TX-SEN: True to Form

[NOVA Green]

Fantastic long read by Buzzfeed News on Beto's Campaign

That's a great article

Awesome article and the Robert Earl Keen (Texan Music Legend) reference towards the end who performed at one of Beto's rallies appears to demonstrate a Texas homegrown authenticity that Cruz lacks.

Here's another good one from just four days ago, and Texas Monthly probably has almost as wide a circulation in Texas as Buzzfeed, but a much different audience....

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/beto-orourke-everywhere-dont-texas-voters-know/

[NOVA Green]

Well I can tell you I've seen quite a few BETO signs and not one for Cruz...I'm in the heart of Aggieland.

Although obviously Yard Signs are not a scientific polling method, it is interesting considering that College Station, Texas went 55-35 Trump in 2016, which would place it as more Republican than , Waco (Baylor University 47*-47 HRC), but much less so than Lubbock, Texas (Texas Tech 63-31 Trump), and then obviously much more so than most the other major University areas clustered in the largest Cities of Texas, which really dilutes the impact of even large College/University populations....

Obviously College precincts didn't always vote the same way as the Cities in which the major Colleges and Universities are located, but still it is telling that there aren't Ted Cruz signs / bumper stickers floating around in "Aggie Land".

Here's a link to a project that I started in 9/17-12/17 and made some serious headway on in terms of voting patterns in Division I-A College Football Cities, for anyone interested--- but yeah Texas A&M actually does appear to be one of the most Republican of all of the major College Football campus towns within the Great State of Texas....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=273504.msg5854458#msg5854458

I should note that we had some major contributions to the project from the following Atlas posters, as well as crowd-sourced contributors from many not mentioned:

nclib
reagente
Extreme Conservative

*** IF *** Beto is winning the Texas A&M Vote "Deep in the Heart of Republican Texas", then obviously for Republicans "Houston we have a Problem". IF Texas A&M falls, places like Texas Tech and TCU aren't far behind....

It's still an extremely thin needle for Beto to thread to make this coalition work, with all odds against the campaign:

1.) Rural Anglo Texas--- Still overwhelmingly 'Pub, despite deep Ancestral Dem roots in places from EastTex to WestTex to the Hill Country.

Still, polls and data we have seen thus far appear to indicate that Beto will likely significantly over-perform traditional Dem Margins in these communities.

600 People show up in Kerrville, 800 in Abilene (), etc....

2.) College enthusiasm high

3.) Middle / Upper Middle-Class Anglo massive swings '12 > '16 in the 'Burbs of H-Town, DFW, Austin, SA, etc....

4.) Turnout and swings among Middle-Class Latinos---

Traditionally in Tejas a major swing-voting population, especially in recent non-presidential election years. Tend to vote with much higher rates than working-class Latinos, and tend to be more receptive to Republican messaging....

5.) AA turnout in the Cities of Texas---

Tend to vote at much higher levels than Latinos, but again turnout tends to be higher in PRES election years than off-year / Mid-Term levels (As is generally the case with Working-Class voters of all races/ethnic backgrounds in most parts of the US)

6.) Working-Class Latino Turnout levels--- ?

Giant wild-card as always.... typically in Texas tend to break something like 80-20 DEM at the PRES level, but even in PRES YRS voter turnout tends to be much lower than various other demographic formations.... much, much lower in off-years.

Obviously there are a huge chunk of votes left on the table here, in arguably the most Democratic constituency in Texas, other than African-American voters....

I'm smelling something different in the air, regardless of whomever actually wins the election in November, and although jacking up the DEM numbers among Texas Anglos definitely won't hurt in a GE, I'm still not yet convinced that the BETO campaign has really yet been able to expand messaging and name recognition among Texas low-propensity voters that tend to skew heavily DEM at the PRES level....

Maybe it's time to unleash the "Air War" after Labor Day Weekend?

