After the 2016 election, when Greg Abbott went hard at Sarah Davis and the Trump effect was already obvious, I wondered what Republicans would do with that district, since they didn’t seem to care about Davis. Abbott subsequently rediscovered his pragmatic side, but Davis is now history, and this district is at least as blue as Harris County is overall, so they have a whole different problem to contemplate. If anyone reading this is of a mind to mourn Davis’ demise, I say put 100% of the blame on Donald Trump and the degeneracy he has brought forward in the GOP. Sarah Davis never took my advice to leave the Republican Party, but a lot of her former voters did. The future is always in motion, but at this point I would not expect them to come back.

On the flip side, Trump and the Republicans saw some gains in Democratic areas. The two that stand out to me are HDs 144 and 149 – Dems were well above 60% in the latter in 2016. Note how Chrysta Castaneda was the best performer in this group among Dems – her numbers in HD144 were comparable to Rep. Mary Ann Perez’s totals. As for 149, it was the inverse of HD133, more or less, without anyone making it look competitive. Here, Biden did about as well as Rep. Hubert Vo. I think this is more likely to be a Trump-catalyzed fluke than the start of a trend, but we’ll just have to see what the next elections tell us.

Finally, I should probably do a separate post on third party voting by State Rep district this cycle, but for now let me state the obvious that there was a whole lot less of it than in 2016, for a variety of reasons. I didn’t bother naming the Libertarian and Green candidates in the column headers above because honestly, even with the kerfuffle over both Republicans and Democrats trying to force them off the ballot for filing fee non-payment, there just wasn’t any attention on them this year. HD148 was the high-water mark for the Libertarian candidate in 2016 at the Presidential level, and HD134 topped the chart for Railroad Commissioner levels, with 4.53% in the former and an eye-popping 12.18% in the latter; the Chron endorsement of Mark Miller for RRC in 2016 surely helped him there. HD148 was the “winner” this year for each, though at much tamer 1.44% and 2.68%, respectively. For the Greens in 2016, it was HD137 for President (1.30%) and HD145 for RRC (6.49%), and this year it was HD144 (0.46%) for President and HD137 (1.84%) for RRC. You can say what you want about which third party affects which major party – I will note that Chrysta Castaneda outperformed Grady Yarbrough in HD134 by fifteen points, while Wayne Christian was four points better than Jim Wright in the same district. HD134 shifted strongly Dem in 2020, but the quality of the Dem also mattered.

Next up is a look at County Commissioner and JP/Constable precincts, and after that we’ll get that deeper look at 2020 versus 2016 and 2012. Let me know what you think.

Initial thoughts about the election

Nov 5th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
8 comments

And now for some reactions and analysis…

– The polls were garbage. Oy vey. Not just here, though they were definitely off here, underestimating Trump and the Republicans after doing the same to Beto and the Dems in 2018. This time, after all that national soul-searching following the 2016 state-level misfires (the national polling was fairly accurate overall in 2016), we got this flaming mess. Not my problem to solve, but I wonder how much of this is the known issue of “differential response” writ large. We know that in some circumstances, like when there’s been a big news event, one candidate’s supporters, or members of one party in general, may be more or less likely to answer the phone and respond to a pollster. It may be that just as a matter of course now, Republicans are less likely to respond to polls, in a bigger way than previously thought, and that had a disproportionate effect on the numbers. I’m just guessing here, but if that’s the case then perhaps the web panel approach to polling needs to be used more often. For what it’s worth, the UT/Texas Tribune and UH Hobby School polls from October, both of which had Trump up 50-45, used web panels. Maybe that’s a fluke, maybe they had a better likely voter model going in, maybe they were onto something that the others weren’t, I don’t know. But they came the closest, so they get the glory. As for the rest, thanks for nothing.

– Along those same lines, pollsters who did deeper dive polls on Latino voters, such as Univision and Latino Decisions, really need to question their methods and figure out how they went so mind-bogglingly wrong. I get that what we had, at least to some extent, appears to have been lower-propensity Latino voters turning out at surprisingly high levels for Trump, but damn, this is your job. You need to be on top of that.

– The old adage about “Texas isn’t a red state, it’s a non-voting state” can be safely buried for now. We had record-breaking turnout, over 11 million votes cast when we’d never surpassed nine million before, and yet Trump still won by six points while other statewide Republicans were winning by nine to eleven points. To be sure, that’s closer than 2016 was, but at this rate we’ll need to have thirty million people voting for Dems to catch up, and I feel confident saying that ain’t gonna happen anytime soon. The lesson here is that there are low-propensity Republican voters, too, and they are capable of showing up when they are persuaded. We saw that happen in 2018, and we saw it again this year.

I admit I bought into the hype, and put too much faith into the idea that the non-voters would be more consistently Democratic than Republican. To be fair, I think that was the case in 2018, as Democrats made huge gains relative to past off years. It’s certainly been the case in Harris County that increases in voter registration have led to significant increases in Democratic votes – I’ll get to this in more detail later in the post, but this can be pretty easily quantified, and it’s why Dems have been dominating the countywide races with increasing ease. It’s where those gains came from that seems to have been a difference-maker.

I don’t want to sell short what was accomplished here. Joe Biden got over 1.3 million more votes than Hillary Clinton; Trump improved on his total by about 1.15 million. Chrysta Castaneda got 1.36 million more votes than Grady Yarbrough. The statewide judicial candidates got between 3,378,163 and 3,608,634 votes in 2016; in 2020, the range was 4,762,188 to 4,899,270 votes. If you want to be particularly gruesome, Biden got 3.3 million more votes than Wendy Davis did for Governor in 2014. Granted, Trump outdid Greg Abbott by just over 3 million votes, but still. A lot more people now have voted for a Democrat in Texas than at any other point in history. Even as we pick through the wreckage, that’s worth keeping in mind.

So how do we close that remaining gap of 700K to one million voters statewide? One, we should remember that off year elections are far more volatile from a turnout perspective, and we need to do everything we can to make these new folks habitual voters while we continue to register and recruit new voters. Two, having dynamic statewide candidates, who can learn the lessons of these past elections while applying them to the environment they’re in, would help. And three, maybe we need to give another look to the reviled old “persuasion” strategy, and see how we can do a better job of peeling away some of the other guy’s voters. Easier said than done, but then that’s why I’m a blogger and not a campaign professional.

– By the way, if anyone asks you who the current all-time vote leader in Texas is, the answer as of 2020 is Supreme Court Justice Jane Bland, who tipped the scales at 6,002,233 votes. No one else topped six million. She was helped by not having a third-party opponent in the race; the Libertarians in three other races got between 254L and 283K votes.

– I take no position on the question about whether the Republicans’ continued use of traditional door-to-door campaigning during the pandemic, which the Democrats largely eschewed out of a sense of safety for their campaign workers and as a statement of living their values, was a factor in this election. The academic research on various methods of increasing turnout and persuading swing voters is mixed, and does not suggest that one method (such as door-knocking) is clearly superior to others (such as phone-banking). Winning teams always point to their methods and strategies as the reason why they won and the other team lost. I’m not saying this couldn’t have made a difference, or that it didn’t make a difference. It may have, and I have no way to disprove the assertion. I’m just saying that it’s anecdotal data, and I consider it to be such.

– Also, too: I saw people again cursing Beto’s name for not running for Senate this year. All I can say is that anyone who thinks Beto would have done better than Biden is not thinking clearly. He probably would have exceeded MJ Hegar, but there’s a lot of room between that and winning. With all the money that was spent in Texas this year, I do not buy the argument that having Beto on the ticket would have moved the needle for Dems.

– Speaking of money, hoo boy. I hope this isn’t the end of our candidates being able to raise enough of it. We’re going to need plenty in 2022.

– How much of an effect did the lack of straight ticket voting have? Far as I can tell, very little. In Harris County, there were 1,633,557 votes cast in the Presidential race. Way down at the bottom of the ballot, in the two At Large HCDE races, there were 1,551,731 and 1,548,760 votes. In other words, about 95% of the people who voted in the Presidential race also voted in these two HCDE races.

Now, if you look at the various judicial races, you will see that Democratic judicial candidates generally got 60-80K fewer votes than Biden, while most Republican judicial candidates (though not all) exceeded Trump’s total. Some of that was just crossover voting, which we knew was happening, but some of it may have been a greater propensity by Dems to skip some number of downballot races. It’s hard to say how much is each. For what it’s worth, 12 out of 15 Dem judicial candidates (district and county courts) who had a Republican opponent had fewer votes than MJ Hegar, who had 848K to Biden’s 911K, while 8 out of those 15 Republican opponents did better than John Cornyn’s 717K votes; Trump got 699K, and all but two of those Republicans did better than that, while no one came close to Biden.

So did the absence of straight ticket voting mean more crossovers in general? I will remind you, as I have done before, there’s always a range of outcomes in the judicial races, so there has always been some amount of crossover voting, just usually not that much. Why did MJ Hegar get so many fewer votes than Joe Biden did? Some of it was more voting for third party candidates – there were 22K votes for the Libertarian and Green Presidential candidates, and 42K such votes in the Senate race – some of it was the 26K fewer votes cast in the Senate race (about 98.5% of all Presidential voters also voted for a Senate candidate), and some of it was the 18K people who voted for Cornyn but not Trump. Make of that what you will.

– While I’m thinking about it, let me update that range-of-results table I just linked to:


2004 
Rep 524K to 545K
Dem 460K to 482K

2008
Rep 526K to 564K
Dem 533K to 585K

2012
Rep 550K to 580K
Dem 555K to 581K

2016
Rep 580K to 621K
Dem 643K to 684K

2020
Rep 690K to 740K
Dem 812K to 865K

So congratulations to Republicans, who have boosted their base vote by almost 200K since 2004, while Dems have increased theirs by over 380K. Five points was as close as any Republican got.

– Despite their successful defense of their Congressional and legislative seats, Republicans still face some tricky decisions in redistricting. Look at it this way – in an election year that clearly wasn’t as good for Dems as 2018 was, they still managed to hold onto all but one of the seats they won that year. The same map that gave Republicans 95 House members was only good for 83 this year, and it wouldn’t have taken much to knock that number down by a half dozen or so. Morgan Meyer and Angie Chen Button may have survived, but Dallas County is a problem for the GOP. Harris County has three safe Republican districts – HDs 127, 128, and 130 – four that are still pretty safe but have gotten a lot less so over the decade – HDs 126, 129, 133, and 150 – and two on the knife’s edge, HDs 132 and 138. That may have been hard to see from the vantage point of 2011, but the broad outlines of it were there, and as I have noted before, HDs 132 and 135 were already trending Dem in 2012, with both being a little bluer than they were in 2008 despite 2012 being a slightly lesser year for Dems overall. Who’s going to need protection, and whose seat may wind up on a target list a couple of cycles later because you didn’t understand the demographics correctly? In Congress, Dan Crenshaw won by a comfortable 14 points…in a district Ted Poe won by 24 points in 2016, and 32 points in 2012. How do you shore him up? Splitting pieces of Travis County into four Republican districts was a great idea, until it threatened the re-election of three of those Republicans. Who even knows how many Congressional seats we’ll have, given the chaotic nature of the Census?

Oh, and here in Harris County, I’m sure the Democratic majority on Commissioners Court will bolster Adrian Garcia in CC2, as the Republicans did for Jack Morman in 2010. The bigger question is do they go after their new colleague Tom Ramsey, or do they just not help him out and hope nature takes its course? That’ll be fun to watch.

I think that’s it for now. I’m sure more things will occur to me as we go. When I get a draft canvass, I’ll start doing the usual slicing and dicing.

Endorsement watch: Carol and Borris

Sep 30th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
17 comments

This is another easy call.

Sen, Carol Alvarado

When Carol Alvarado was elected to represent state Senate District 6 in a special election in 2018, she already had an impressive record under her belt.

After serving on Houston City Council and as the city’s mayor pro tem, she was elected in 2008 to the Texas House of Representatives to represent District 145. She was appointed chair of the Urban Affairs Committee and worked with Republican colleagues to get bills passed, including a 2015 grand jury reform bill that became law.

In her freshman term as a state senator, Alvarado has continued that run.

She co-sponsored 32 bills, 29 of which became law. The legislation ranged from a bill requiring insurance companies to cover diagnostic mammograms to one that gives every student the option of having an ECG heart screening as part of his or her athletic physical exam.

[…]

Alvarado, 52, whose opponent in the race is Libertarian Timothy Duffield, told the editorial board Medicaid expansion will be her top goal in the 2021 Legislature.

That’s an especially worthy goal during the current economic downturn as thousands lose employer-sponsored insurance. We strongly recommend Alvarado for State Senate District 6.

