For us Texans, here’s the state of the Presidential race — and congressional races. As Propane Jane pointed out yesterday, Texas IS a battleground — and more than that, should be. It has two of the largest metro areas in the nation (Houston and DFW), and more than that, is majority minority: only 45% of the state is non-hispanic white. This is prime territory for a Democratic pickup, if the DNC will put in the effort. Unfortunately, it is a chicken and egg issue: the DNC hasn't put in the effort because it's so Republican, and it's so Republican because the national party sees us as an ATM and not worth 'wasting' resources on. Beyond just that...the areas TX is seeing greatest population growth is in Democratic demographics: Latinos, people moving into urban areas, etc. Texas has become rapidly more diverse, and drawn a lot of folks into its cities...more than most pundits or politicians realize.
I hold to one thing: winning is contagious. If we can prove Texas as a battleground, Clinton will not forget about us. We can see that in her choice of VP: while not one of the Castros, Tim Kaine can speak fluent Spanish, and has done rallies and interviews entirely in the language. We're on her radar - so let's work with what Battleground Texas has given us, and give the DNC one more egg. I couldn't find a clean breakdown anywhere, so here's my best shot. I’m not going to hit all of them (all 36!) but here’s somewhere to start, especially if we see signs of a strong Clinton surge.
HUGE props to FaithChatham, Texdude50, txjackalope, oldhippiedude and Libby Shaw, among all the other strong Texas Kossacks. This wouldn’t exist without you...and there’s more of us than I’d ever realized, before this diary series. I’ll also be putting up a Texas Liveblog Tuesday around 6pm, so we have somewhere to hang out and watch turnout and results come in. If (when?) we wind up with Speaker Pelosi, it will be because of all your hard work.
Presidential
In 2012, Pres. Obama lost TX by 15 points, and about 1.3M votes out of 8M cast. However, in 1996, Pres Clinton only lost by 5 points, and polls have irregularly shown TX within the margin of error. This is WONDERFUL — taking the last of the Big 4 states (CA, NY, FL, TX) from the GOP column will doom the Republicans as a national party. However, TX has been seen as a Republican state for long enough, we don’t know what to look for to see how the election is going. Let’s see if this can help.
Texas is BIG. Looking at a map, that’s easy enough to see. There’s also a LOT of people...and 38 electors. It almost makes sense that it’s divided into an amazing 254 counties, until you start looking closer. The vast majority of TX’ population is located in or near a few urban areas: Dallas/Fort Worth, Houston, San Antonio, Austin, and a couple others (such as Lubbock, El Paso, Galveston, etc). We’ve seen a major surge this year in early voting: up almost 30% from 2012. Now, let’s match that with a fantastic GOTV effort, and bring Team Blue over the finish line, whether they thought we could, or not.
Let’s look at the areas, and see what’s up.
Austin
Travis County: This is most of liberal Austin. Here, Pres Obama led by 24 points, and 95K votes. We need to see a six-figure vote lead here, at least, for a Blue Texas.
Hays County: S Austin suburbs. This is a county to watch: Romney won it with 53.7% of the vote: and gained 6K votes. It’s ALSO a county that’s seen high turnout this year...we need to make ground, and by a lot. If Clinton wins this by 5-10, she has a chance.
Williamson County: Round Rock (N Austin). This is the tech center...but it’s gotten pretty rich and exclusive, which are also textbook markers for ‘Republican’. Romney won Williamson by 2% over his statewide average, and banked 35K votes here. We need Williamson (and neighboring Bell, the rest of the 24th District, and source of another 14K votes) to be close.
Austin: Travis, Hays, Williamson, Bell counties. Votes: 570K total, netted Obama 40K.
Dallas
Dallas County: Downtown, so the blue area. Obama won 57-41.7, netting an excellent 109K votes. Once again, we need to run up the numbers here. Dallas saw an increase in early voting this year, but we need more.
Tarrant County: This is the one to watch. It’s Fort Worth, and more GOP...but it matched the statewide results, giving Romney 57% of the vote and a 96K vote margin.
Collin County: Collin and Denton are your classic collar county exburbs — so strongly R. Collin gave Romney a healthy 65-33.5 margin, and 95K votes...the same as Tarrant.
Denton County: the most conservative of the bunch, it wound up 65-33.3...ok, not much more conservative. Romney got an extra 76K votes here.
Dallas: Dallas, Tarrant, Collin and Denton counties: Votes: 1.24M total voters netted Romney 158K votes.