[NOVA Green]

Wow--- just came home from work and we have tons of interesting discussions and information sharing regarding the funding priorities of the Cruz/Beto campaigns in Tejas, that opens up all sorts of interesting angles.

I guess two questions that I do have is:

1.) Why is it that Cruz has spent $5 Million more than Beto according to the Open Sources link, but yet his poll numbers appear to have dropped and the race has tightened up by all objective indications (Not saying that Texas is going to vote DEM for US-SEN in '18), just that there is something that feels different about this race.

2.) Where has the Cruz campaign been spending their money and why isn't it working?

[NOVA Green]

Wow--- just came home from work and we have tons of interesting discussions and information sharing regarding the funding priorities of the Cruz/Beto campaigns in Tejas, that opens up all sorts of interesting angles.

I guess two questions that I do have is:

1.) Why is it that Cruz has spent $5 Million more than Beto according to the Open Sources link, but yet his poll numbers appear to have dropped and the race has tightened up by all objective indications (Not saying that Texas is going to vote DEM for US-SEN in '18), just that there is something that feels different about this race.

2.) Where has the Cruz campaign been spending their money and why isn't it working?

Im no native Texan, but I think I can answer.

The likely reason for Beto's rise and Cruz's decline even though Cruz is spending more is probably because Beto and Cruz are doing the one thing that Beto needs. Getting his name out. Beto has suffered from a lack of name rec this entire time, but it appears that both Beto's and Cruz's attack ads are getting people to know his name. This has helped increase voter outreach to the two areas he needs, the Latinos in the south, and the suburban whites in the ....suburbs. It could also be due to the fact that Cruz is back in the media. Cruz became mighty unpopular due to his shenanigans in 2016, and its possible that his ads are sparking this hatred again. Those are two theories.

To answer the second one, its probably due to the fact that hes Cruz. Everyone already knows who he is, and no ads are going to change opinions. In fact, the only thing they may do is anger the Trumpys, and the moderates. Again, just a theory.

I think your conclusion regarding name recognition has merit. I disagree with your conclusion that a strong ad campaign will probably not benefit Senator Cruz though. Videos like this one get the message across very well and shorter versions which follow the same basic themes could be very effective, I think.
https://youtu.be/rLCQJg1x0Hg

Thanks for sharing the link, which I just finished watching....

It's been over 15 Years since I was in Grad School taking courses in Political Communications, so I'm a bit rusty, but still trying to objectively analyze and not let partisan blinders get in the way.

tbf--- I think your premise that these types of ads (As either a "full ad" on relatively inexpensive late night TV Media Markets with targeted Cable channels, or split into parts in much more expensive Metro Media markets on channels with higher viewership and daytime slots) might well be fairly effective as part of a Cruz "rebranding" effort that:

1.) Introduces himself to newcomers in Texas over the past 6 Years
2.) Reminds Texas voters of their "Generic Republican" roots and value orientation
3.) Showcases his local Town Hall style events across Texas for various constituents

Still, I have some fundamental problems with this approach:

1.) Cruz is already extremely well known to newcomers to Texas, because of his prominent national role from the '16 PUB PRES primaries, as well as his GVT shutdown stunt.

2.) This campaign ad really feels more like a soft "meet Ted Cruz" style gig, "introduce the candidate with soft positive visuals, and some crowd cut-scenes from various places in Texas, with some decent sounding generic Cruz sound bites.

3.) Texas voters already have deeply "generic Republican" roots in recent years and there is absolutely zero red meat out there, just simple dog whistles about the constitution to hit a few core constituencies, who are already totally on his bus.

4.) Authenticity is considered one of his biggest weaknesses, and in many ways this style of ad accentuates the perception that "Ted Cruz is just another Politician flip-flopper who will say and do anything to win elections".

5.) There were some nice cuts at the end, especially with the "Yellow Rose of Texas" at the Funeral Service, but really Cruz for most Texans has essentially been AWOL since they elected him to go out to Washington DC.