I think in a year where there are a lot of races to endorse in, it’s all right to skip the ones like this where there’s no major party opponent. But even if you do that, Sen. Alvarado would be an obvious choice. She’s done everything you’d want her to do as your Senator.

This one is a bit more nuanced.

Sen. Borris Miles

Outside the Legislature, state Sen. Borris Miles can’t seem to keep himself out of trouble.

The list of scandals include his indictment (and acquittal) over charges of deadly conduct after he allegedly pulled a gun and threatened the host of a holiday party in 2007, his threatening to “beat up” a plainclothes DPS trooper who was protecting Attorney General Ken Paxton in 2015, reports by the Chronicle in 2016 that he repeatedly failed to disclose his business interests in three companies as state law requires, and a 2017 Daily Beast piece that detailed sexual harassment accusations.

His constituents, first in House District 146 and now in Senate District 13, have found none of these allegations disqualifying, sending Miles back to Austin year after year. They have been rewarded with a solid Democratic lawmaker who represents the interests of a region that cuts across Harris County and includes neighborhoods such as Sunnyside, East End, Greater Fifth Ward and International District.

[…]

His opponent, Republican Milinda Morris, is a practicing obstetrician-gynecologist and U.S. Air Force veteran. She opposes abortion rights, and supports unrestricted gun carry and school vouchers. In recommending her in the GOP primary last March, we praised her support for public health and openness to expanding Medicaid.

Based on his troubling pattern of behavior, we believe voters can do better than Miles and have twice endorsed his primary opponents. But in this race, his track record in the Legislature and the fact that his positions are far more in sync with his district than his opponent’s make him the best choice on Election Day.

For what it’s worth, the most recent allegation the Chron cites is from 2017, so perhaps Sen. Miles has been keeping himself out of trouble lately. But maybe it’s just not making the news right now.

One could draw a parallel, in terms of unbecoming behavior, from Sen. Miles to Rep. Briscoe Cain, whom the Chron declined to endorse. Cain is also in sync with his district, as I noted. I would argue that Sen. Miles has an actual record of accomplishment, in the House as well as the Senate, while Rep. Cain is basically a whoopie cushion with a Twitter account (when it hasn’t been suspended for making threats, anyway). Again, though, one might claim that he’s just doing what the people in his district voted for him to do. If one is sympathetic to Rep. Cain’s viewpoint, I can understand how one might conclude that the main difference is that the Chron mostly agrees with Sen. Miles on the issues, and as that is the case that’s why the Chron is mostly endorsing Democrats (these days, anyway). I doubt I could persuade you otherwise.

Endorsement watch: No Briscoe

Sep 22nd, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

The Chron follows the basic principle that bad acts should not be rewarded, and bad actors do not belong in positions of trust and power.

Mary Williams

In his two terms representing House District 128, Rep. Briscoe Cain has quickly acquired a reputation well beyond being the most conservative lawmaker in the House. He’s an elected official whose offensive posts earned him a suspension on Twitter. He was Texas Monthly’s Worst Legislator of 2017.

As a member of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus, Cain has tweeted a threat to former El Paso Congressman Beto O’Rourke with the warning “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis.” He trolled Stephen Hawking shortly after news of the acclaimed physicist’s death.

He introduced legislation to defund a state council that promotes palliative care for the terminally ill, conflating the specialized end-of-life services for dying patients with so-called “death panels.” He wastes his colleagues’ time on the House floor pushing severe abortion restrictions he knows won’t pass constitutional muster. He posed for the cameras while getting an illegal haircut as a stunt to pressure Gov. Greg Abbott to reopen hair salons and barbershops.

That kind of grandstanding in the chamber or social media chatter does nothing to benefit the people of House District 128, which straddles the Houston Ship Channel and includes Pasadena, Deer Park, Baytown and Crosby.

They deserve better. They deserve a state representative who cares about the issues important to the district — air quality, chemical plant safety, education.

That is why we are recommending his challenger, Democrat Mary Williams, in the House District 128 race.

I mean, look, HD128 is the most Republican House district in Harris County, and the people of HD128 are represented by Briscoe Cain because they voted for Briscoe Cain. It’s free and fair to call him out on his bullshit – he has a level of entitlement that would put any trust fund boarding school scion to shame – but he’s not in office because of some anti-democratic shenanigans. The world is always a better place when the likes of Briscoe Cain are sitting on the sidelines, but let’s not fool ourselves about why he’s not.

The Chron also takes a stance against bad ethics.

Sandra Moore

Voters in state House District 133 returned Rep. Jim Murphy for a sixth term in the Legislature in 2018, even after news broke about a business arrangement that raised serious questions about possible conflicts of interest.

Murphy was paid a yearly salary for more than $312,000 as the general manager of the Westchase Management District, which is also within the boundaries of HD 133. He also served as chairman of the House Committee on Special Purpose Districts.

The situation got even murkier when reporters revealed that Murphy’s contracts included incentive payments for delivering state funds from the Legislature. For example, Murphy would receive a $6,000 bonus if he secured “$1 million or more in new TxDOT funding for highway projects” for Westchase.

Murphy has not been accused of a crime or cited for an ethics violation, but this is a violation of public trust in an issue involving taxpayers’ money.

Still, Murphy won re-election with 58 percent of the vote in 2018 and can expect a similar margin this fall in the solidly Republican district.

But if you believe Murphy’s arrangement to be disqualifying, and we do, there are two other candidates on the ballot for consideration: Democrat Sandra Moore and Libertarian James Harren.

The Chron endorsed Moore, who ran for HD133 in 2018 but lost in the primary runoff. I find Briscoe Cain to be by far the more egregious of the two – Murphy has redeeming qualities as a legislator who can do productive work – but oddly enough this sort of sin seems like the more probable cause for a voter to turn on him. Briscoe Cain can do what he does because enough people in his district like him for what he does. Murphy may find that his actions may cost him friends, or at least the support of some voters. That has something to do with the district in question as well, but self-dealing drawing a stink eye is more universal. (Unless your name is Donald Trump, of course.) Also, this district is like a more Republican version of HD134, and as such I’d bet the under on that 58% mark for Murphy. He had no opponent in 2016, but HD133 performed as a 62-63% Republican district that year. It won’t surprise me to see a couple more points shaved off of that this year.

Endorsement watch: Some State Reps

Feb 14th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

The Chron made seven endorsements in contested Democratic State Rep primaries on Thursday, plus two in contested Republican State Rep primaries. This must be Part One, because there are multiple races left for them to do. I’ll get to that in a minute, but for now, here’s a recap of the action.

Rep. Alma Allen in HD131.
Rep. Senfronia Thompson in HD141.
Rep. Garnet Coleman in HD147.

None of those are surprising, or all that interesting given that these are three of the best from Harris County. Moving on.

Josh Markle in HD128.

District 128 borders and straddles the Houston Ship Channel. In the last election, the Democratic Party did not run a candidate against the incumbent Rep. Briscoe Cain. This year, both candidates in the Democratic primary, Josh Markle and Mary Williams, want voters to at least have a choice even if they face long-shot odds. That’s smart, as no seat should be so safe that incumbents aren’t even challenged.

[…]

Markle was a staff sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, and besides environmental issues, his platform includes the full gamut of core Democratic issues — healthcare, education, jobs and criminal justice reform. He’ll give voters in the Republican-leaning district a promising alternative to consider in the fall.

Williams served the Houston Police Department as a civilian for more than 23 years. We applaud her spirit of service and dedication to her community. But we believe Markle will give voters ready for a change in the district a better option.

Markle got a fundraising boost from Beto back in September, as you may recall. Good candidate, very tough race.

Ann Johnson in HD134.

Ann Johnson

Child prostitutes were seen as criminals not victims under Texas law until 2010 when Ann Johnson won a case at the Texas Supreme Court involving a girl who was 13 when she was arrested. The case changed both the state law and the national conversation around sex trafficking, and is among several achievements that distinguish Johnson from a strong slate in the Democratic primary for House District 134.

[…]

Ultimately it is Johnson who presents the strongest chance for Democrats to take back control of District 134. She speaks with authority about a broad range of issues and with the persuasive power of a former prosecutor. After the landmark case she argued to the Texas Supreme Court, she was was hired by a Republican district attorney as a human-trafficking specialist. She worked with Republican judges to start the CARE court to assist child victims of human tracking and SAFE court for people 17 to 25 charged with prostitution. Now she’s calling for public-private partnerships to establish a victim recovery village.

Even if Democrats do flip the House, whoever wins this seat will have to work those across the aisle. Johnson has a record of appealing to common values to get important work done.

It is a strong field in HD134, as any of Johnson, Ruby Powers, or Lanny Bose would be an excellent State Rep. You can’t go wrong here.

Rep. Shawn Thierry in HD146.

Rep. Shawn Thierry

Shawn Thierry traces her interest in politics back to early childhood when she was the first black child in her Houston public elementary school. Thierry’s teacher quit because she said she couldn’t teach a “colored child.”

Her mother, the first black teacher to integrate Sharpstown High School, used to call her “little Barbara Jordan,” after the revered Texas politician who was the first African-American woman in the Texas Senate and the first from the Deep South elected to the U.S. Congress.

[…]

Thierry is being challenged for the seat, which represents a demographically diverse community from Sunnyside through Meyerland and Westbury past Sharpstown, by Houston Black Lives founder and community activist Ashton P. Woods.

Woods, who ran for City Council last year, brings passion for communities that often go unheard, especially on issues impacting the LGBT community. His is a much-needed voice that we hope will be heard.

Thierry, however, brings pragmatism and perseverance that is critical in making change happen in the Legislature. We endorse Thierry for House District 146.

Thierry was elected in 2016 after winning the nomination in one of those precinct chair selections, after Borris Miles moved up to SD13 to replace Rodney Ellis. She had a primary challenger in 2018 but won that easily. I heard a brief rumor after the 2019 election that Dwight Boykins might file for this seat, but in the end that didn’t happen. Woods is the strongest challenger to a Dem incumbent this side of Jerry Davis, and he’s picked up a few endorsements including the GLBT Political Caucus and the Texas Organizing Project. Keep an eye on this one as well.

Rep. Anna Eastman in HD148.

Rep. Anna Eastman

Eastman, whose HISD district included 75 percent of District 148, told the Editorial Board that education would be one of her priorities. She wants to ensure that funding from HB3, the school finance bill passed in the last session, is preserved and the money goes where it is needed. She also believes the state school rating system needed to be reviewed.

“There’s a huge disconnect when you have a district like HISD getting a B rating, triggering a board of managers and having schools that we know really are not serving our kids in a way that they’re worthy of,” said Eastman, 52.

She also supports increasing access to safe, legal abortion and a number of gun reform measures, including closing background-check loopholes, red-flag laws and banning assault-style weapons and ammunition.

We were also encouraged by Eastman’s plan to spend the next several months establishing her office, getting to know her constituents and “showing up in Austin in January ready to serve and do work that matters.”

Eastman was the Chron’s choice in the special election, so this is not a surprise. Penny Shaw has racked up all of the group endorsements, however, so this ought to be a tough race. Most likely, Eastman will have to run a fourth time, in a primary runoff, for the opportunity to run for a fifth time, in November.

Still to be endorsed: HDs 126 and 138, the two remaining challenges to Republican-held seats, and HDs 139 and 142, the other two challenges to Dem incumbents. Also, too, SDs 11 and 13, and a bunch of other races. We’re still waiting.

January 2020 campaign finance reports: State House, part 1

Jan 25th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

I’m going to take a two-part look at the finance reports in State House districts. Part One will be from Harris County, looking at both contested primaries and contested November races. Part Two will focus on races in the counties around Harris. Previous entries in this series include Harris County offices, and statewide races.

