This is amazing. Records shattered all around TX: early vote is better than 2008’s record 3.5M votes: by roughly 30%. Tarrant, Travis, Collin, Denton, Montgomery, Williamson counties all broke 50% turnouts. A number of them have been red — but Travis is not (and Tarrant is a bellweather for the state). Ft Bend, the most diverse county in the state, also likely broke 50%, once Friday’s numbers are in. Harris saw over 900K votes, over 100K last night once the last people in line cast their votes at nearly 10pm (3 hours after polls closed), compared to 766K in 2012. And many of these counties are still expecting record turnout Tuesday. Follow down for more! All the details are below the chart, along with what analysis we can do. As a note, Texas does not have early voting for the last three days before an election: at this point, it’s waiting til Tuesday. I plan on putting up a Texas Votes liveblog Tuesday night around 6, especially to track the congressional races FaithChatham and others have put so much effort into.
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 and everyone else.
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 in Austin and Houston. 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...as soon as the numbers come out, anyhow! Until the chart is filled in (Galveston County numbers have only come from the SoS office), any numbers you see are from the counties themselves. They have rarely been perfect, but mean we have something accurate within about 1k all told.
|
2008 |
2012 |
2016 |
Day 12, top 15 counties by population
Harris (Houston) |
87,285 |
86,085 |
105,005 |
Dallas |
60,030 |
56,105 |
63,342 |
Tarrant (Ft Worth) |
53,068 |
53,603 |
56,156 |
Bexar (San Antonio) |
41,937 |
45,375 |
46,651 |
Travis (Austin) |
37,420 |
34,521 |
42,932 |
Collin (DFW) |
25,341 |
30,908 |
30,409 |
Denton |
23,371 |
21,520 |
24,983 |
El Paso |
14,874 |
14,149 |
16,926 |
Ft Bend (SW Houston) |
19,805 |
20,535 |
23,569 |
Hidalgo (Rio Grande) |
12,773 |
14,238 |
15,829 |
Montgomery (N Houston) |
12,247 |
13,781 |
15,527 |
Williamson (Round Rock) |
15,145 |
14,338 |
17,268 |
Galveston |
9,543 |
9,925 |
9,621 |
Nueces |
8,510 |
7,627 |
8,081 |
Cameron (Rio Grande) |
5,994 |
6,620 |
8,317 |
Total EV Friday |
427,343 |
429,330 |
484,616 |
Cumulative EV |
3,346,351 |
3,188,396 |
4,186,107 |
Total Votes (ev & mail in) |
3,556,156 |
3,407,497 |
4,497,431 |
Vote % of Registered Voters |
42.03% |
39.38% |
46.08% |
*Galveston county is still out. It looks like some counties saw mild improvement over previous years, while Harris, Travis and El Paso — wow. Hm...all places with high Latino populations. Best guess is around 10-15K votes outstanding plus mail-ins...which means we’re looking at a total early vote of somewhere in the neighborhood of 4.5M early votes.
We still don’t know for sure what this means. Unlike NV and FL, we can’t get EV data based on party registration — because TX doesn’t have it. There IS some information that’s begun coming out, though. Best of all, it’s largely good for Team Blue.
First, there’s evidence that a larger percentage of mail-in ballots have come from people who voted in the Dem primary than previous elections (based on Monday’s numbers - but the trend had been holding steady over the weekend). I was originally suspicious of Mr. Ryan’s data, but it seems fairly straightforward. The article also points to the Houston Chronicle, which states that in Harris County (Houston), about 4% more of the early voters had a Dem primary history...and Harris, Pres. Obama won by about half a percentage point in 2012. Of course, all this is limited data: 40% or so of the early voters have no primary history: about 18% are first-time voters. Best of all, there are indications that the percentage of Latino voters is significantly higher than previous years...and women are making up about 54% of the early vote (with ‘other’ making up another 4% - but I’m guessing that 4% is NOT voting Trump!) The article states Latino turnout is up at least 26% based on surnames...and that Latinos still prefer voting on election day. To give you an idea of how high this is, Latino turnout has been rising between 11-23% every 4-year presidential cycle. It even looks like 2/3 of the new registrations since 2012 were Latino — which is fantastic.
Just to remind you of the numbers from yesterday’s diary: in 2012, the early and mail-in votes from these 15 counties made up 42% of the TOTAL votes in TX. If that holds true, then we’re looking at a statewide vote count of 10.7M votes (out of 15.1M RVs). I think that’s a bit high — if we see a vote count somewhere around 10M, that’s a bit more likely. However, that would potentially be even better for Team Blue, since that means the urban areas have a much larger impact on the statewide contest. There’s a whole lot of speculation you can do now...and Texas hasn’t been focused on enough for there to be a lot of data out there.
What happens on the congressional side? After all TX has been effectively gerrymandered since Tom DeLay. Yes, prior to 2004, Texas had sent a number of Democrats to congress...as in, a 17/15 Dem, compared to 2004’s 21/11 Rep advantage. Let that sink in for a minute. If it’s that effective, then what can happen this election? Let’s say we still can change the margin from 15 points to 5 and it all translates downballot. That’s 5% fewer GOP votes and 5% more Dem. What races are within 10? Based on 2012: 6th, 14th, 23rd, 25th, 27th, 32nd. It also brings another 5 into the margin of error: the 7th, 10th, 21st, 24th and 31st.
Texas early voting is done, so now it’s just a waiting game (and GOTV!) until Tuesday.