In March 2006, primary elections were held in Texas. Unlike in most states, Texas doesn't quite have primaries in every state.
In five of their 254 counties, no primary was held for the Democratic Party in March 2006.
In those five counties (Armstrong, Glasscock, Hansford, Ochiltree, and Roberts), only Glasscock County has a County Chairman right now. The rest didn't have county leaders, these four counties are in one area of Texas.
(The map is snipped from here)
In those 4 counties, the 2004 Presidential results were 6116 votes for Bush, 707 votes for Kerry with 12 votes for third parties.
As you can tell, Bush won 89% here. Bush's highest percentage in a county in 2004 was 91.97% in Ochiltree County, 2922 votes for Bush, 251 for Kerry. Ochiltree and Hansford were #2 and #3 for Bush in 2000 with 91% and 90%.
So, let's venture a little bit into this deeply red area of Texas. And we'll do it under the fold.
Microsoft Streets & Maps 2001 says that it would take almost 2 hours to drive from Perryton (the seat of Ochiltree County) to Claude (the seat of Armstrong County). But that's probably the maximum amount of time that it would take to travel 106 miles in West Texas. The distance between Perryton and Spearman (Hansford County Seat) is just under 30 miles. The distance between Perryton and Miami is just under 70 miles.
Population info for these counties:
Armstrong- 2148
Hansford- 5369
Ochiltree- 9006
Roberts- 877
The last Democratic Presidential candidate to win any of the 20 counties pictured was Jimmy Carter, who won 9 of 20 in 1976. That included a narrow plurality victory in Armstrong County.
The last Democratic Presidential candidate to win Hansford, Ochiltree, and Roberts Counties was Harry Truman.
And what else is in this area? (From the Handbook of Texas)
Oil was discovered in Hansford County in 1937, and significant production began in the 1950s. (..) About 202,000 barrels were produced in 2000, and by the end of that year 38,279,469 barrels had been extracted from county lands since 1937.
Source
The discovery of oil and gas in the southern part of the county in 1951 led to increased growth. (..) By January 1, 2001, 156,388,656 barrels of oil had been produced in the county since discovery in 1951.
Source
Oil was discovered in Roberts County in 1945, and 40,126,321 barrels had been produced through 1990. Almost 412,600 barrels of oil and 23,574,562 cubic feet of gas-well gas were produced in the county in 2000; by the end of that year 44,937,568 barrels of oil had been taken from county lands since 1945.
The Handbook of Texas describes Armstrong County as having a lot of ranches, but the other three are pretty much "Oil Country". So, it's not hard to see why they vote Republican so frequently.
But let's take a look at how these counties voted in 2006.
In Armstrong, Perry recieved 177 votes, Carole recieved 88 votes, Kinky recieved 71 votes, Bell recieved 47 votes. Hutchison won here 307-66.
In Hansford, Perry got 181 votes, 89 votes went to Carole, 74 to Kinky, and 42 votes to Bell. While Hutchison won 339-36.
In Ochiltree, Perry recieved 360 votes, 82 went to Carole Manynames, 79 to Kinky, and 41 votes to bell. While Hutchison won 530-46.
In Roberts, Perry recieved 46 votes, Carole recieved 17 votes, Kinky recieved 15 votes, Bell recieved 2 votes. Hutchison won here 68 to 9.
Of course, a good question is "How long has this been going on?"
In 2004, Armstrong County had a Democratic primary. 31 of 44 voters voted for John Kerry.
The other three counties didn't have a Democratic primary in 2004 or 2002.
Ochiltree County had a primary in 2000, where Al Gore won 40 of 51 votes for President. Roberts County also had a primary in that year, and Gore won 15 of 21 votes there. 46 people in Ochiltree and 19 people in Roberts also voted in the 1998 Gubernatorial primary, which is even more amazing since there was one candidate on the ballot, and that candidate got 30% in the general election.
The last time that Hansford County had a Democratic Party primary was in 1996. In an election where 67 people voted and 49 of them voted for Bill Clinton.
And yes, the primary numbers that i'm citing are larger than the number of votes recieved by Bell and Radnofsky in 2006.
In this part of Texas, you can get your entire county party into one gym if you're the Republicans, and into a classroom if you're the Democrats.
Blame is always due to appear when it comes to such examples of invisibility of the Democratic Party.
But, the people in these counties lost their say in who the candidate of the Democratic Party was, because of this invisibility. Because there is nobody that could just lead the party by allowing a phone number to be listed on the TDP site.
In 2008, I hope Texas has a Democratic Primary with all it's counties participating. Yes, I know I sorta overlooked Glasscock County, which last had a primary in 2002, with 18 people voting. But, I wish them the best of luck in getting a primary in 2008.
I'm sure it's hard to find the drive to move forward in such red parts of America. But, contributions to overall victories are not off the table.
Remember something, while it is unfortunate that your local party isn't batting 1.000, be thankful that you even have a local party. After all, you could be in a county where 9 of 10 voters voted for Bush and the Democrats don't hold primaries due to a lack of a county chair.
Well, that's the brief look into the Land without a Democratic Party.