Undrai Fizer, HD126
Natali Hurtado, HD126

Sam Harless, HD126

Josh Markle, HD128
Mary Williams, HD128

Briscoe Cain, HD128
Robert Hoskins, HD128

Kayla Alix, HD129

Dennis Paul, HD129
Ryan Lee, HD129

Bryan Henry, HD130

Tom Oliverson (PAC), HD130

Alma Allen, HD131
Carey Lashley, HD131
Deondre Moore, HD131
Elvonte Patton, HD131

Gina Calanni, HD132

Angelica Garcia, HD132
Mike Schofield, HD132

Sandra Moore, HD133

Jim Murphy (PAC), HD133

Lanny Bose, HD134
Ann Johnson, HD134
Ruby Powers, HD134

Sarah Davis, HD134

Jon Rosenthal, HD135

Merrilee Beazley, HD135
Justin Ray, HD135

Akilah Bacy, HD138
Jenifer Pool, HD138
Josh Wallenstein, HD138

Josh Flynn, HD138
Lacey Hull, HD138
Claver Kamau-Imani, HD138

Jarvis Johnson, HD139
Angeanette Thibodeaux, HD139

Senfronia Thompson, HD141
Willie Franklyn, HD141

Harold Dutton, HD142
Richard Bonton, HD142
Jerry Davis, HD142
Natasha Ruiz, HD142

Shawn Thierry, HD146
Ashton Woods, HD146

Garnet Coleman, HD147
Colin Ross, HD147
Aurelia Wagner, HD147

Anna Eastman, HD148
Adrian P. Garcia, HD148
Cynthia Reyes-Revilla, HD148
Penny Shaw, HD148
Emily Wolf, HD148

Lui La Rotta, HD148

Michael Walsh, HD150

Valoree Swanson, HD150


Candidate     Raised     Spent     Loan     On Hand
===================================================
Fizer            800       319        0         500
Hurtado       25,091     9,588        0      11,752

Harless       73,265    11,022   20,000     103,669

Markle        78,906    12,426        0      68,081
Williams

Cain         125,891    39,462        0     133,616
Hoskins        4,575    26,033        0       3,804

Alix           2,141     1,343        0         898

Paul          85,621    38,444  156,000     116,486
Lee           10,720     4,779        0       5,879

Henry          3,385     2,901        0       3,385

Oliverson     56,555    62,895   60,000     101,693

Allen         11,100    13,251        0      32,798
Lashley
Moore
Patton        43,075     1,100        0      10,000

Calanni       82,002    24,571        0      70,770

Garcia        28,045    20,076        0      21,309
Schofield     27,400    24,152        0     152,549

Moore          2,000     2,539        0       1,502

Murphy       120,076   132,583        0     487,913

Bose          54,573    13,702        0      40,871
Johnson       58,287    31,075        0     148,054
Powers        43,015    40,852        0      18,299

Davis         89,750    76,040        0     230,958

Rosenthal     70,841    42,143        0      41,320

Beazley            0       465        0           0
Ray           52,666    24,644        0      47,082

Bacy          28,066     6,799        0      14,455
Pool
Wallenstein   42,137    35,766   10,000      51,786

Flynn         12,080    20,761        0       9,166
Hull          50,068     4,551        0      45,516
Kamau-Imani   18,800     2,229        0      16,570

Johnson        8,775     3,619    2,500      26,946
Thibodeaux     7,000     2,069        0       4,931

Thompson     104,216   136,801        0     889,738
Franklyn           0     1,873        0       1,336

Dutton        26,876    16,676        0      79,263
Bonton
Davis        139,565     9,787        0     129,928
Ruiz

Thierry       13,710    11,825        0      13,446
Woods          1,485     1,263        0       1,690

Coleman       97,990   129,532        0     110,589
Ross
Wagner

Eastman       75,378    57,861        0      33,967
Garcia        12,100     2,500        0       4,000
Reyes-Revilla  3,547         0    8,000       3,547
Shaw          11,635    15,531   34,000      15,454
Wolf               0         0      200         235

La Rotta      11,280    10,602        0       4,095

Walsh              0        33        0          33

Swanson       10,201    27,643   34,040      34,657

You may also want to refer to this Trib story and this Reform Austin post about the finance reports in the top tier House races. I don’t have the bandwidth to look at all of them, so check them out for their reporting on it.

There are several contested Democratic primaries, including five challenges to incumbents in safe D districts. This was a popular pastime in the 2000s, during the Craddick era – Alma Allen beat Ron Wilson, Armando Walle beat Kevin Bailey, Borris Miles took three out of four against Al Edwards. The latter of those occurred in 2012, and while there have been primary opponents to incumbents over the past few cycles, none have come close to succeeding; Edward Pollard in HD137 and Demetria Smith in HD149, both of whom got about 35% in their races in 2016, came closest. The one this year that has the greatest potential to upset the status quo is in HD142, where longtime State Rep. Harold Dutton faces unrest over his role in passing the TEA takeover bill as well as the tumult in City Council District B. Still-current District B incumbent Jerry Davis, who transferred all of his city campaign funds into his State Rep campaign treasury, is the main threat to Dutton. I can’t wait to see how the endorsements play out – Davis has already gotten the nod from the Texas Gulf Coast Area Labor Federation (TGCALF), AFL-CIO, the only challenger to an incumbent in Harris County to do so. Elvonte Patton, who was a candidate for HCDE in the 2018 primary, has a nice fundraising total, but most of that is in kind, and Alma Allen has vanquished previous challengers with 85% or more of the vote in the past.

On the Republican, there’s not much action outside of an attempt to install a grownup in HD128. As I understand it, Robert Hoskins has some establishment support in his effort to knock out Briscoe Cain, but as you can see not a lot of money. We both know which speaks louder.

The four most hotly contested seats, one of which is open, is where the bulk of the action is. All three contenders in HD134 raised similar sums, but Ann Johnson has a commanding lead in cash on hand thanks to a big first half of the year. Akilah Bacy and Josh Wallenstein both raised a few bucks in HD138, with Wallenstein doing a bit better, while Lacey Hull led the pack on the Republican side. I have to assume now that his spot on the ballot is assured, Josh Flynn will ramp it up. Freshman Reps Gina Calanni and Jon Rosenthal both outpaced the totals of their potential opponents. The HD132 GOP race will be interesting, as Angelica Garcia has Greg Abbott’s endorsement but former Rep. Mike Schofield still has cash left over from his 2018 loss. To some extent, none of these totals matter that much because there will be a ton of PAC money on both sides in all of the competitive districts. Still, a candidate or incumbent who can raise cash on their own is stronger than one who relies mostly on others doing that work.

In HD148, where there’s both a contested primary and a special election runoff (happening now!), the main thing to note is that these totals are all from October 27 through the end of the year, as all of the candidates save Emily Wolf had eight-day finance reports from their November 2019 races. Penny Shaw has gotten a couple of early endorsements, so the 30-day report in early February will tell a more detailed picture for this race. As for the special election runoff, there’s nothing to suggest anything unusual, Erica Greider’s weekend daydreams aside.

Beyond that, not a whole lot else to discuss. Jim Murphy’s cash on hand total is one reason why I speculated he might consider a run for Mayor in 2023 if the Lege is no longer amenable to him. Sarah Davis would probably have more cash on hand right now if she hadn’t had to fend off primary challengers in the past. As above, I’m pretty sure she’ll have the funds she needs to run that race. The Dems have some longer shots out there, with HD126 being the most competitive of them, so keep an eye on Natali Hurtado. I’ll be back next time with the State House races from elsewhere in the region.

Where the primary action is

Jan 18th, 2020
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

It’s on the Democratic side in Harris County. This should come as a surprise to no one.

The crowded Harris County Democratic primary field reflects a new reality in Houston politics: With the county turning an even darker shade of blue in 2018, many consider the real battle for countywide seats to be the Democratic primaries, leading more candidates to take on incumbent officeholders.

“This is the new political landscape of Harris County. Countywide offices are won and lost in the Democratic Primary,” said Ogg campaign spokesperson Jaime Mercado, who argued that Ogg’s 2016 win “signaled a monumental shift in county politics” and created renewed emphasis on criminal justice reform now championed by other Democratic officials and Ogg’s opponents.

In the March 3 primaries, Ogg, Bennett, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez and County Attorney Vince Ryan — all Democrats — face at least two intra-party opponents each, while Democratic Commissioner Rodney Ellis has a primary challenger in former state district judge Maria Jackson.

Excluding state district and county courts, 10 of 14 Harris County Democratic incumbents have at least one primary foe. In comparison, three of the seven county GOP incumbents — Justice of the Peace Russ Ridgway, Precinct 4 Constable Mark Herman and education department trustee Don Sumners — have drawn primary challengers.

At the state level, Republicans from the Harris County delegation largely have evaded primary opponents better than Democrats. All but three GOP state representatives — Dan Huberty, Briscoe Cain and Dennis Paul — are unopposed.

On the Democratic side, state Sen. Borris Miles and state Reps. Alma Allen, Jarvis Johnson, Senfronia Thompson, Harold Dutton, Shawn Thierry and Garnet Coleman each have primary opponents.

Overall, the 34 Democratic incumbents seeking re-election to federal, state and county seats that cover at least a portion of Harris County — not including state district and county courts — face 43 primary opponents. The 22 Republican incumbents have 10 intra-party challengers.

It should be noted that a few of these races always draw a crowd. Constable Precincts 1, 2, 3, and 6 combined for 22 candidates in 2012, 21 candidates in 2016, and 17 this year. Three of the four countywide incumbents – DA Kim Ogg, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez, and Tax Assessor Ann Harris Bennett – are in their first term, as is County Commissioner Rodney Ellis. There are fewer Republican incumbents to target, so Dem incumbents get to feel the heat. The bigger tell to me is that Republicans didn’t field candidates in nine District Court races. As I’ve said ad nauseum, it’s the judicial races that are the best indicator of partisan strength in a given locale.

The story also notes that the usual ideological holy war in HD134 is on hold this year – Greg Abbott has endorsed Sarah Davis instead of trying to primary her out, and there’s no Joe Straus to kick around. Republicans do have some big races of their own – CD07, CD22, HD26, HD132, HD138, County Commissioner Precinct 3 – but at the countywide level it’s kind of a snoozefest. Honestly, I’d have to look up who most of their candidates are, their names just haven’t registered with me. I can’t wait to see what the finance reports have to say. The basic point here is that we’re in a new normal. I think that’s right, and I think we’ll see more of the same in 2022. Get used to it.

After-deadline filing review: Houston area

Dec 11th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

There’s a lot to digest following Monday’s filing deadline, and as I’ve said I’m going to take some time and go over it in as much obsessive detail as you’ve probably come to expect from me. As a reminder, the filing info can be found here, with the caveat that it may not be fully complete. Only two Dem filers in CD03 are listed, for example, while the not-listed Tanner Do sure seems to have filed. This will all get fixed over the next couple of days, but let’s do keep that in mind.

Congress: Sima Ladjevardian’s entry into the CD02 primary was the main news here. She doesn’t have much online presence as a candidate yet, just a Twitter account with three tweets. I hope to have the chance to interview her, and if I do I’ll ask about this, but I get the sense this wasn’t just a late filing, but a late decision to run. That process is always fascinating to me. Anyone who runs against Dan Crenshaw is going to have to raise a lot of money, because he has a lot of money. She strikes me as the kind of candidate who is capable of that, which makes me wonder why not get started sooner? I understand, people have their own reasons for that, I’m just curious. She has three weeks till the next reporting deadline, we’ll see how she does.

Elsewhere, CD10 stayed at three candidates but CD22 now has five, as Chris Fernandez (mentioned in passing in this story and someone named Carmine Petricco whom neither Google nor Facebook can find entered. CD08 has two candidates, Laura Jones, who we knew about a month ago, and Elizabeth Hernandez, whom I cannot identify. If you know anything about any of these folks, please leave a comment.

As noted before, Rep. Al Green has an opponent in CD09, and Sheila Jackson Lee has six – count ’em, six – opponents in CD18. Three of them – Marc Flores, Bimal Patel, and Stevens Orozco – have been around campaigning for awhile, the other three are more recent entrants. And while it’s not a contested primary, I feel compelled to note that Rashad Lewis, who became the youngest person elected to Jasper City Council as a write-in candidate in 2017, then ran for Mayor earlier this year but fell short, is in for CD36. I’m going to want to interview him for November.

Legislative: SBOE6 has three candidates as before; I’ll be publishing interviews with them next week. In the Senate, as noted before Sen. Borris Miles has two opponents in SD13. Former Galveston judge Susan Criss and 2018 CD22 primary candidate Margarita Ruiz Johnson are competing in SD11. Carol Alvarado has SD06 to herself, while Jay Stittleburg (SD04) and Michael Antalan have clear paths to November.

The big news for the State House is that the HD148 primary is now a five candidate race: Anna Eastman, Penny Shaw, Emily Wolf, Adrian P. Garcia, and Cynthia Reyes-Revilla. Garcia was in the HD148 special election, and Reyes-Revilla finished out of the money in District H. I think it’s safe to say there will be a runoff in the primary, as there was in the special election. HD126 is a rerun from 2018, as Undrai Fizer and Natali Hurtado square off again. HD128, which was uncontested in 2018 (and is the reddest district in the county) has Josh Markle, who recently got a boost from Beto, and Mary E. Williams, whom I cannot find. HD134 has the three candidates you know, and HD138 has the two you know plus a repeat engagement from Jenifer Pool. HD129 (Kayla Alix), HD130 (Bryan Henry), HD133 (Sandra Moore, who ran in the 2018 primary), and HD150 (Michael Robert Walsh, whom I cannot conclusively identify) are all uncontested for March.