El Paso
El Paso is the furthest West tip of Texas — and in Mountain time, so a slow result. It went strongly for Obama (65.6-33), and resulted in a 56K vote gain out of the 171K voters.
Houston
Harris County: This is Houston proper, stretching West to include the Villages and even part of Katy, and South to brush Pearland — and one Obama won by .5% and 500 votes out of 1.16M cast. We HAVE to make up ground here, and Harris early voting is up big — about 130K more people voted early this year, bringing it to 900K already voted. GOTV is key.
Montgomery County: N suburbs, and a rich and GOP area. Romney wound up with an enormous 79.9-19 margin, netting 105K votes.
Waller County: This is the outside of Katy, as west as Houston goes (at the moment). While GOP, it only gave Romney 58% of the vote, and a paltry 3K vote margin.
Ft Bend County: A lot of time and attention has been spent on Fort Bend, one of the fastest growing counties in the area, and the most diverse. The best Indian I’ve had in Houston has been out here (complete non-sequitor, but yum!). In 2012, it gave Romney a slim 52.9-46.1 lead, and 15K votes in the bank...out of 217K total. Ft Bend has already cast 213K, so this will be a county to watch. For Clinton to win, she needs to break even in Tarrant...and win Ft. Bend by 10.
Brazoria County is the south suburbs of Houston, but runs all the way to Galveston County. Romney won 66.4-32.3, and gained 36K votes. Clinton doesn’t need to win this, but she needs to keep the margin close.
Galveston County also gave Romney a decent margin, 62.8-35.9, and 29K votes out of 100K cast.
Chambers is much smaller and very GOP. Romney had a 60 point margin, but only netted 9K votes.
Jefferson County is the blue part of the Gulf Coast stretch, and went slightly for Obama, 50.4-48.8. Team Blue only gained 1400 votes out of the 88K cast. This is another area to run up the vote and the score.
Houston and outburbs: the largest urban area in Texas, 4th largest city in the nation...and one we HAVE to pay attention to. In all of this, 1.87M votes were cast: and Romney came out with 195K of his 1.3M votes.
San Antonio
Bexar County: San Antonio is more liberal than people may guess. Pres Obama won the county by 4.5 points...which translated into 23K votes. We HAVE to run up the vote here. If Clinton is going to have a chance of carrying the state, we need to see a double-digit margin here, at least...and a lot more votes.
Guadaloupe County: East San Antonio, resulting in a 66.9-31.8 Romney lead and 17K votes.
San Antonio includes a few more collar counties, but none of them have many votes. These two netted Pres Obama only 6K votes out of 511K cast.
Looking at just these major areas, they account for over 4.36M votes out of the 8M cast...and wound up with a Romney lead of 251K out of the total 1.2M. Where did the other 1M votes come from?
South Texas
This covers the giant blue Texas base: much of the Mexico border, much of the Gulf Coast. By and large, the Mexico border is much less conservative than the rest of the state. These border counties wound up producing a lead for Pres Obama of 133K votes out of a total 461K voters.
Everywhere else
Texas is big — and full of rocks and scorpions, in between the cities. Ok, that’s mostly west Texas, but still. There’s a whole lot of nothing down here, and land can’t vote. However, there are still people out there, of all stripes. However, rural Texas is VERY Republican. The rest of Romney’s lead came from these areas outside the cities, and away from the border. More than that, these areas haven’t been changing much — so there’s not going to be much chance of us breaking into these demographics, or drawing more votes. Our biggest hope is that fewer GOP voters come out/vote the top of the ticket, and see what happens. Romney gained a 1.1M vote margin out of the bulk of the state (3.2M votes total) — we have to assume Trump will carry a similar margin.
Presidential Wrapup
So, what are our goals? Trump is going to gain 1-1.1M votes from rural Texas, then we need to gain that many votes from the border and cities. The border has fewer people: the goal is a total of 300K vote margin...which leaves us another 700-800K we need to gain from the cities. It’s a lot: it means we need to change those areas from a 250K lead for the GOP to a 700K lead for Clinton. That means TONS of GOTV, as well as a lot of persuasion among college-educated whites, especially suburban women. 1M more votes for Team Blue.
South Texas can be a vote harvest for us, especially with the 23rd up this year. Of course, we’re well on our way — the top counties (some are in the border region) have already produced 1M more votes than 2012. We’ve been seeing record-breaking turnout where we have data from the border: El Paso, Cameron, Nueces and Hidalgo counties.
