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.
Texas Democratic Party
Hillary for Texas
Drive for Democracy (to drive voters to the polls)
Leage of Women Voters (TX)
Battleground TX
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.
Now, on to data, analysis and caveats. The Texas Secretary of State office has excellent record-keeping...though the numbers are updated sometime between 9 and 2.
|
2008 |
2012 |
2016 |
Day 9, top 15 counties by population
Harris (Houston) |
66,506 |
62,163 |
71,244 |
Dallas |
43,582 |
34,176 |
37,222 |
Tarrant (Ft Worth) |
42,657 |
32,076 |
39,052 |
Bexar (San Antonio) |
35,039 |
27,468 |
36,583 |
Travis (Austin) |
23,715 |
19,137 |
27,386 |
Collin (DFW) |
19,227 |
16,843 |
19,842 |
Denton |
16,822 |
13,329 |
18,840 |
El Paso |
10,147 |
7,000 |
9,964 |
Ft Bend (SW Houston) |
12,289 |
10,889 |
14,623 |
Hidalgo (Rio Grande) |
7,331 |
7,089 |
8,560 |
Montgomery (N Houston) |
9,268 |
8,653 |
11,628 |
Williamson (Round Rock) |
9,023 |
7,871 |
10,552 |
Galveston |
5,925 |
5,721 |
6,388 |
Nueces |
5,542 |
4,657 |
5,839 |
Cameron (Rio Grande) |
3,623 |
3,617 |
4,440 |
Total EV Day 6 |
310,696 |
260,689 |
321,969 |
Cumulative EV |
2,213,059 |
2,236,392 |
3,031,165 |
Total Votes (ev & mail in) |
2,390,051 |
2,430,874 |
3,311,159 |
Vote % of Registered Voters |
28.25% |
28.09% |
33.93% |
*County information, when the table is not complete, all comes from the respective County websites. The numbers have usually been off by a few hundred (all told): I will update once I get SoS numbers. Based on the fact we still have 6 counties still outstanding, I’m estimating we’ll see an increase in yesterday’s EV turnout between 45-65K. What does that mean? We’ve already had 3.3M votes cast in TX. In 2012, the total from these counties was 3.4M...and we have 3 days to go!
**Update: added Hidalgo and Cameron counties. We’ve still got 30-50K votes from the others to add, by my estimate.
**Update: all SoS information in.
The big news for Tuesday’s vote was the Latino drive to the polls in honor of Dia de Muertos. This was a campaign across multiple states: TX, NV and FL...designed to get Latinos to the polls and voting. We’ll have to see how it worked — but one thing to keep in mind is that while some counties (like Collin) have traditionally been very Red, most of them also have very high Latino populations. It’s a bit of a pain, but you can compare Pew's data for high-Latino counties in TX with the El Paso Times' story (and interactive map) of where Week 1 turnout was highest...by and large, they match. We have NO certainty — but given TX has always had some of the lowest voter turnout of the nation, any increase in voter turnout (especially what we’ve been seeing — at 6-7% higher today) is hopeful for Team Blue.
For the first week, a Republican strategist parsed the data to determine who was voting: and found it was shifting (potentially) toward the Republican side of the house. He claims data shows 34% of early voters had voted only in GOP primaries, 24% in Dem primaries...but also that 27% had voted only in general elections and about 12% were first-time voters. On the surface, this looks bad for Team Blue: but there are two things that change that perspective. One is that Sen Cruz easily won his home state...and Cruz has been a reluctant supporter of Trump at best. Second is that twice as many voters participated in the GOP primary as the Dem. Either we’re turning out, or the GOP is simply not so far. As in many other states, there is a strong difference between mail-in and absentee: GOP voters were 40% of mail-ins, and only 33% of in-person voters. In addition, the data supports what we saw yesterday: that women are turning out. They made up over 54% of all voters through Week 1 (with 4% ‘unknown' gender). Here’s the link directly to the pdf.
As you can see, turnout has leveled off some. We’re now seeing about 10-15% improvement over 2012 numbers, rather than Week 1’s astonishing 42% improvement. This supports nomandate’s theory that the bulk of turnout increases were due to increased polling hours, rather than increased enthusiasm — but we’re still seeing significant improvement across the board. While we can divide Texas in to Red and Blue counties: Harras, Bexar, Travis, El Paso being strongly blue, Tarrant and Ft Bend as ‘swing’, and Collin, Montgomery and Williamson as Red — that’s only based on past voting history. That means get involved, volunteer, and (if you haven’t already), VOTE! Early voting ENDS on Friday, 4 Nov. There are free rides in Austin, courtesy of League of Women Voters, plus the Metro is doing free rides. In Houston, the Metro is offering free rides to the polls not just for Election Day, but for this Wed, Thurs and Fri as well. The YMCA may offer free childcare on election day, depending on location.
If (and it’s still a big if) we can get non-voters out and increase voter participation, all bets are off. Pres Obama lost by 1.2M votes in 2012, and fewer in 2008...while WJC came within single digits in both 1992 and 1996. If we’re still looking at a projected 10-11M votes, it’s entirely possible Texas will go blue.
For history, please look at yesterday’s diary — all the rest of the series links are there.
Day 8