Among the Harris County incumbents, Reps. Alma Allen (HD131) and Harold Dutton (HD142) have four challengers, with CM Jerry Davis in HD142 being the biggest threat to either of them. Reps. Garnet Coleman (HD147) and Hubert Vo (HD149) each have two opponents, Reps. Jarvis Johnson, Senfronia Thompson, and Shawn Thierry have one, and Reps. Gina Calanni, Jon Rosenthal, Gene Wu, Armando Walle, Ana Hernandez, Mary Ann Perez, and Christina Morales are unopposed. Thierry’s opponent, as noted before, is Ashton Woods, who had run in At Large #5.

Elsewhere, Rep. Ron Reynolds (HD27) did pick up a primary opponent. I’ve been hard on Reynolds since his misdemeanor conviction, and I stand by everything I said. He’s now served his sentence, and I’m not aware of any further legal issues. I’m not quite ready yet, but assuming nothing else happens we are going to need to consider extending him the same grace we’re willing to give others who have served their sentences and deserve a clean slate, at least as far as voting and holding office is concerned. The infamously now-open HD26 has the four candidates we already knew of. Eliz Markowitz remains the candidate in HD28, and there are solo Dems running in HD03 (Martin Shupp), HD15 (Lorena McGill, the 2018 candidate), HD23 (Jeff Antonelli), HD24 (former Chron reporter Brian Rogers), HD25 (Patrick Henry), HD29 (Travis Boldt), and HD85 (Friend-of-Dos-Centavos Joey Cardenas).

Harris County: The main races – DA, County Attorney, Sheriff, Tax Assessor – you know about and nothing new has happened. There’s plenty of action in the two HCDE At Large races – Position 5 now has two candidates (Erica Davis, Paul Ovalle) and Position 7 has four (David Brown and Andrea Duhon, the two we knew about originally, and Bill Morris and Obes Nwabara). Also, too, I have not seen anything to indicate that Josh Flynn has resigned his spot as he runs for HD138 on the GOP side, so there’s that. Willie D is now listed in the primary for Commissioners Court Precinct 1, which doesn’t make sense but maybe something changed. If so, that’s a three-candidate race. There are six candidates for Precinct 3, the four you’ve heard of (Michael Moore, Diana Alexander, Kristi Thibaut, Morris Overstreet) and two you haven’t (Zaher Eisa and Erik Hassan, who is now calling himself Erik “Beto” Hassan, which, no). Alan Rosen did indeed file for Constable in Precinct 1.

That’s all I have the energy for now. I’ll keep going with this tomorrow.

Filing period preview: SBOE, Senate, House

Nov 13th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
8 comments

Previously: Congress, and Statewide. As before, I am using the Patrick Svitek spreadsheet as my primary reference.

Buckle up, there’s a lot to talk about here. I’m going to limit my discussion of State House races to the greater Houston area.

SBOE: There are three SBOE seats on the ballot that were carried by Beto in 2018. Winning all three would give Democrats am 8-7 majority on this famously flaky board. One of these seats in within Harris County, and that’s SBOE6, where Michelle Palmer and Debra Kerner have been in for some time.

State Senate: Unlike 2018, there’s really only one competitive district on the ballot, and that’s SD19, the seat Dems fumbled away in the special election. State Rep. Roland Gutierrez and Xochil Peña Rodriguez, daughter of former Rep. Ciro Rodriguez, are in. Despite the self-own in 2018, the district is basically 55-45 Dem, with a bit of variance on either end. Beto took it by 15 points, but even Lupe Valdez cleared fifty percent. A return to normal partisan behavior should make Pete Flores a temporary Senator.

Democratic incumbents Carol Alvarado (SD06) and Borris Miles (SD13) do not have primary opponents as yet. I tend to think someone will run against Miles after those harassment allegations against him were reported, but if so it will likely be a newcomer. One other Dem who both needs and has primary opponents is Eddie Lucio; I discussed Ruben Cortez and Sara Stapleton-Barrera, his known opponents, here. SD29 in El Paso is open following the retirement of Jose Rodriguez, with State Rep. Cesar Blanco the only contender to succeed him so far.

The two Republican-held seats in the Houston area have Dem challengers. For SD04, mostly in Montgomery County, there’s Jay Stittleburg, who ran for Montgomery County Judge in 2018. Griffin Winkworth is listed in the spreadsheet as having filed a designation of Treasurer. SD11 has two contenders: Margarita Ruiz Johnson, who was a candidate for CD22 in 2018 but did not advance to the runoff, and Susan Criss, former District Court judge in Galveston County and candidate for HD23 in 2014. Neither district is particularly competitive – Beto got 41.5% in SD11, but most Republicans carried it by 20 or more.

State House: Let’s start with the districts that don’t have Dem challengers yet. As noted, this is limited to the greater Houston area. You can peruse the spreadsheet at your leisure for other districts.

HD03 (Montgomery/Waller)
HD15 (Montgomery)
HD16 (Montgomery)
HD18 (Liberty)
HD23 (Galveston)
HD24 (Galveston)
HD29 (Brazoria)
HD85 (Fort Bend/Wharton/Jackson)
HD127 (Harris)
HD129 (Harris)
HD133 (Harris)
HD150 (Harris)

HDs 29 (which originally had a Dem who later withdrew) and 127 were the only ones in 2018 that went unchallenged. HD29 in particular is a district of interest, as it was a 47% Beto district in 2018.

Now for Republican-held districts that do have Dem challengers, at least according to the spreadsheet.

HD25 (Brazoria, the now-open Dennis Bonnen seat) – Someone named J. Patrick Henry, whom I cannot conclusively identify.
HD26 (Fort Bend) – Sarah DeMerchant, the 2018 candidate; Rish Oberoi; Suleman Lalani.
HD28 (Fort Bend) – We all know about Eliz Markowitz, right?
HD126 (Harris) – Natali Hurtado, the 2018 candidate.
HD128 (Harris) – Josh Markle, who got a nice fundraising boost from Beto after his little tiff with incumbent Briscoe Cain over automatic weapons.
HD130 (Harris) – Bryan Henry.
HD134 (Harris) – Ann Johnson, the 2012 candidate; Ruby Powers; Lanny Bose, the most recent entrant.
HD138 (Harris) – Akilah Bacy; Josh Wallenstein, who was a candidate in the primary for HCDE at large in 2018.

Two Democratic incumbents so far have primary opponents, Alma Allen in HD131 (Carey Lashley) and Garnet Coleman in HD147 (Aurelia Wagner). Both always seem to draw primary opponents, for whatever the reason. Ron Reynolds in HD26 usually draws one as well, for reasons that are more clear. I note that the spreadsheet lists Richard Bonton as a Republican opponent for Harold Dutton in HD142. Bonton ran against Dutton in the Dem primary in 2018.

We can’t end this conversation without bringing up HD148. I fully expect Anna Eastman to win the special election runoff, which is most likely be on December 14, the same day as the city of Houston runoffs. It doesn’t have to be on the 14th – Greg Abbott sets the runoff date, and he has some discretion. The last time we had a special election for a State Rep seat in an odd year was 2005 with the election in HD143, and that runoff was held on the same date as the city runoffs. Not a guarantee, but a data point. In any event, whatever happens in that race, there’s no reason to believe that some other candidates won’t file for the primary in HD148 as well. Any of the runners up may conclude that this was a wonky election, and that maybe they lost some votes to not-that-Adrian-Garcia. For sure, the primary will have a very different electorate, and Anna Eastman will not be very well known to them. I will be a little surprised if Eastman has the primary to herself.

Last but not least in this series: county races. I don’t get to lean on the spreadsheet for that one.

Beto v Briscoe

Sep 19th, 2019
by Charles Kuffner.
5 comments

I approve of this, with some small reservations.

Beto O’Rourke

Presidential contender Beto O’Rourke is helping a fellow Democrat raise money to unseat the Texas Rep. Briscoe Cain, after the Republican lawmaker tweeted last week that his AR-15 is “ready” for O’Rourke.

An email over the weekend from O’Rourke — still basking in the spotlight from his debate-stage vow that “Hell yes” he’ll confiscate assault-style weapons if elected — led to more than 3,600 donations for the campaign of Cain’s challenger, Josh Markle, of Deer Park.

Cain, a Baytown Republican, went viral after last week’s Democratic debate in Houston, when he tweeted at O’Rourke, “My AR is ready for you Robert Francis.” O’Rourke’s campaign reported the tweet to the FBI as a threat, then turned to its followers to raise money for Markle.

“Last year, Briscoe Cain ran completely unopposed,” the fundraising note, which vowed to split all money raised with Markle’s campaign, said. “This time, the Texas House Democratic caucus is running a campaign with Josh Markle to defeat him. The more money we can raise for them today, the stronger and clearer our message to Cain becomes. So please, make your best donation right now.”

O’Rourke’s supporters apparently did just that.

Markle — whose first foray into politics was block-walking and making calls for O’Rourke’s 2018 Senate run — told the Chronicle that his campaign received more than $43,000 in donations from that email alone. He says his campaign has brought in nearly 4,800 donations, totaling more than $68,000, since Cain posted the viral tweet that put the race for the solid-red district on the map.

I assume you heard about Briscoe Cain’s stupid and threatening statement towards Beto; I didn’t bother with it because there wasn’t much to say beyond demonstrating Cain’s profound amorality and utter unfitness to own any weapon, let alone one whose purpose it is to murder many people quickly and efficiently. Beto’s response here – he had other things to say, of course – is the normal political response, which is to make the elected official who said the stupid and offensive thing pay a price for it. The only problem is that Briscoe Cain is largely insulated from such effects, as one can observe in the 2018 numbers:


Dist    Beto
============
HD128  32.6%
HD130  33.2%
HD127  39.8%
HD150  42.3%
HD133  45.0%
HD129  45.2%
HD126  47.8%

Cain’s HD128 is the most Republican district in Harris County. I don’t see that trend reversing itself any time soon. It’s great to bring money and attention to Cain’s Democratic rival, and all hail Josh Markle for taking on the thankless task of running against Cain. It’s just that Beto could have raised ten times as much for Markle without it having any significant effect. I believe in running everywhere, I believe in supporting worthwhile candidates, and I believe that there’s always a chance. I just hope that the people who gave to Josh Markle did so with their eyes open, and didn’t blow their entire giving-to-local-Dems-in-2020 budget on that race.

(Beto was also busy in recent days boosting Eliz Markowitz’s campaign in HD28. That one comes with no reservations attached.)

Precinct analysis: Undervoting in judicial races

Dec 5th, 2018
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

Last time, we looked at undervoting by State Rep district in the two city propositions, which were at the very end of the 2018 ballot. That showed a somewhat greater likelihood of people in Democratic districts to skip those races, which was the first real evidence to support the assertion that Dems might suffer more in the post-straight ticket world. I said this was suggestive but far from conclusive, since we were looking at non-partisan referenda, with no candidates involved.

So with that in mind, let’s look at undervoting in a few of the judicial races that were on the ballot this year. These are also low profile and deep into the ballot, but they do provide the cue of party identification. What if any patterns do we see in the tendency to not vote in these races? To try to answer this, I looked at six judicial races, three of the first ones that appear and which have an overall low undervote rate, and three that appear near the end and which have an overall high undervote rate.