6.) He hasn't really addressed the contradictions in his political history when it comes to Trump, and I haven't really seen him standing tall with a big hat, which initially it appeared that he was going to do back at the tail end of the '16 PUB PRES GE primaries.

It will take a lot more than a "feel good", "meet the candidate", "name check communities in Texas", bland generic political consultant campaign messaging to win back the voters of Texas that aren't so crazy about Ted Cruz these days.

Now we know where that $5 Million spend gap between Beto and Cruz went....

[NOVA Green]

Wow--- just came home from work and we have tons of interesting discussions and information sharing regarding the funding priorities of the Cruz/Beto campaigns in Tejas, that opens up all sorts of interesting angles.

I guess two questions that I do have is:

1.) Why is it that Cruz has spent $5 Million more than Beto according to the Open Sources link, but yet his poll numbers appear to have dropped and the race has tightened up by all objective indications (Not saying that Texas is going to vote DEM for US-SEN in '18), just that there is something that feels different about this race.

2.) Where has the Cruz campaign been spending their money and why isn't it working?

So regarding the question of "how did Cruz spend all his money," I took a quick look at the FEC reports on expenditures for both Cruz and for Beto.

The data is somewhat out of date (only through the end of June), so we are missing the last 2 months, but nonetheless is pretty informative. There will only be updated data with the next FEC filing deadline in 1.5 months (mid Oct). I grouped all the FEC expenditure data by the categories of type of expenditure listed on the FEC forms. These are not entirely consistent, because the people filing the reports don't use completely consistent categories, but they paint the general picture. After the top 25 categories, I grouped everything else into "other."

First, here is Cruz's spending:

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From this you can see that the biggest single thing Cruz has been spending on is fundraising. That is the fundraising phone calls, and probably a lot/all of the printing/postage (i.e. mail). Then there is payroll. The other important thing to note is that Cruz spent a pretty good amount of money on database management, list rental, etc. In addition, Cruz spent money on a variety of consultants, which adds up. That is to support his fundraising, and also later on will be to support his voter contact/GOTV.


Next, here is Beto's spending:

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By far and away the biggest category for Beto is digital advertising. He is going nuts on digital advertising. The second thing is Payroll/Salary. Beto probably has a larger campaign with more field staff (this is normal for Democrats as compared to Republicans), so he pays more salary. And then the 3rd category that Beto is spending on is T-Shirts, Merchandise (i.e. yard signs). Those 3 things are basically the entirety of Beto's campaign (or were until he started running TV ads) ---

1) Digital Advertising.
2) Payroll for his staff/field campaign.
3) Yard signs, T-shirts, and bumper stickers.

That is basically it, and this also answers the question of why Beto has so many yard signs - because that is one of the main things he has spent money on. He has spent a huge amount of money on yard signs and other campaign swag/merchandise.

And not the expenditures on consultants etc in comparison to Cruz.



Finally, one more important thing to note... The makeup of the Payroll/Salaries between the two campaigns is quite different.

For Beto's campaign, the salaries/payrolls are split up between about 160 people, who received an average of about $6300 each (exact numbers will be off somewhat because the data is a bit noisy). What does that mean? It means that Beto is running a large field campaign with a lot of people being paid to campaign for him.

For Cruz's campaign, on the other hand, the salaries/payroll is split up between more like 20-25 people, with an average of more like $30,000-$50,000 each (with noise in the data again, for things like where only someone's first name was entered, a comma put in the wrong place, etc), with multiple people having received more than $100,000 in salaries. On Beto's campaign, there are 0 people who have gotten that much in salaries/payroll. That means that Cruz has a much smaller campaign with a relatively small number of people who get paid comparatively well to sit around in their offices and do office work of various sorts, as opposed to contact voters and organize volunteers directly.

Just posted this on the  Forum Community thread: "The Virginia Society Thread for the Preservation and Appreciation of High Quality Posts".

We need more of this type of analysis overall on Atlas.... what started with a conversation about yard signs became a collective crowd-sourcing about Media strategies, and now down to where the $$$ are spent....