We also need to see major gains in all the cities, Harris County especially. The cities and suburbs are MUCH less conservative than rural Texas...and here’s where we can persuade. The cities and collar counties are what to watch — both in terms of turnout and how Blue we can make them.
A new Kossack, PhysicsHeretic, has some interesting analysis on the makeup of the electorate compared to 2012 — and it all looks good for Team Blue. By and large, it’s in line with other analyses...that the majority of the 1.7M new voters are Latino (say 1-1.2M)...and it’s reasonable to expect a 3:1 split. That gives us 500-600K votes right there — HALF the total we need to make up. In addition, if we see the increased GOP crossover (from 8% to 20%), that would give us another 500K or so votes...which is ALMOST enough. At that point, we just need another 200K or so from GOTV, unlikely voters and newcomers to our state, and we’ve crossed the finish line to a big, beautiful Texas blue.
Congressional Races
We don’t have any Senate races, but here’s what we have on the congressional side. TX has 36 congressional seats. What’s interesting is that, in 2002, the 32-member congressional delegation was made of 17 Dems and 15 GOP. Then Delay pushed through a mid-cycle re-districting, and gerrymandered the hell out of the state., changing it to 21 GOP, 11 Dem.
GOP: 23
Dem: 11
Of interest: All of the districts below are currently GOP-held, but they’re ones it’s worth going into more detail on. I’ve put 12 districts on this list: in order of ‘attainable’, my guess is: TX-23, TX-14, TX-27, TX-22, TX-6, TX-25. As much as I’d like to see TX-7, TX-10, TX-21, TX-24 and TX-31, it’s probably a bit too much to hope for. And every time I think about TX-32, I get angry...we should NEVER leave a seat unchallenged, especially one where we’ve come within 10. That's damaging ourselves when a wave can come by...and it should have been evident before the filing deadline that a wave was possible. Just one look at the GOP primaries was enough to make that call.
I think it's likely that we take 2-4 of these, if Clinton brings the margins to the single digits WJC did in both 1992 and 1996. I think it’s plausible that we get all 6 I think we have a real chance for...and on the outside we may be able to sweep a couple more, depending heavily on local dynamics and whether GOP who are voting for Clinton do so just at the top of the ticket, or all the way down. Given TX still has single-party voting available, it could go either way. On a perfect night, Clinton takes the state by 3 points or so, and we may be able to take all 11.
Houston Area
- TX-7 (W/SW Houston): This is entirely Harris County, though of course strongly gerrymandered. However, there are interesting things about it. Once you look at the demographics, it’s 53.9% minority, over 45% completed college. A LOT of that minority is Latino: the district is 31%. Now’s where we get to whether Latino turnout is up as much in TX as in other states - and whether Latino Decisions is right about the partisan split. Latinos have the lowest voting rates in TX of any group...and the district is gerrymandered based on historical data. James Cargas is on his third attempt at taking this district: in 2012, he lost 60.8-36.4, or 57K votes. However, Harris County split evenly at the presidential level. If the increased turnout goes strongly Blue, Cargas might have a chance.
- TX-22 (SW Houston): Harris, Ft Bend and Brazoria Counties. This one will be a challenge: it went 64-32 in 2012, with a vote difference of 80K. However, we could be surprised. It’s a 54% minority district, split half Latino, half Black and Asian. It’s also just majority female. Best of all, the Dem challenger here, Col Mark Gibson (US Army, Retired), may be a good fit. In 2008, Team Blue got 45%, so it’s decidedly possible, given the growth Ft Bend has been seeing. Of course, as a Ft Bend resident myself, I’d like to see him get there!
Dallas Area
- TX-6 (Navarro, Ellis and part of Tarrant County): Once again, this is a challenging seat, but it’s a matter of seeing what happens. It is one of the few districts in TX that is majority female (50.5%), and also has a 47% minority population. Dem challenger Ruby Fay Woolridge is a retired teacher and minister. In 2012, a different Dem challenger lost 58-39.2 (47K votes). It's a slog, but the margin wasn't significantly different than the Presidential 57-41 results. If TX goes blue or even comes close, TX-6 may go with it.
- TX-24: Here, we see parts of Tarrant and Dallas Counties, with just a hint of conservative Denton...enough to have a 2012 result of 61-36, and a 61K vote margin. It would be a slog, but is just majority female, and 46% minority. Similar to TX-22, the minority population is half Latino, half split between Black and Asian. Dem challenger Jan McDowell is proudly pro-choice and pro-support of children and education, as well as strengthening Social Security. Given Trump’s comments, she’s a progressive that may play well here. Well enough to win? If everything goes right, maybe. There’s a heavy dose of college-educated, suburban white women here...just the demographic Trump’s been disgusting.