55th Civil Court

Dist       Rep     Dem   None     Rep%    Dem%  Under%
======================================================
HD126   30,233  24,644  1,355   55.09%  44.91%  10.85%
HD127   42,637  24,900  1,574   63.13%  36.87%  10.12%
HD128   35,499  16,006  1,166   68.92%  31.08%  10.70%
HD129   37,342  26,324  2,023   58.65%  41.35%  12.24%
HD130   52,602  22,821  1,669   69.74%  30.26%  10.04%
HD131    6,328  35,416    803   15.16%  84.84%   9.40%
HD132   33,591  32,514  1,267   50.81%  49.19%   9.54%
HD133   43,482  26,449  2,625   62.18%  37.82%  12.38%
HD134   43,229  43,298  4,447   49.96%  50.04%  13.50%
HD135   27,503  27,919  1,288   49.62%  50.38%  10.82%
HD137    7,664  16,339    651   31.93%  68.07%  12.07%
HD138   24,343  23,390  1,477   51.00%  49.00%  12.93%
HD139   11,101  35,586  1,187   23.78%  76.22%  11.00%
HD140    5,470  17,978    604   23.33%  76.67%  14.49%
HD141    4,035  27,344    456   12.86%  87.14%   8.83%
HD142    8,754  30,706    762   22.18%  77.82%   9.07%
HD143    7,706  20,648    883   27.18%  72.82%  14.69%
HD144    9,282  13,946    589   39.96%  60.04%  13.11%
HD145   10,224  22,188  1,053   31.54%  68.46%  13.19%
HD146    8,664  34,224  1,237   20.20%  79.80%  11.43%
HD147   10,994  43,284  1,603   20.25%  79.75%  11.21%
HD148   17,180  29,480  2,205   36.82%  63.18%  14.28%
HD149   14,500  24,179    994   37.49%  62.51%  13.36%
HD150   42,340  27,688  1,648   60.46%  39.54%  10.41%

113th Civil Court

Dist       Rep     Dem   None     Rep%    Dem%  Under%
======================================================
HD126   30,196  24,706  1,330   55.00%  45.00%  10.65%
HD127   42,466  25,062  1,582   62.89%  37.11%  10.17%
HD128   35,412  16,121  1,137   68.72%  31.28%  10.43%
HD129   37,111  26,583  1,994   58.26%  41.74%  12.07%
HD130   52,495  22,970  1,628   69.56%  30.44%   9.79%
HD131    6,340  35,364    843   15.20%  84.80%   9.87%
HD132   33,499  32,612  1,263   50.67%  49.33%   9.51%
HD133   43,377  26,602  2,576   61.99%  38.01%  12.15%
HD134   42,809  43,765  4,399   49.45%  50.55%  13.36%
HD135   27,447  27,985  1,278   49.51%  50.49%  10.74%
HD137    7,652  16,353    649   31.88%  68.12%  12.03%
HD138   24,316  23,460  1,434   50.90%  49.10%  12.55%
HD139   11,015  35,683  1,175   23.59%  76.41%  10.89%
HD140    5,397  18,035    619   23.03%  76.97%  14.85%
HD141    4,031  27,310    494   12.86%  87.14%   9.56%
HD142    8,737  30,727    758   22.14%  77.86%   9.02%
HD143    7,650  20,712    875   26.97%  73.03%  14.55%
HD144    9,214  14,003    600   39.69%  60.31%  13.35%
HD145   10,086  22,309  1,071   31.13%  68.87%  13.42%
HD146    8,650  34,212  1,264   20.18%  79.82%  11.68%
HD147   10,915  43,365  1,600   20.11%  79.89%  11.19%
HD148   17,005  29,665  2,194   36.44%  63.56%  14.21%
HD149   14,447  24,233    993   37.35%  62.65%  13.35%
HD150   42,295  27,745  1,635   60.39%  39.61%  10.33%

157th Civil Court

Dist       Rep     Dem   None     Rep%    Dem%  Under%
======================================================
HD126   30,042  24,846  1,343   54.73%  45.27%  10.76%
HD127   42,272  25,265  1,573   62.59%  37.41%  10.12%
HD128   35,281  16,231  1,159   68.49%  31.51%  10.63%
HD129   36,933  26,762  1,993   57.98%  42.02%  12.06%
HD130   52,322  23,142  1,628   69.33%  30.67%   9.79%
HD131    6,238  35,494    815   14.95%  85.05%   9.54%
HD132   33,353  32,753  1,266   50.45%  49.55%   9.54%
HD133   43,043  26,911  2,601   61.53%  38.47%  12.27%
HD134   42,716  43,888  4,370   49.32%  50.68%  13.27%
HD135   27,295  28,129  1,286   49.25%  50.75%  10.81%
HD137    7,550  16,442    662   31.47%  68.53%  12.27%
HD138   24,070  23,719  1,420   50.37%  49.63%  12.43%
HD139   10,938  35,770  1,166   23.42%  76.58%  10.81%
HD140    5,375  18,069    607   22.93%  77.07%  14.57%
HD141    3,982  27,377    475   12.70%  87.30%   9.19%
HD142    8,699  30,765    756   22.04%  77.96%   9.00%
HD143    7,588  20,773    876   26.76%  73.24%  14.57%
HD144    9,133  14,084    600   39.34%  60.66%  13.35%
HD145    9,994  22,398  1,074   30.85%  69.15%  13.45%
HD146    8,552  34,330  1,244   19.94%  80.06%  11.49%
HD147   10,860  43,432  1,589   20.00%  80.00%  11.12%
HD148   16,924  29,752  2,189   36.26%  63.74%  14.17%
HD149   14,398  24,291    984   37.21%  62.79%  13.23%
HD150   42,017  28,012  1,646   60.00%  40.00%  10.40%  

Crim Ct 9

Dist       Rep     Dem   None     Rep%    Dem%  Under%
======================================================
HD126   29,830  24,865  1,537   54.54%  45.46%  12.31%
HD127   42,199  25,096  1,815   62.71%  37.29%  11.67%
HD128   35,154  16,210  1,306   68.44%  31.56%  11.98%
HD129   36,365  27,045  2,278   57.35%  42.65%  13.78%
HD130   52,079  23,117  1,896   69.26%  30.74%  11.41%
HD131    6,169  35,441    936   14.83%  85.17%  10.96%
HD132   33,179  32,735  1,459   50.34%  49.66%  10.99%
HD133   41,803  27,603  3,148   60.23%  39.77%  14.85%
HD134   39,653  46,022  5,296   46.28%  53.72%  16.08%
HD135   27,110  28,157  1,443   49.05%  50.95%  12.13%
HD137    7,498  16,405    750   31.37%  68.63%  13.90%
HD138   23,827  23,757  1,626   50.07%  49.93%  14.23%
HD139   10,811  35,768  1,293   23.21%  76.79%  11.99%
HD140    5,379  18,029    644   22.98%  77.02%  15.45%
HD141    4,005  27,279    551   12.80%  87.20%  10.66%
HD142    8,698  30,678	  843   22.09%  77.91%  10.03%
HD143    7,576  20,721    940   26.77%  73.23%  15.64%
HD144    9,172  14,023    621   39.54%  60.46%  13.82%
HD145    9,829  22,420  1,215   30.48%  69.52%  15.22%
HD146    8,249  34,479  1,398   19.31%  80.69%  12.92%
HD147   10,283  43,791  1,806   19.02%  80.98%  12.63%
HD148   16,219  30,145  2,500   34.98%  65.02%  16.19%
HD149   14,267  24,365  1,041   36.93%  63.07%  14.00%
HD150   41,803  28,015  1,856   59.87%  40.13%  11.73% 

Crim Ct 10

Dist       Rep     Dem   None     Rep%    Dem%  Under%
======================================================
HD126   29,452  25,205  1,574   53.89%  46.11%  12.61%
HD127   41,583  25,678  1,850   61.82%  38.18%  11.90%
HD128   34,899  16,440  1,331   67.98%  32.02%  12.21%
HD129   35,939  27,475  2,275   56.67%  43.33%  13.77%
HD130   51,686  23,502  1,905   68.74%  31.26%  11.46%
HD131    5,983  35,592    971   14.39%  85.61%  11.37%
HD132   32,929  32,966  1,478   49.97%  50.03%  11.13%
HD133   41,082  28,334  3,138   59.18%  40.82%  14.80%
HD134   38,613  47,031  5,328   45.09%  54.91%  16.18%
HD135   26,847  28,401  1,461   48.59%  51.41%  12.28%
HD137    7,324  16,567    762   30.66%  69.34%  14.13%
HD138   23,483  24,083  1,644   49.37%  50.63%  14.39%
HD139   10,567  35,974  1,330   22.70%  77.30%  12.33%
HD140    5,243  18,158    648   22.41%  77.59%  15.55%
HD141    3,929  27,329    576   12.57%  87.43%  11.15%
HD142    8,543  30,818    858   21.70%  78.30%  10.21%
HD143    7,390  20,879    967   26.14%  73.86%  16.08%
HD144    8,991  14,211    615   38.75%  61.25%  13.69%
HD145    9,670  22,571  1,224   29.99%  70.01%  15.33%
HD146    8,056  34,654  1,415   18.86%  81.14%  13.07%
HD147   10,087  43,932  1,861   18.67%  81.33%  13.02%
HD148   15,808  30,508  2,547   34.13%  65.87%  16.49%
HD149   14,075  24,529  1,068   36.46%  63.54%  14.36%
HD150   41,459  28,345  1,871   59.39%  40.61%  11.82%


Probate Court 4

Dist       Rep     Dem   None     Rep%    Dem%  Under%
======================================================
HD126   30,387  24,311  1,532   55.55%  44.45%  12.27%
HD127   42,669  24,596  1,844   63.43%  36.57%  11.86%
HD128   35,440  15,919  1,311   69.00%  31.00%  12.03%
HD129   37,372  26,067  2,250   58.91%  41.09%  13.61%
HD130   52,671  22,515  1,906   70.05%  29.95%  11.47%
HD131    6,425  35,169    953   15.45%  84.55%  11.16%
HD132   33,759  32,171  1,444   51.20%  48.80%  10.88%
HD133   43,453  26,046  3,056   62.52%  37.48%  14.41%
HD134   42,830  43,007  5,134   49.90%  50.10%  15.59%
HD135   27,621  27,648  1,440   49.98%  50.02%  12.10%
HD137    7,696  16,214    744   32.19%  67.81%  13.79%
HD138   24,436  23,142  1,631   51.36%  48.64%  14.27%
HD139   11,236  35,313  1,324   24.14%  75.86%  12.27%
HD140    5,474  17,937    640   23.38%  76.62%  15.36%
HD141    4,126  27,136    571   13.20%  86.80%  11.05%
HD142    8,912  30,439    867   22.65%  77.35%  10.32%
HD143    7,680  20,605    952   27.15%  72.85%  15.83%
HD144    9,248  13,948    621   39.87%  60.13%  13.82%
HD145   10,235  21,997  1,231   31.75%  68.25%  15.42%
HD146    8,760  33,962  1,404   20.50%  79.50%  12.97%
HD147   11,217  42,809  1,851   20.76%  79.24%  12.95%
HD148   17,153  29,185  2,525   37.02%  62.98%  16.35%
HD149   14,556  24,074  1,042   37.68%  62.32%  14.01%
HD150   42,460  27,401  1,815   60.78%  39.22%  11.47%

As before the undervote rate is calculated by subtracting out the straight ticket votes from the total turnout in each district, so the percentage is (undervotes) / (non-straight ticket votes). There are three things to note here.

1. Three strong Democratic districts, HDs 131, 141, and 142, are consistently among those with the lowest undervote rates. Two strong Republican districts, HDs 129 and 133, are consistently among those with the highest undervote rates. There are also Democratic districts (HDs 140, 143, 145, 148) with high undervote rates, and Republican districts (HDs 126, 127, 128, 130, 150) with low undervote rates. The message is mixed.

2. If we zoom in on the most even districts – HDs 132, 134, 135, and 138 – we see that as we move from the races with overall low undervote rates to the races with the overall high undervote rates, the Democratic percentages in these districts increased in two of the three races. This is also the case for Democratic majority districts – look at HDs 144, 145, 146, and 147, for example. In other words, the voters that are dropping off are for the most part not those that are voting for Democratic judicial candidates.

3. Pulling back out to the bigger picture, the total number of votes affected here is really small. Look at HD148, one of the highest-undervote districts. The total number of undervotes there ranges from 2,189 to 2,545, a difference of 356 votes. As I said weeks ago, the range of undervotes in these judicial races is something like 31K to 36K, so maybe about five thousand more people drop off at the bottom of the ballot than in the middle, where we start voting for judicial candidates. That’s not a lot of votes! The Democratic judicial candidates in 2018 all won by at least 100K votes. The closest judicial race in 2016 was decided by 23K votes. You’d need to have a really big dropoff rate and a really big partisan differential for there to be a chance this could have an effect. There is zero evidence for either of these.

Now look, I admit that I am not a Professional Political Scientist. If I were, I’d probably being doing linear regressions or other fancy mathematical analyses to try to rigorously tease out possible correlations. I’m just a lowlife blogger fooling around in Excel while I watch the Texans game. But again, that’s my whole point about these ridiculous claims about “voter fatigue” and “Republican voters are more committed”, which is SHOW ME THE FRICKING EVIDENCE FOR THESE CLAIMS. I’m doing my amateur-level best to try and find it, and I can’t. If anything, I’m finding evidence for the opposite. Prove me wrong! I double dog dare you!

Anyway. I still have one last post on this topic, then I will go back to looking at precinct data in the way you’re more used to me looking at it. I hope you have found this useful.

The Harris County slates

Dec 13th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
3 comments

Let’s talk about the filings for Harris County. The SOS filings page is still the best source of information, but they don’t provide shareable links, so in the name of ease and convenience I copied the Democratic filing information for Harris County to this spreadsheet. I took out the statewide candidates, and I didn’t include Republicans because they have not updated the SOS office with their slate. Their primary filing site is still the best source for that. So review those and then come back so we can discuss.

Ready? Here we go.