Effort post....

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=261105.msg6387121#msg6387121

[NOVA Green]

I made some benchmarks as rough estimates for the sorts of numbers Beto would need in order to achieve a narrow plurality victory (49.6%-49.5%).

These numbers should not be taken to indicate what I think is actually achievable, but rather what, more or less, would be needed for Beto to have a chance. I think they illustrate how difficult it would be for him to win.

The numbers for the urban/suburban counties actually ended up fairly close to what Mizzouian/Republicans for Nelson posted earlier (somewhat more than I would have guessed beforehand), although they are also a few points higher.


These benchmarks use 2014 turnout as a starting point for the share of votes cast in each county, and modify this to allow for increased turnout in urban and suburban counties, particularly the large and growing ones in the major metropolitan areas, and some smaller increases in turnout in counties with smaller cities (but not really "rural") and Hispanic border counties.

The starting point for the Democratic and Republican vote shares within each county is the Dem margin is whichever of the following 2 are higher:

a) The Clinton-Trump 2016 margin, with 3rd party votes significantly reduced and allocated mostly to Dems. Beto is assigned 70% of the Johnson voters, 85% of the Stein voters, and 35% of the write-in voters. Cruz is assigned 15% of the Johnson voters and 15% of the write-in voters.

OR

b) The Obama-Romney 2012 margin.

So basically, as a starting point this has O'Rourke doing at least as well as Clinton in the areas where Clinton did well in 2016, and as well as Obama 2012 in the areas where Clinton did worse than Obama.


This is then modified to account somewhat for Cruz's regional strength and weaknesses in the 2012 vote, as compared to Romney. Cruz did a bit better then in Latino areas, and a bit worse in Demosaur/rural racist areas (probably related to his surname and ethnicity). Half of the deviation between Cruz and Romney, relative to the overall statewide difference, is incorporated in this adjustment.

Next, 9% of Republican voters in major urban/suburban counties with lots of college educated white voters are swung to Democrats, and 2% of Republican voters in counties with smaller cities. The swing in El Paso is made larger (20% of Republican voters swing to Beto) to account for a presumed home town effect for Beto. There is no additional swing in rural counties, or in Hispanic counties.


The margins that Beto would need would look something like this on a county map:




Here's the swing in the margin as compared to the Clinton-Trump margin in the 2016 presidential race. This has large gains (in terms of percentage margin) for Dems in many rural counties with dwindling Demosaur populations relative to what Clinton got, to get back up towards the support levels Obama got in 2012, and also has substantial additional improvements over the gains Clinton already got in urban and suburban counties. The Hispanic border areas are a bit more of a mixed bag, with Beto expected to underperform there somewhat in at least some places:



And here's the swing as compared to the 2012 Senate race (Cruz against Sadler). This has Democrats making large gains in urban/suburban areas, but Republicans making some gains in rural areas that swung to Trump in 2016:




Here are these benchmarks sorted from largest turnout county to smallest:

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WOW!!! A+++ for Atlas effort post!   

I requoted in full, since although it's lengthy post there is a ton of stuff packed in there...

1.) Methodology for what a "hypothetical" Beto win might look like....
      A.) Benchmark uses '14 Turnout as Vote Share by County.
      B.) Modifies to include estimated VAP / Population by County since '14 (That was going to be
           one of my initial questions on first review).
      C.) Using '12 DEM PRES or '16 DEM PRES (Whichever is higher--- assigning Lions share of '16
           3rd Part Votes to BETO)
      D.) Modified to include Cruz regional strength/weakness in '12 compared/contrasted vs Romney
      E.) Adjusted to include a +9% D Swing in key suburban / Highly Educated Counties, and 2%
           Swing in smaller Cities.
      F.) +20% D swing among Republican Voters in El Paso County (Beto hometown effect)

Did I miss anything on the methodologies employed?