- TX-32: This is mostly Dallas, but does have a piece of Collin County. This race is similar to Tarrant County: it almost matched the Presidential margin in 2012. It’s just over 50% female, and 46% minority...and in an example of political malpractice, there is no Dem challenger to GOP Pete Sessions. We do have Green candidate Gary Stuard to cheer for, but with straight ticket voting, I don’t know how many Dem voters would have added in his name.
Austin
- TX-31 (N Austin): This district is pretty compact, made up of Williamson and most of Bell Counties. It ran better than Romney at 61-35, so would be a slog. However, it is 51% female, 23% Latino...37% minority all-told, and well-educated (when looking at college graduation rates). IF we win, it’s because unlikely voters turn out...and Williamson County is running MUCH higher in voter participation than they’ve seen. Dem challenger Mike Clark has been doing the heavy lifting largely on his own, so it’s clear national parties haven’t seen it as competitive. It probably isn’t, but there’s just enough question, especially with the tech center of Round Rock in the district, that college-educated millennials may be able to turn this one around.
San Antonio
- TX-21 (N of San Antonio): This district has parts of Bexar and Travis counties, as well as all of Bandera, Blanco, Gillespie, Kendall, Kerr and Real...and parts of Hays and Comal, just to make it interesting. This district went 60.6-35.4 in 2012, so it would be a slog, especially with only 33.8% minority, mostly Latino. Dem challenger Thomas Wakely is focused on net neutrality, campaign finance, breaking up the banks — a solid progressive. He’s got a 78K margin to make up (in 2012 numbers) AND has to have the area turn more Dem than the state as a whole...which may be a bridge too far.
Others
- TX-10 (Austin to Houston): This is a crazy gerrymander, containing Lee, Washington, Fayette, Colorado, Austin, Waller (Katy, for those who know Houston), and then parts of Bastrop, Harris, Lee and Travis counties. GOP have traditionally won this, but once again, the 2012 margin of 60.6-36.2 wasn’t far from the presidential. Dem challenger Tawana Cadien is on her third attempt — and as best I could find, completely unsupported. As much as I would like this, if we get it, it will be because there are a LOT more GOP crossovers than we have any right to expect, and it’s not just the top of the ticket.
- TX-14 (Galveston): It’s not just Galveston County, but also Democratic Jefferson and parts of both Brazoria and Chambers counties. We’ve got 46.6% minority population, about evenly split between Hispanic and black. Dem nominee Michael Cole ran with a strong (relatively speaking) 36% in 2014. The 2012 margin was 53.5-44.6, several points closer than the national margin. With a 21K vote difference and crazy high turnout in Galveston, this one has a decent chance to flip if Clinton runs close.
- TX-23 (Mexico Border): The race everyone has been watching, it has a tons of counties, about two deep from the Mexico border...but also has a patch that stretches up to include a piece of Bexar County. Dem Pete Gallego is fighting to regain the seat he lost in 2014: in 2012, the district went Blue by 9K votes. If the Latino turnout is real, this one is ours. Hence, we’ve seen money by the bushel funneled into this race.
- TX-25 (Ft Worth to Austin): Another gerrymandering example, it manages to include parts of both Tarrant and Travis counties, as well as Austin, Bosque, Burnet, Coryell, Hamilton, Hill, Johnson, Lampasas and Somervell...and if that wasn’t enough, bits of Bell, Erath and Hays counties as well. 50.2% female but only 27% minority, this would be a tough district...until you realize we won it in 2008. Dem challenger Kathi Thomas seems to have been ignored by the DNC this cycle. Whether that’s because redistricting made the district more conservative, it’s still political malpractice in a district that ran, at 58-37, just a HAIR better than the Presidential margin.
- TX-27 (Gulf Coast) This district is just SW of Galveston, with Aransas, Calhoun, Jackson, Lavaca, Matagorda, Nueces, Refugio, Victoria and Wharton counties...and pieces of Bastrop, Caldwell, Gonzales and San Patricio. It ran just under Romney’s margin at 56.7-39, and is just over 50% Latino...so demographics and turnout may be huge here. This was another district we had in 2008, so it’s entirely possible. Dem challenger Roy Barrera.