– If there was an announcement I missed it, but HCDE Trustee Erica Lee, in Position 6, Precinct 1, did not file for re-election. Three candidates did file, Danyahel Norris, an attorney and associate director at the Thurgood Marshall School of Law; John F. Miller, who was a candidate for HCDE Chair earlier this year; and Prince Bryant.

– While there are contested races up and down the ballot, there’s one race that is no longer contested. Mike Nichols withdrew his filing for Harris County Judge, leaving Lina Hidalgo as the sole candidate to oppose Judge Ed Emmett next fall.

– The SOS page also shows that Sammy Casados withdrew his filing for County Commissioner. However, his campaign Facebook page makes no such announcement, and there’s no evidence I can find to confirm that. It’s possible this is a mistake on the SOS page. We’ll know soon enough, when the HCDP publishes its official final list. Anyway, the cast for Commissioner in Precinct 2 also includes Adrian Garcia, Daniel Box, Roger Garcia, and Ken Melancon, who was previously a candidate for Constable in Precinct 3 (note that Constable precincts, like Justice of the Peace precincts, do not correspond to Commissioner precincts). Also, there are now two candidates for Commissioner in Precinct 4, Penny Shaw and Jeff Stauber, who was a candidate for Sheriff in 2016.

– All other county races save one are contested. Diane Trautman has two opponents for County Clerk: Gayle Mitchell, who ran for the same office in 2014, losing to Ann Harris Bennett in the primary, and Nat West, who is the SDEC Chair for Senate District 13 and who ran for County Commissioner in Precinct 1 in that weird precinct chair-run election. Two candidates joined Marilyn Burgess and Kevin Howard for District Clerk, Michael Jordan and former Council candidate Rozzy Shorter. Dylan Osborne, Cosme Garcia, and Nile Copeland, who ran for judge as a Dem in 2010, are in for County Treasurer. HCDE Trustee Position 3 At Large has Josh Wallenstein, Elvonte Patton, and Richard Cantu, who may be the same Richard Cantu that ran for HISD Trustee in District I in 2005. Only Andrea Duhon, the candidate for HCDE Trustee for Position 4 in Precinct 3, has a free pass to November.

– I will go through the late filings for legislative offices in a minute, but first you need to know that Lloyd Oliver filed in HD134. Whatever you do, do not vote for Lloyd Oliver. Make sure everyone you know who lives in HD134 knows to vote for Alison Sawyer and not Lloyd Oliver. That is all.

– Now then. SBOE member Lawrence Allen drew an opponent, Steven Chambers, who is a senior manager at HISD. That’s a race worth watching.

– Sen. John Whitmire has two primary opponents, Damien LaCroix, who ran against him in 2014, and Hank Segelke, about whom I know nothing. Rita Lucido, who ran for SD17, threw her hat in the ring to join Fran Watson and Ahmad Hassan.

– Carlos Pena (my google fu fails me on him) joins Gina Calanni for HD132. Ricardo Soliz made HD146 a three-candidate race, against Rep. Shawn Thierry and Roy Owens. There are also three candidates in HD133: Marty Schexnayder, Sandra Moore, and someone you should not vote for under any circumstances. He’s another perennial candidate with lousy views, just like Lloyd Oliver. Wh you should also not vote for under any circumstances.

– The Republican side is boring. Stan Stanart has a primary opponent. Rep. Briscoe Cain no longer does. There’s some drama at the JP level, where Precinct 5 incumbent Jeff Williams faces two challengers. Williams continued to perform weddings after the Obergefell decision, meaning he did (or at least was willing to do) same sex weddings as well. You do the math. Unfortunately, there’s no Democrat in this race – it’s one of the few that went unfilled. There was a Dem who filed, but for reasons unknown to me the filing was rejected. Alas.

I’ll have more in subsequent posts. Here’s a Chron story from Monday, and Campos has more.

UPDATE: Two people have confirmed to me that Sammy Casados has withdrawn from the Commissioners Court race.

Filing news: The “not much to add but I’ll add it anyway” edition

Dec 4th, 2017
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

One more week to go till the filing deadline. There’s already been a lot of activity, but there should be plenty more to come. A few highlights as we head into the last week for filing:

– An old familiar face wants back in.

Trey Martinez-Fischer

Former state Rep. Trey Martinez Fischer announced Saturday that he is running for his old Texas House seat, setting up a primary battle with fellow San Antonio Democrat Diana Arévalo.

Addressing supporters in San Antonio, Fischer said he could not think of a more compelling reason to run than the election of President Donald Trump — and the forthcoming retirement of Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, a moderate Republican.

“We can hide and get out of the way, or we can stand and fight,” Fischer said. “I’m not very good at hiding, and I’m not very good at retiring.”

Fischer represented House District 116 from 2001 until he gave it up to run for Texas Senate in 2016.

TMF was a very good representative, who knew the House rulebook well and wielded it with considerable success. I don’t know much about Rep. Arevalo – it’s hard for a freshman to stand out, especially a Democratic freshman in this environment. I’ll be honest, if we could rewind the tape back a few months, I’d be pleading with TMF to run for Lite Guv. No disrespect to Mike Collier, but TMF is the opponent Dan Patrick deserves. We’ll see if the voters in HD116 want to bring him back.

– Like basically everyone, I expect Sen. Sylvia Garcia to be the next member of Congress from CD29, but some are not willing to concede.

Tahir Javed, CEO of Riceland Health Care in Winnie, late Friday released a statement saying he had officially filed papers with the Harris County Democratic Party to get into the growing Democratic primary.

“The American people are demanding change – at the federal, state and local level,” Javed, who is from Beaumont and who hosted a Hillary Clinton fundraiser in January 2016, said in a statement. “We need a real fighter in Congress, which is why I have filed to run.”

You know as much about Tahir Javed, who does not appear to have a campaign we presence yet, as I do. I’ve got the over/under for Sylvia at around 65% right now, but as they say, this is why we play the game on the field.

– There are now five candidates for Governor in the Democratic primary, according to the SOS candidate filings page. None of them a yet are named Jeffrey Payne, Andrew White, or Lupe Valdez. Of those five, one has won an election before, Cedric Davis, the former Mayor of Balch Springs; his campaign Facebook page is here. And now you know as much about Cedric Davis as I do.

– On the Republican side it’s pretty much dullsville, especially in Harris County. Other than the pissing contest in HD134, the most interesting race on that side is in HD128, where Baytown City Council Member Terry Sain is challenging first-term Rep. Briscoe Cain. Sain, whose entry in the race has been expected for months, is an old school Reagan Republican with a long record of public service, while Cain is an obsequious little twerp. You can probably tell which way my rooting interests lie, but this is something we should all care about. I don’t expect Terry Sain to vote with my interests more than a small percentage of the time, but I do expect him to take the job seriously, and to not act like an ignorant fool on the House floor. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.

Like I said, I expect there to be a lot more action this week. I’ll do my best to stay on top of it.

Precinct analysis: None of the above

Dec 7th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

We have been told that this was a year where many people were unhappy with the two main choices they had for President. We looked at Presidential numbers in Harris County before, and now we’re going to look again, at write-in candidates and at undervotes.


Dist McMullen  All WI  McMullin%  All WI%
=========================================
HD126     354     417      0.57%    0.67%
HD127     444     521      0.60%    0.70%
HD128     152     192      0.25%    0.32%
HD129     364     446      0.52%    0.64%
HD130     479     554      0.59%    0.68%
HD131      63      87      0.14%    0.19%
HD132     398     461      0.57%    0.67%
HD133     425     517      0.56%    0.68%
HD134     627     707      0.69%    0.78%
HD135     268     316      0.44%    0.52%
HD137      89     100      0.32%    0.36%
HD138     234     293      0.45%    0.57%
HD139     113     135      0.21%    0.26%
HD140      36      47      0.13%    0.17%
HD141      22      42      0.06%    0.11%
HD142     141     150      0.31%    0.33%
HD143      32      46      0.10%    0.14%
HD144      39      56      0.14%    0.20%
HD145      64      80      0.18%    0.21%
HD146     234     267      0.48%    0.54%
HD147     164     179      0.28%    0.31%
HD148     283     324      0.58%    0.66%
HD149     117     145      0.27%    0.33%
HD150     505     596      0.66%    0.78%


Dist     None   Total   None %
==============================
HD126   1,349  63,214    2.13%
HD127   1,480  75,620    1.96%
HD128     909  60,656    1.50%
HD129   1,307  71,355    1.83%
HD130   1,501  83,009    1.81%
HD131     899  47,459    1.89%
HD132   1,285  70,519    1.82%
HD133   1,914  78,173    2.45%
HD134   2,313  93,167    2.48%
HD135   1,111  61,619    1.80%
HD137     590  28,027    2.11%
HD138   1,049  52,787    1.99%
HD139   1,056  53,829    1.96%
HD140     637  28,652    2.22%
HD141     726  39,243    1.85%
HD142     819  46,243    1.77%
HD143     663  34,279    1.93%
HD144     601  28,120    2.14%
HD145     753  35,918    2.10%
HD146     936  50,081    1.87%
HD147   1,205  59,489    2.01%
HD148   1,083  49,819    2.17%
HD149     973  44,955    2.16%
HD150   1,463  78,180    1.87%

The first table documents the votes for Evan McMullin, who drew by far the most votes among the thirteen certified write-in candidates, which means the thirteen whose votes were actually counted. The second column is for all write-in votes for the given district. There were 6,510 total write-in votes, with McMullin receiving 5,647 of them. To put that in some perspective, Ralph Nader received 1,716 write-in votes in 2004, for 0.17% of the vote. McMullen had 0.43% of the vote, a hair less than half of Jill Stein’s 0.90% share.

Not surprisingly, McMullin drew most of his votes in heavily Republican districts. That’s no doubt because McMullin ran as a viable alternative for Republicans who were unhappy with Trump, and because there were more Republicans in those places. The two districts that stand out here are HDs 128, the only Republican district where McMullin finished below his countywide percentage, and 146, the only Democratic area where he outperformed the overall number. My guess for HD128 is that the voters there were just happier with Trump than voters elsewhere. As for HD146, I got nothing. Feel free to speculate about that in the comments.

The second table is for undervotes, which is to say the people who did not vote in the Presidential race. As you might imagine, that is usually the race that has the lowest undervote rate. This year, the undervote rate in the Presidential race was 1.99%; the next lowest rate was in the Tax Assessor’s race, where 3.47% skipped it. County judicial races were around five percent. Before I talk about the rates in each district, here’s how the Presidential undervote compared to other years:


Year   Undervote   Under%
=========================
2016      26,622    1.99%
2012      15,381    1.28%
2008      17,185    1.45%
2004      20,692    1.90%

Gotta say, I would not have expected 2004 to have had that many undervoters. I don’t see much of a pattern here. HD128 again demonstrated its satisfaction with the candidates by having the lowest undervote rate, but the districts that gave McMullin the most support did not necessarily have high undervote rates. Both Democratic and Republican districts above average and below average. Maybe you see something there, and maybe if I went down to the precinct level I’d see something, but right now I don’t. It just is what it is.

I’m going to take a crack at Fort Bend and Dallas Counties next week. As always, let me know what you think.

Cain retains lead in HD128 after recount

Jun 4th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

It’s all over.

Rep. Wayne Smith

After a recount, Briscoe Cain remains the winner in his Republican primary challenge to state Rep. Wayne Smith of Baytown.

Cain, an attorney from Deer Park, edged out Smith, a longtime incumbent, by 23 votes last month in House District 128. After initially conceding defeat in the May 24 primary runoff, Smith requested a recount.

The Texas Republican Party said Friday afternoon that Cain has won the recount. It was not immediately clear whether he prevailed by the same margin.

[…]

The deadline for requesting a recount of last month’s primary runoffs is 5 p.m. Monday.

See here for the background. We had previously been told that Thursday, June 2, was the deadline for requesting recounts. Not that it really matters at this point. In any event, as there is no Democrat running in HD128, Cain is the newest member of the legislative caucus from Harris County, so congratulations to him on his election.

Two runoff recounts in the works

May 29th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
1 comment

It’s not over yet in HD128.

Rep. Wayne Smith

In a reversal, state Rep. Wayne Smith is now pursuing a recount in his narrow loss in Tuesday’s Republican primary runoff.

Deer Park attorney Briscoe Cain beat Smith, a longtime incumbent from Baytown, by 23 votes in the runoff. As soon as the outcome became clear in House District 128, Smith conceded the race, and his campaign confirmed the next morning that he was not interested in a recount.

But in a statement issued Thursday night, Smith indicated he had changed his mind.

“After much thought and careful consideration, I have decided to move forward with a recount,” Smith said. “Whenever a race is this close, the option for a recount must be considered. In the past two days, I have been overwhelmed by friends and supporters who have encouraged this option.”