     2.) Awesome set of maps utilized to explain:
           A.) The various County % Margins in US-SEN-TX-18
           B.) Swing in Dem margin % compared to '16 US-PRES   (Wait why is TX Atlas REP???)
           C.) Swing in Dem % Margin compared to '12 US-SEN-TX  (Atlas colors off???)   

    3.) County Benchmarks
          A.) Excellent job presenting county level benchmarks as a follow-up raw data point for
               discussion/analysis
          B.) Personally, and it's a bit tricky with Texas because there so many darn Counties in the
               Lone Star State---- it might be helpful to take some of the various counties broken up by
               regions/ Metro Areas, or whatever, and them lump them into an Excel Sheet to make your
               raw data analysis a bit easier on the eyes, and help break up the long text document at
               the end to make for an easier visual reference, since I suspect most folks aren't going to
               spend much time scrolling through each of the individual counties line item by line item.

I do a ton of long posts, and learned awhile back sometimes it better to break up long segments of text with data with a mix of visual formats when doing more detailed level analysis....

Honestly at this point, I still haven't had a chance to review all of this yet, since I still need to "put it in my pipe and smoke it" (Joke, since that's not really my bag), maybe better a nice stiff cup of coffee and some Texas Time on my hands....

First impression, the map you present looks extremely bleak for BETO, mainly because the rural EastTex, WestTex, and NorthTex look extremely small, with potentially over-estimations of Democratic surges in the Metro areas....

Don't suppose you would mind pulling something together by region/Metro areas in Texas and throw in a few Excel spreadsheets based upon Key Metro Areas by County / Region and estimated raw vote % margins from the model?

Excellent work---- Peak Atlas in a positive sense.....

[NOVA Green]

Willie Nelson will headline a rally for O'Rourke, his first ever public performance on behalf of a political candidate.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/406399-willie-nelson-to-headline-rally-for-beto-orourke

Means a lot more in Texas than a musical/celebrity endorsement in most other States.... especially considering all of the Gray-Hair Anglos popping out of the would-works in these small Texas Towns at BETO events in +50% Trump Counties...

[NOVA Green]

This notion that swing voters are wise and thoughtful centrists is one that needs to be dispelled. 

I'll drink to that. It is definitely a fiction that must be dispelled.

Cruz Will Win, you have definitely popped up at the top of my radar, as not only one of the best most recent Atlas posters, but additionally win extra points for style and humor....

[NOVA Green]

even Nate says that the methodology was screwed there and didnt get an accurate results.

Do you happen to have a link for that?

I would agree personally that there are problems with the 18-29 sample, but if that were fixed it would only shift the result slightly, so I am not sure that it makes sense to throw out/disregard the poll entirely just because of that.

The other point is that even if the TX-23 poll was too GOP friendly, that would have had the same basic effect on the House poll than the Senate poll. So it is still significant that Beto was only barely over-performing Ortiz-Jones (and Cruz not even under-performing unbeatable titan Will Hurd at all).

On the other hand, it is probably unrealistic to think that Beto will overperform significantly with Hispanics or get huge Hispanic turnout, so the TX-23 result could maybe be workable as long as he is getting unprecedentedly huge swings with suburban whites.

Well, that's one of the things that I have started looking at when it comes to TX-CD-23...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=300604.0

Bexar County is pivotal and accounts for 50% of the Vote Share of CD-23, as well as the most Republican "Vote Bank" within the CD.

Yet it accounted for the largest chunk of swings between '12 and '16 for US-PRES of just about any County in CD-23.

This is one of the most Republican parts of the District, and swung heavily against Trump in '16, mainly as a result of Anglo voters in the San Antonio (SA) 'Burbs....

Is it reasonable to expect these same communities will not swing even further in the US-TX-SEN race this November, considering that Anglos tend to vote in much higher levels in Midterm elections in TX compared to many other communities that are more heavily "Minority" when it comes to race/ethnicity/country of origin, etc....?

Not buying your argument when it comes to using TX-23 as an example, because it actually defies what the raw data and electoral history tells us about where the actual major swings in Texas occurred between the '12 > '16 US PRES race.

