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...though the numbers keep getting updated later each day.
|
2008 |
2012 |
2016 |
Day 6, top 15 counties by population
Harris (Houston) |
64,772 |
71,393 |
75,507 |
Dallas |
41,997 |
41,267 |
30,590 |
Tarrant (Ft Worth) |
34,416 |
35,060 |
41,224 |
Bexar (San Antonio) |
26,924 |
26,126 |
35,160 |
Travis (Austin) |
14,544 |
14,973 |
20,124 |
Collin (DFW) |
19,043 |
20,553 |
26,383 |
Denton |
15,460 |
16,335 |
23,559 |
El Paso |
6,369 |
5,376 |
7,740 |
Ft Bend (SW Houston) |
14,805 |
16,867 |
17,701 |
Hidalgo (Rio Grande) |
4,490 |
5,984 |
7,397 |
Montgomery (N Houston) |
8,496 |
10,980 |
13,618 |
Williamson (Round Rock) |
6,950 |
6,416 |
7,839 |
Galveston |
4,139 |
6,215 |
7,301 |
Nueces |
4,003 |
4,088 |
4,170 |
Cameron (Rio Grande) |
1,238 |
1,198 |
2,487 |
Total EV Day 6 |
267,596 |
282,831 |
320,800 |
Cumulative EV |
1,493,904 |
1,584,514 |
2,258,046 |
Total Votes (ev & mail in) |
1,650,291 |
1,759,058 |
2,508,854 |
Vote % of Registered Voters |
19.51% |
20.33% |
25.71% |
*I updated all numbers off the SoS data as of 1:15 central. Overall turnout is still looking fantastic, even if not quite as much higher than previous days.
**Today I added another line in the table: what percentage of registered voters in these counties have now voted. Based on that as well as raw numbers, we’re still several DAYs ahead of previous ranges. On Friday, 22.3% of all registered voters in these counties had voted.
Now for analysis: limited due to lack of data. However, this is the FIRST day in the process we haven’t seen record-breaking results across the board. The big shocker is Dallas County, which came in 10K votes under previous elections. Harris County is also a surprise, but Nomandates pointed out yesterday that in 2012, Week 1 had shorter voting hours...so that might account for the increase in votes. We’ll have to wait for more data to determine if this was a fluke, I found bad numbers, or a trend.
FloridaGeorge found an Ipsos/Reuters poll that said Clinton is currently leading the voting results in TX by double digits. Usual caveats apply: this is a poll. It asked if folks had already voted, and then who they voted for. On the other hand, it’s all the data we have. A couple days ago, a poll in El Paso found 27% of the voters were first-time. All of this is potentially good news, so long as we keep up the effort and GOTV all the way to the finish. Best of all, the El Paso Time points out that, while EVERYWHERE has been seeing voting gains, the largest gains are also in the most Democratic counties. To give you an idea, El Paso county is running almost 80% better than 2012...and most of the other areas have been around 50%. Tarrant County, the largest that went Republican, is ‘only’ at 32% above 2012’s numbers. However, the suburban satellites are also seeing impressive gains: we’ll have to wait for either more polls or election night to find out if those gains are among traditional GOP voters, or due to increasing diversity/migration that leans Democratic. Also of note, the El Paso Times dug into some of the ‘other’ counties, and was finding gains ranging from 45% by Fort Hood to 5% for Jefferson County, on the eastern border. There’s a lovely interactive map that lets you see the turnout rates for the counties the Time contacted. As mentioned in earlier diaries, when turnout increases it’s usually good for Dems — we simply have more room to grow, because GOP constituencies are more reliable voters.
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.
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.
Yesterday’s diary vanished fairly fast, due to the email fiasco. It was already off the rec list by the time I got SoS information, so here are the bottom lines. We’re still sitting at amazing and sustained turnout. As a reminder, Sunday’s turnout will probably be significantly lower: the polling hours are much shorter.
Total EV Friday: 383,391.
2012 EV Friday: 275,247.
2008 EV Friday: 251,857.
For those who want the whole history…
Day 1 (txjackalope)
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Sunday, Oct 30, 2016 · 6:18:54 PM +00:00
·
NoBlinkers
The Secretary of State’s office IS working this Sunday, so I updated the chart to include all counties (and fix some minor errors with early county numbers). We are STILL in an excellent position, and have already banked 71% of the early votes from 2012: with 6 days to go!