Smith lost in the closest race of the runoffs, though not the closest race of the cycle. I was surprised when he initially declined to ask for a recount, so I’m not surprised he changed his mind.

The other recount was announced immediately in the aftermath of Tuesday’s runoffs.

Tuesday’s Republican primary runoffs may not be over yet for at least one candidate.

The contests produced a number of narrow margins — including in House District 54, where Killeen Mayor Scott Cosper won by just 43 votes. His opponent, Killeen optometrist Austin Ruiz, said late Tuesday night he has “decided to pursue filing for a recount.”

[…]

A losing candidate can ask for a recount if the number of votes by which he or she lost is less than 10 percent of the total number of votes his or her opponent received, according to the secretary of state’s office. The deadline to apply for a recount is by the end of the fifth day after the election or the second day after the vote totals are canvassed.

That deadline is Thursday, June 2, at 5 PM, according to the Secretary of State. I can’t imagine there will be any other requests, as the only other runoffs for which the races were close have had the losing candidates concede. But if Wayne Smith can change his mind then someone else could, too.

Republican primary runoff results

May 25th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

vote-button

Harris County results

Statewide results

Trib liveblog

Your new State Senators are Bryan Hughes, who defeated his former House colleague David Simpson, and Dawn Buckingham, who defeated former Rep. Susan King. Hughes is a Dan Patrick buddy, who will fit right in to the awfulness of the upper chamber. Buckingham is a first-time officeholder who needs only to be less terrible than Troy Fraser, but I don’t know if she’s capable of that. She has a Democratic opponent in November, but that’s not a competitive district.

The single best result in any race on either side is Keven Ellis defeating certifiable loon Mary Lou Bruner in SBOE9. Whether Bruner finally shot herself in the foot or it was divine intervention I couldn’t say, but either way we should all be grateful. State government has more than enough fools in it already. Here’s TFN’s statement celebrating the result.

Jodey Arrington will be the next Congressman from CD19. There were also runoffs in a couple of Democratic districts, but I don’t really care about those.

Scott Walker easily won his Court of Criminal Appeals runoff. Mary Lou Keel had a two-point lead, representing about 6,000 votes, with three-quarters of precincts reporting, while Wayne Christian had a 7,000 vote lead for Railroad Commissioner. Those results could still change, but that seems unlikely.

Two incumbent House members appear to have fallen. Rep. Doug Miller in HD73 lost to Kyle Biedermann after a nasty race. Miller is the third incumbent to be ousted in a primary since 2006. They sure are easily dissatisfied in the Hill Country. Here in Harris County, Rep. Wayne Smith has been nipped by 22 votes by Briscoe Cain. That race was nasty, too. You have to figure there’ll be a recount in that one, with such a small margin, but we’ll see. For other House runoffs, see the Trib for details.

Last but not least, in another fit of sanity Harris County Republicans chose to keep their party chair, Paul Simpson. Better luck next time, dead-enders. Final turnout was 38,276 with 927 of 1,012 precincts reporting, so well below the Stanart pre-voting estimate of 50,000. Dems were clocking in at just under 30K with about the same number or precincts out. That’s actually a tad higher than I was expecting, more or less in line with 2012 when there was a Senate runoff.

Final runoff early voting numbers

May 22nd, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

EarlyVoting

Here are your final early voting numbers for the Republican and Democratic primary runoffs in Harris County. Note that in both cases, mail ballots have accounted for the majority of the total so far: On the Dem side, there have been 10,913 mail ballots to 10,364 in-person votes, and for the Rs it’s 15,297 to 12,742. For that reason, I don’t expect Tuesday’s results to provide a big boost to turnout, though there are still plenty of people who could vote if they wanted to. We’ll see how good a job the campaigns do at getting their people out.

There are two legislative runoffs in Harris County. In the increasingly nasty HD128 runoff between Republican incumbent Wayne Smith and challenger Briscoe Cain, the effect can be seen in the daily totals from the County Clerk. There were 1,858 in person votes in HD128, nearly double the amount of the next busiest district. It’s more muted on the Democratic side, where 932 people have shown up to pick between Jarvis Johnson and Kimberly Willis. That total trails HDs 146 (984) and 142 (949), not to mention the 1,012 votes cast at the West Gray Multi-Service Center. Of course, the dailies from the Clerk are for in person votes only. We won’t know how many absentee ballots have been cast in each district until Tuesday night.

Speaking of Jarvis Johnson, I could swear I saw a story late last week saying he had been sworn into office after his win in the May 7 special election to fill the remainder of now-Mayor Sylvester Turner’s term, but if so now neither Google nor I can find it. Johnson did pick up Mayor Turner’s endorsement for the primary runoff last week, and he has been endorsed by the Texas AFL-CIO COPE as well. Kimberly Willis has the support of the Texas Parent PAC, but not as far as I can tell Annie’s List. The Houston GLBT Political Caucus did not make an endorsement in this runoff.

Outside of Harris County, you know about the HD27 runoff. The other legislative runoff of interest is in HD120, where candidate Barbara Gervin-Hawkins (who is endorsed by Annie’s List) kicked up a bit of a fuss with labor by appearing to give support to “right to work” laws at a candidate forum. That cost her one endorsement she’s previously received; you can read Express News columnist Gilbert Garcia for the details. By the way, the basically useless special election to fill the unexpired term in HD120, which involved four people who are not in the primary runoff, will have its runoff election on August 2. Lord help us all.

Finally, in the Republican runoff for State Board of Education, District 9, Mary Lou Bruner, this cycle’s winner of the Biggest Idiot Who May Actually Get Elected To Something award, may have inadvertently demonstrated that even in a Republican primary runoff for SBOE in East Texas, there are some limits on stupidity. Maybe. That’s not a proposition I’d want to bet my own money on, but we’ll see. SBOE 9 did elect Thomas Ratliff once, so there is hope and precedent. Ask me again on Wednesday.

Runoff watch: Legislative races

Mar 14th, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
4 comments

I’m going to spend a few posts looking at the runoff elections that will be on the ballot this May. Primary runoffs are completely different than regular primaries, mostly because the races involved are low profile and only the hardest of hardcore voters come out for them. Remember how much time we spent this primary cycle talking about the 2008 Democratic primary and how off-the-charts high the turnout was? Well, turnout for the 2008 Democratic primary runoff in Harris County, which decided one District Judge nomination and one Justice of the Peace nomination, as well as voting on the nomination for Railroad Commissioner, drew all of 9,670 votes. Republican primary runoff turnout that year was 40,457, considerably higher but still quite paltry. The exception to this rule is when there is an actual high-profile race on the ballot, such as in 2012 when Ted Cruz and David Dewhurst went into overtime for the US Senate nomination. That year, in a runoff that happened in July, over 135,000 people came out to vote. The Democratic runoff, which also included a Senate race, drew 30,000 votes. Point being: Don’t expect much this year.

The bottom line is that there are two types of primary runoff voters: Those who are super plugged into the process and who turn out any time there’s an election, and those who are brought out by a campaign. In the absence of a high-profile campaign, the kind that draws news coverage and maybe TV advertising, the main kind of campaign that will draw out voters is one with a ground game. Legislative races are the best for that. There are three legislative runoffs of interest, two in Harris County and one in Fort Bend.

HD128 – Republican runoff

Rep. Wayne Smith

I don’t pay that much attention to most Republican primary races, and even if I did I doubt I’d have given this one much thought. Rep. Wayne Smith in HD128 is a low-key guy, serving as the Chair of the Licensing & Administrative Procedures Committee and generally not doing much to attract my attention. He hadn’t had a competitive primary since he was first elected in 2002, and hadn’t had a non-third party opponent since 2004. Yet there he was on Election Day, trailing some guy named Brisco Cain by four points and coming close to losing outright in a three-candidate field. What happened?

I’ll leave you to read this Big Jolly post to get an idea. Basically, it’s one part Smith not being “conservative” enough – Cain drew a ton of support from the “grassroots” organizations – and one part this being yet another proxy fight over Speaker Joe Straus. That’s likely to be how the runoff plays out, though so far it’s been as under the radar from the perspective of an interested outsider like myself as the March race was. Smith’s best chance, it seems to me, is for Straus’ money to buy him some voter outreach, and get as many people who think he’s been good for Baytown to the polls. Cain, who ran for HD129 in 2014 but finished fourth in the seven-candidate primary, needs to harness the same seething anger that propels candidacies like his. He had a 500-vote lead on March 1, and the kind of people that vote for the kind of candidate that he is tend to be highly motivated to turn out, so I see this as Cain’s race to lose. I predict there will be at least one controversy over a mailer or online ad attacking Smith, because that’s the way these things tend to go and also because groups like Empower Texans are backing Cain. If you’re a Republican, how do you see this race?

HD139 – Democratic runoff

This is the race for Mayor Turner’s open seat, with the winner of the primary runoff the winner of the office, since there is no Republican running. (The same is true for the HD128 runoff.) Candidate Randy Bates collected the most institutional support, and he led the field when the initial results, from early and absentee voting, were published. He then collected only 20% of the vote on Election Day, and slid into third place behind Kimberly Willis and Jarvis Johnson. I’m not sure what happened there, but if I had to guess I’d posit that 1) Willis had a better ground game, and 2) Johnson benefited from the high turnout on Election Day, as perhaps it featured a higher percentage of voters who were voting for a familiar name. Like I said, that’s just a guess.

I could see this runoff going either way. I have not yet seen updated endorsements from the groups that had backed Bates in March, but I’ll be surprised if it isn’t the case that Willis cleans up among them. She has been by far the more active campaigner of the two, and Johnson’s legacy as Council member isn’t the best. I think Willis will be able to turn out some voters for this race, and that gives her the edge, but Johnson’s name recognition can’t be denied. Willis’ model needs to be Erica Lee’s runoff win for HCDE in 2012, which she accomplished despite Johnson nearly taking a majority in the first round. If she can reach enough voters, she can win.

On a side note, there is a complicating factor for this race, and that’s the special election to fill out the remainder of Turner’s term, which will be held on May 7, a mere 17 days before the primary runoff. I don’t know when the filing deadline is for this, and I don’t know who all will be in that race, but surely Willis and Johnson will file for it. If nothing else, it’s another opportunity to get out there before the voters. As long as they understand that their obligation doesn’t end with that race and they come out again on May 24, that is.

HD27 – Democratic runoff

The one non-Harris County race of interest, and the one with the highest profile so far. You know the story – three-term Rep. Ron Reynolds and his tsuris, with Annie’s List-backed Angelique Bartholomew the last candidate standing against him. Reynolds, like Briscoe Cain in HD128, was above 50% for most of the night on March 1. In fact, I went to bed around midnight having stated that Reynolds had pulled it out. Not so fast, as it happened.

What Reynolds has going for him is that a lot of people still genuinely like him – for all his self-inflicted wounds, even his opponents have compassion for him – and he hasn’t lost the support of elected officials and many establishment groups. What he has going against him, besides his conviction for barratry, is at least one establishment group that is sure to spend money to try to defeat him, money that he doesn’t have and probably won’t be able to raise. There’s also ammunition to use against him that goes beyond the barratry issue. I think he’s buoyant enough that this is still his race to lose – again, he came very close to winning outright in the first place – but he’s not invulnerable. If there are any further cracks in his support, it could shatter on him.

2016 primary reactions and initial impressions

Mar 3rd, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

First, a couple of minor notes. Rep. Byron Cook ultimately pulled out a win in his nasty and high-profile primary. That’s good news for Speaker Joe Straus and the general forces of “government that isn’t like a three-year-old coming off a sugar high”. Rep. Wayne Smith was forced into a runoff but did not lose outright. Also forced into a runoff was Rep. Doug Miller in HD73 – I missed that one on Tuesday night – and on the Democratic side, Rep. Ron Reynolds in HD27. That one apparently happened after midnight; Reynolds will face Angelique Bartholomew in May.

With all 7,963 now having reported, Democratic primary turnout statewide was 1,433,827, with over 800,000 votes coming on Election Day. To put that into some perspective, since the only point of reference any news story I’ve seen lately seems to be the off-the-charts year of 2008, here’s was turnout was for every Democratic primary through 1992, which is as far back as the SOS archives go:


Year      Turnout
=================
2016    1,433,827
2014      554,014
2012      590,164
2010      680,548
2008    2,874,986
2006      508,602
2004      839,231
2002    1,003,388
2000      786,890
1998      654,154
1996      921,256
1994    1,036,907
1992    1,483,047

In other words, 2016 will have had the second highest turnout in any Democratic primary since 1992. Yes, I know, there are a lot more voters now than there were in 1992, but still. That’s not too shabby. Republican turnout with all precincts in was 2,832,234, so while it’s obviously a record-breaker for them, it falls short of the Dem number from 2008. So there.

