First of all, none of this would be possible without lots of hard work from lots of people. PLEASE click on the links and donate time or money, if you are able. The national party has written us off down here for ages, so what these people have done is remarkable. My hat is off to them.
Battleground Texas
Texas Democratic Party
Hillary for Texas
Drive for Democracy (to drive voters to the polls)
ALL the local Democratic organizations — there are too many to count, or include all of them here. We also have some amazing Kossacks involved: LibbyShaw, txjackalope (who gave me the original idea and push for this series — it wouldn’t be here without you!), txdoubledd (you have added fantastic links), MargaretPOA, ChrisLove and the Houston Kossacks who kept me going, Ken in TX and his fantastic work out in Travis County, tiredntexas for her hard work in Harris County, oldhippiedude, oceanview for the constant (needed) reminders to make the donation and volunteer links more visible (I hope I got it right) and everyone else out there who’s helped me build these diaries, links and worked to make this happen. FaithChatham has a wonderful series on congressional races that could be competitive — with donation links, if you have some spare change to share.
If you’re a TX voter, VOTE! Here is a FAQ list for you...early voting ENDS on Friday, 4 Nov. Vote early! Even voting early, some counties are seeing lines up to an hour or two, depending on when you go. Then, if you have time take others to the polls. Voting and enthusiasm are contagious. There are free rides in Austin, courtesy of League of Women Voters, plus the Metro is doing free rides. The YMCA may offer free childcare on election day.
Now, on to data, analysis and caveats. The Texas Secretary of State office has excellent record-keeping...the numbers get updated anywhere between 9 and 2, which is mildly frustrating.
|
2008 |
2012 |
2016 |
Day 6, top 15 counties by population
Harris (Houston) |
29,484 |
31,160 |
35,874 |
Dallas |
19,072 |
16,973 |
14,820 |
Tarrant (Ft Worth) |
14,396 |
13,133 |
16,826 |
Bexar (San Antonio) |
13,107 |
11,920 |
17,877 |
Travis (Austin) |
8,493 |
7,956 |
10,773 |
Collin (DFW) |
8,188 |
7,141 |
9,901 |
Denton |
5,179 |
5,467 |
9,642 |
El Paso |
3,371 |
2,610 |
3,013 |
Ft Bend (SW Houston) |
4,818 |
5,372 |
5,729 |
Hidalgo (Rio Grande) |
1,538 |
2,253 |
2,521 |
Montgomery (N Houston) |
3,581 |
4,490 |
6,109 |
Williamson (Round Rock) |
3,118 |
3,275 |
5,676 |
Galveston |
2,011 |
2,030 |
2,850 |
Nueces |
2,373 |
2,125 |
1,380 |
Cameron (Rio Grande) |
257 |
34 |
141 |
Total EV Day 6 |
118,986 |
115,939 |
143,132 |
Cumulative EV |
1,612,858 |
1,700,453 |
2,401,677 |
Total Votes (ev & mail in) |
1,772,441 |
1,875,185 |
2,657,512 |
Vote % of Registered Voters |
20.95% |
21.67% |
27.23% |
*The vote totals for yesterday are ONLY including known votes: I’m still missing Denton, El Paso, Ft. Bend, Hidalgo, Galveston and Nueces counties. This number WILL go up by an estimated 18-20K votes. Same with the estimated voter participation rate: once I have SoS numbers, I will correct these.
UPDATE: All county numbers are now in, with significant gains in voting numbers. The final numbers were at the high end of my estimate: in fact, were 25K more than I had originally.
The first thing you’re going to notice, if you’ve been following this series, is how much lower these numbers are. That’s not because people don’t like voting, or because everyone already has — up until now, polls have been open 9-5, and even 7-7. Sunday, polls are only open from 1-6. Less than half the hours, and we’re still looking at about half the votes from previous days. And no, the Cameron County numbers aren’t a typo: at least for this year, there was ONE site open Sunday. Dallas County saw a significant turnout dropoff on Saturday: it looks like that continued through the weekend. I haven’t seen any indication of targeted voter suppression there, so all we can do is speculate. There IS a federal complaint filed in Tarrant County, alleging voter suppression targeted at elderly latino voters. This is an emerging situation: the Republican involved is ‘investigating claims of vote harvesting’, or illegally filling out someone else’s ballot. Latino leaders have put out a $25,000 reward for anyone who will say they were intimidated and identify the person who did it.
Other analysis and things of note: yesterday, the El Paso Times pointed out that, while EVERYWHERE has been seeing voting gains, the largest gains are also in the most Democratic counties. There’s a lovely interactive map that lets you see the turnout rates for the counties the Time contacted. In 2012, we ended with 3.4M votes cast early in these counties (mail-in and in person)...out of 8M total (13.4M registered voters). That means the top county early vote accounted for 43% of the TOTAL 2012 TX vote.
The Texas Tribune has a nice set of graphs and pictures for all of this data. There are 254 counties in Texas, and 15 million registered voters. In these 15 counties live 9.7 million of those voters: almost 2/3 of all possible TX voters. Txjackalope has a great diary about what all this means as of yesterday here. For those who like color charts and demographic data, Texdude50 has everything you need over here. Once again, there is NO way to guarantee that ‘blue’ counties are seeing more Dem votes, and ‘red’ counties are going to keep seeing more GOP votes: if this is a true increase in total voters, then historical data MAY wind up being way off.
What’s driving higher turnout? There’s nothing on the ballot state-wide. The only ballot measure I’ve heard of is a local one asking for funding to build a new stadium...so this isn’t something local. Turnout’s been up everywhere, so it’s not just a congressional race or two: this turnout increase is for 2 reasons. 1) The presidential race. 2) everything Battleground Texas, League of Women Voters and everyone else has been doing to register folks and get out the vote. Despite natural pessimism, I just don’t see Trump having gotten Texans THIS excited to vote for him. Based on what we’ve heard from personal stories, what we know from the few polls that have been done and from the fact Trump is claiming vote rigging in Texas of all places...I think what we’re seeing is that sleeping giant of non-voters finally getting involved. And most of those non-voters? Latinos. Young folks. Other minorities. Texas hasn’t been a red state: Carter won in 1976, and Clinton came close in both 1992 and 1996. It’s been a non-voting state. If we change that, we can create a blue firewall the GOP simply CANNOT overcome — and wouldn’t that be beautiful?
For those who want the whole history…
Day 1 (txjackalope)
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5