Part of the factor also has to do with the compare/contrast model of voter turnout for "off-year elections" in CD-23 from '12 > '16. Not convinced that drops in Latino turnout caused the district to flip 'Pub, but the current 'Pub incumbent might just be able to squeak it out regardless of national environment...]

Key battles of TX are going to be in the major Metro areas of the State, and to what extent BETO can keep down the crazy 'Pub numbers in recent years from EastTex and WestTx, and "just how unpopular is Ted Cruz among Texans when they start to consider an alternative choice.....?).

[NOVA Green]

I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say here.

Well, that's one of the things that I have started looking at when it comes to TX-CD-23...

https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=300604.0

Bexar County is pivotal and accounts for 50% of the Vote Share of CD-23, as well as the most Republican "Vote Bank" within the CD.

Yet it accounted for the largest chunk of swings between '12 and '16 for US-PRES of just about any County in CD-23.

This is one of the most Republican parts of the District, and swung heavily against Trump in '16, mainly as a result of Anglo voters in the San Antonio (SA) 'Burbs....

Is it reasonable to expect these same communities will not swing even further in the US-TX-SEN race this November, considering that Anglos tend to vote in much higher levels in Midterm elections in TX compared to many other communities that are more heavily "Minority" when it comes to race/ethnicity/country of origin, etc....?

Not buying your argument when it comes to using TX-23 as an example, because it actually defies what the raw data and electoral history tells us about where the actual major swings in Texas occurred between the '12 > '16 US PRES race.

What is my argument that you refer to that you say you are not buying? I am not sure what you think I am arguing.



With respect to TX-23, the NYT/Siena poll had Hurd winning college-educated whites 69% - 23% (almost the same as non-college educated whites). Obviously there is a large MOE there since the sample is only 153 people, but if the "true" numbers are anything close to that, it is not remotely what Dems need to make TX competitive.

My sincere apologies for lack of clarity....

Bexar County and CD-23 Polls in general tend to be not not particularly representative of even "off-year" year election voters....''

I don't know what type of THC or CBD related products you are consuming in the event of CD-23, but Anglos in the District aren't nearly as "cray-cray (Using some lingo from a Black Sista' I worked closely with and we become good friends in 4 Years in Houston, Texas).

Pubs lose TX CD-23 for US-REP, will likely be as a direct result of Anglo swings in the 'burbs of SA, combined with than average TO numbers among working-class Latinos in an "off-year" election....

The reason I posted was directly related to your comments on the TX-23 race, and some of the cross-threads when it comes to Latino turnout in "off-year elections"....

Anglo suburban SA might well exhibit interesting results in November '18 at the US-SEN, US-REP, TX-GOV, etc.... elections....

[NOVA Green]

So any verdicts yet from the MSM and accepted non-partisan political pundits and experts on Texas Politics?

True, many Texas Voters won't actually watch the debate, but will read about it in their local newspapers, see some clips on their local news channels, read coverage of it in larger Texas websites, etc....

https://www.texasmonthly.com/politics/look-fridays-first-debate-ted-cruz-beto-orourke/

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/21/us/politics/beto-cruz-debate.html

[NOVA Green]

The debate IMO was a draw. Beto stood his ground but Cruz is an excellent and experienced debater. Regardless, this debate serves no purpose other than to increase Beto's name rec., and Beto knows that. No wonder Cruz didn't want many debates and wanted them on fall friday night's IIRC.

Good Point.... Friday Night Football is yuuge in Texas, even taking over local TV channels on many occasions....

One can not underestimate how distracted many Texans are not just with normal Friday Night activities, but additionally the added component of "what gets covered" on the local news....

Sure, Friday Night High School Football is big throughout the Country for parents of HS students, but in parts of Texas and the South, it becomes a sacred ritual....

Politics versus Football.... hmmm, "what would you rather watch?"

Anyone curious?

Here are the current scores....

https://www.texasfootball.com/scores/