One thing to touch on here is that in both primaries, well more than half the vote came on Election Day, which as a result meant that the final turnout projections were low. Over 1.6 million Republicans voted on E-Day, so in both primaries about 43% of the vote was early, and 57% came on Election Day. You may recall that the early/E-Day split was similar in 2008, whereas in 2012 the early vote was about 52% of the total. The two lessons I would draw from this are 1) Final turnout projections are always a guess that should always be taken with a healthy serving of salt, and 2) The more hotly contested and high-profile a race is, the more likely that people will wait till the last minute to decide. Someone with more resources than I have should take a closer look at the makeup of the early and late voters to see what percentage of each are the hardcore and the casual voters; my guess, based on a completely unscientific survey of my Facebook friends, is that more hardcore voters than you might think waited till Tuesday. There’s an opportunity here for someone with an enterprising spirit and some number-crunching skillz.

Also on the matter of turnout, 226,825 Democrats and 329,014 Republicans cast ballots in Harris County. 61.4% of all Democratic votes and 59.1% of all Republican votes were cast on Tuesday. See my previous paragraph for what that means to me.

On the matter of the Republican primaries for Court of Criminal Appeals, here’s what Grits had to say during early voting:

Statewide, I’ll be watching the Sid Harle/Sid Smith race on the Court of Criminal Appeals to see if Texas GOP voters have flat-out lost their minds, and the Keel-Oldner-Wheless race to see if Judge Wheless’ strategy of ignoring the establishment and seeking Tea Party, pro-life and generally conservative movement support is enough to win a primary in a low spending, low-profile race.

Well, of the four candidates running in the primary for Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals Place 5, Steve Smith and Sid Harle came in third and fourth, respectively. A couple of guys named Scott Walker and Brent Webster will be in the runoff. As for Judge, Court of Criminal Appeals Place 2, Raymond Wheless came in second and will face Mary Lou Keel in the runoff, while Chris Oldner of Ken Paxton grand jury fame is on the outside looking in. I’ll leave it to Grits to tell me What It All Means.

There were a few races on the Dem side that had people shaking their heads or their fists, but there weren’t any truly bizarre results. For sure, there was nothing on the Dem side that compares to this:

The newly elected chair of the Republican Party in the county that includes the Texas Capitol spent most of election night tweeting about former Gov. Rick Perry’s sexual orientation and former President Bill Clinton’s penis, and insisting that members of the Bush family should be in jail.

He also found time to call Hillary Clinton an “angry bull dyke” and accuse his county vice chair of betraying the values of the Republican Party.

“The people have spoken,” Robert Morrow, who won the helm of the Travis County GOP with 54 percent of the vote, told The Texas Tribune. “My friends and neighbors and political supporters — they wanted Robert Morrow.”

Morrow’s election as Republican chair of the fifth-largest county in Texas left several members of the Travis County GOP, including vice chair Matt Mackowiak, apoplectic. Mackowiak, a Republican strategist, immediately announced over social media that he would do everything in his power to remove Morrow from office.

“We will explore every single option that exists, whether it be persuading him to resign, trying to force him to resign, constraining his power, removing his ability to spend money or resisting any attempt for him to access data or our social media account,” Mackowiak told the Tribune. “I’m treating this as a coup and as a hostile takeover.”

“Tell them they can go fuck themselves,” Morrow told the Tribune.

All righty then. Morrow, whose comedic stylings are collected here, was a regular inhabitant of the comment section at BurkaBlog, back when Paul Burka was still writing it. He was also Exhibit A for why one should never read the comments. I’d feel sorry for Travis County Republicans, but as the story notes Morrow is now Greg Abbott’s county party chair, and that’s just too hilarious for me to be empathetic about. Have fun with that, y’all, because there’s not much you can do to make him leave before his term expires. Trail Blazers has more.

I’ll start digging into the data tomorrow, when I hope all the precinct results will be in for the SOS website, and when I get a draft canvass from the Harris County Clerk. The Trib has a graphical view for the Presidential race if you can’t wait for me. Any other results or tidbits you want me to look at? Let me know. David Collins lists the races that will go to runoffs, and Harold Cook, Marc Campos, PDiddie, the Obserer, and the Current have more.

2016 primaries: State races

Mar 2nd, 2016
by Charles Kuffner.
Comments are off for this post

Let’s start with the Democratic race for Railroad Commissioner, and a few words from Forrest Wilder:

Not that Gene Kelly

The Gene Kelly Effect: Texas Democrats are almost perennially embarrassed by what you might call the Gene Kelly Effect — the depressing tendency of many Democratic primary voters to vote for a name they recognize on the ballot, without any regard to the person’s experience or qualifications.

Gene Kelly is the clever/annoying fellow who shares a name with a long-dead dancer and ran repeatedly in the ’90s and ’00s, garnering millions of votes and forcing expensive and time-consuming runoff elections without even pretending to run a campaign. (Perhaps it’s also a reflection of the electorate’s average age, since the dancer Gene Kelly’s heyday was in the ’40s and ’50s.)

Though Gene Kelly hasn’t run for office since 2008, a new spoiler has arrived on the scene. His name is Grady Yarbrough and his last name sounds awfully similar to (but is in fact different from) Ralph Yarborough, the legendary liberal Texas senator. In 2012, Yarbrough won 26 percent of the vote in a four-way race to be the Democratic nominee for U.S. Senate. That was enough to muscle his way into a runoff with former state Representative Paul Sadler and score 37 percent of the vote.

This year, Yarbrough is running against former state Rep Lon Burnam and Democratic labor activist Cody Garrett for a spot on the Texas Railroad Commission. Burnam is by far the most serious candidate — if measured by endorsements, money raised, legislative experience, etc. Can Burnam (or Garrett) clear 50 percent and avoid a costly runoff, or will Yarbrough, like Gene Kelly, be singin’ in the rain (of ballots)?

Sadly, that was not to be, as Yarbrough led the field with about 40% and Burnam coming in third at 26%. I’ll be voting for Cody Garrett in the runoff, thanks. Burnam did raise a little money, but it was a pittance, the kind of total that would get you laughed at in a district City Council race. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again, one of these days the big Democratic check-writers are going to have to realize that they need to robustly support qualified candidates in these low-profile primaries, or we’re going to stop getting any qualified candidates for these offices. I know that the Republican nominee is the overwhelming favorite to win in November, but that’s not the point, and besides, who knows what might happen with Trump at the top of the GOP ticket. One of these days a Democrat is going to win one of these races, and if we’re not careful it’s going to be whatever schmo that bothered to pay the filing fee. Do we want to avoid that fate or actively court it?

Anyway. The marquee race was the rematch in SD26, and it was headed for the same result as before, with Sen. Jose Menendez holding a comfortable lead. However you viewed this race, I’m sad for TMF and sorry to see him leave the scene. He’ll be missed. Congratulations, Sen. Menendez. Also winning, by a much wider margin, was Sen. Carlos Uresti over the widow of former Sen. Frank Madla.

For the State House races, I had said yesterday that I was a little worried about the four Harris County Democratic incumbents who had drawn challengers. Thankfully, I had nothing to worry about. Reps. Alma Allen and Jessica Farrar cruised with nearly 90% (!) of the vote, while Gene Wu and Hubert Vo were up by two-to-one margins. Whew! There was good news also out of El Paso, where Rep. Mary Gonzalez was over 60% against former Rep. Chente Quintanilla. In not so good news, Rep. Ron Reynolds was headed towards a clear win in HD27. All I can say is that I hope he’s not in jail when the gavel bangs next January. As long as he’s still in office, any calls for Ken Paxton to resign are going to ring just a little hollow.

For the open seat races, Randy Bates led in early voting in HD139, but as the evening wore on he was passed by Kimberly Willis and Jarvis Johnson. Former Rep. Mary Ann Perez started slowly but eventually won a majority in HD144, with Cody Ray Wheeler next in line behind her. Other races of interest:

HD49: Gina Hinojosa, daughter of TDP Chair Gilbert Hinojosa, was headed towards a clear win to succeed Elliott Naishtat. Huey Ray Fischer was in third place.

HD77: Lina Ortega wins big to succeed Rep. Marissa Marquez.

HD116: Diana Arevalo was over 50% to succeed TMF. Runnerup Martin Golando was TMF’s chief of staff. To say the least, not a good day for Trey Martinez-Fischer.

Hd118: Tomas Uresti gets another shot at winning that seat. Hope he does better than in that special election runoff.

HD120: Barbara Gervin-Hawkins, daughter of former Spurs legend George Gervin, will face Mario Salas in a runoff.

SBOE6: Jasmine Jenkins and Dakota Carter head to the runoff.

SBOE1: Georgina Perez, the more interesting candidate, won without a runoff.

On the Republican side, there is too much so I will sum up: Supreme Court incumbents all won, while there will be runoffs for the Court of Criminal Appeals. Reps. Byron Hughes and Susan King were the leading candidates for the two open Senate seats. Speaker Joe Straus won his race handily, but several incumbents were losing at last report: Stuart Spitzer, Byron Cook (a top lieutenant for Straus), Marsha Farney, Molly White, Wayne Smith (surprise #1), and Debbie Riddle (surprise #2). I can’t wait to hear some of those stories. Here’s the story on the GOP Railroad Commissioner race, one in which there was a lot of money spent. Last but not least, the crazy may be back in the SBOE, as Mary Lou Bruner was close to a majority of the vote. Praise the Lord and pass the bong.

For plenty of other information on these and other races, here’s your supplemental reading assignment:

Trib liveblog

Observer liveblog

Chron live coverage

Rivard report

Austin Chronicle

BOR

Harris County Dem results – Harris County GOP results

Democratic statewide results – Republican statewide results

New map, new opportunities: Harris County

May 10th, 2011
by Charles Kuffner.
2 comments

For our last stop on this tour we look at Harris County, which provided several pickup opportunities for Democrats last decade. How will they fare this time around?

Harris County's new districts

Republicans started the last decade with a 14-11 advantage – they intended it to be 15-10 after drawing Scott Hochberg out of his seat, but he moved into HD137, drawn at the time to be a 50-50 district, won it, and watched it grow more Democratic with each election. Democrats picked up seats in 2004, 2006, and 2008, then lost two of them in 2010, ending the decade at a 13-12 disadvantage. This map shrinks the Harris delegation to 24 seats and in doing so forces the only Dem-on-Dem pairing, as Hochberg and Hubert Vo were thrown together. At this point I don’t know who is going to do what. I’ve heard rumors about Hochberg moving to 134, which includes a fair amount of turf from his pre-2001 district, but that’s all they are. We won’t know till much later, and I doubt anyone will commit to a course of action until the Justice Department has weighed in.

Assuming there are no changes, the Republicans had some work to do to shore up their members. With the current map, Jim Murphy in 133 and Sarah Davis in 134 would be heavily targeted, with Dwayne Bohac in 138 and Ken Legler in 144 also likely to face stiff competition. By virtue of shifting districts west, where the population has grown and where the Republicans have more strength, they bought themselves some time. Here’s a look at the 2004 Molina numbers for the old districts versus the 2008 Sam Houston numbers in both the old and the new ones.


Dist 04 Molina  Old Houston  New Houston
========================================
126       32.9         42.0         37.9
127       28.3         33.3         32.4
128       35.5         38.9         38.0
129       33.4         36.8         38.6
130       23.6         29.5         26.4
132       30.3         41.4         40.6
133       44.0         51.2         41.6
134       43.3         44.7         42.6
135       35.5         42.1         39.5
136       28.1         31.7         40.0
138       41.1         44.8         40.3
144       39.9         45.1         42.1
150       28.4         36.4         33.0

A couple of massive shifts, in 133 to protect Murphy, and in 136 where Beverly Woolley gave up some turf to help out Bohac and Davis. Some Democratic districts got even bluer, though not all of them; losing a district allowed voters of all stripes to be spread around more. Woolley and Davis’ districts cover neighborhoods that are unlikely to change much, so what you see there is likely to be what you’ll get. Everywhere else, especially in the western territories – 132, 133, 135, and 138 – are likely to see change similar to what we saw last decade. I wouldn’t be surprised if their partisan numbers are already different. The question is how much time have the Republicans bought themselves, and how much effort and resources the Democrats will put into reaching the new residents out there; not much had been done in the past. Other than perhaps Davis, who will surely be attacked for voting mostly in lockstep with the rest of the Republicans, it’s not clear that any of these seats are winnable next year, but the results we get at that time may tell us when they’ll be ripe for the picking. I expect we’ll see some turnover over time, but I don’t know how much.