The absentee/early vote thread

[NOVA Green]

Any updates from early voting in Iowa by Party ID, or do these numbers not come in until tomorrow?

[NOVA Green]

OTOH the Democrats registration edge continues to decline in Nevada.
What's up there?

It's not as far as I can tell. Democrats increased their edge in Active voters from August to September.

@RalstonReports

Partisan edge by registration:
2008 final: Ds +8.4 percent
2012 final: Ds +7.2 percent
2016 now: Ds +5.6 percent

Trend with a capital T.

SoCal Anglo retirees moving to NV are greater than population growth among Native residents, especially considering the Latino population.

Baby Boomers, that are rapidly becoming the most selfish generation in modern American history, are now selling off their $500k ranch houses in OC and moving to the desert, and unlike SoCal, they can't live in their bubbleland of gated communities and golf courses, and the America of their rose-tinted glasses from the 1950s is much more diverse and multi-ethnic, and they simply don't that this country is so much different from back in the days.... (Sarcastic answer)

Ok--- that was a bit of a simplistic response, but I really do believe that migration of California retirees is shifting the Anglo vote more Republican, and that under a Democratic President (Obama) they have not seen housing relief from a catastrophic collapse of the retirement nest-egg, which for many Americans is basically the value of their house. (More serious answer).

[NOVA Green]

New data from Iowa.

So if I see this right, the Dems are starting to pick up on the absentee ballot requests in IA, after deliberately holding out on the push until later than average in the season (Per some of the various political sites reporting)?

[NOVA Green]

1.5 million new registered Texas voters since 2012, a staggering increase. 777K since March, mostly in Democratic areas and places with large Latino populations.

Remember Univision said they were going to register 3 million more Latino voters. I wonder if they did crazy behind the scenes work in TX

Wow, this might corroborate only a 4% lead for Trump.

Still think it would take 2 or 3 consecutive Trumps for Texas to flip, but wow that is impressive.

I have said for a long time that Texas will be close this election, and that Trump has been causing not only a collapse among Middle-Class Latinos in Texas that typically only vote 56-44 Democrat, but additionally among Anglos in the suburbs of Houston, DFW, SA, and Austin, not to even mention evangelical Christian ladies....

If the Democratic Party had actually put resources into voter registration in Texas this year, there is a likely chance the state would be a tossup as opposed to a narrow Trump lead.

[NOVA Green]

Great post, but dont a lot of dem leaning Hispanics register as Independent and not Dem?

A lot of tea partiers do as well. NOVA Green (if he's around) probably knows about this more than I do

Although I am flattered to be name-checked, I don't consider myself to be an expert in either Tea Party voter registration habits, let alone Latino Millennials.

However, I will say that Latino Millennials, like many other Millennials typically tend to not register for either party ticket, although obviously there are many large states, including Texas where voters do not register by political party.

Still, there are multiple stories from many states regarding Latino Millennials and their lack of enthusiasm in the current Presidential Election, despite a strong dislike for Trump as the Republican nominee, including many voters that do not identify with either major Party.

http://keranews.org/post/latino-millennials-looking-have-say-years-presidential-election

http://www.demos.org/blog/10/13/16/ideolog%C3%ADa-latino-millennials-challenge-political-parties

http://www.dallasnews.com/news/community-column/2016/09/16/latino-millennials-play-key-role-election-researcher-says

http://www.kgun9.com/news/local-news/latinos-and-millennials-targeted-to-register-to-vote

http://www.pewhispanic.org/2016/10/11/democrats-maintain-edge-as-party-more-concerned-for-latinos-but-views-similar-to-2012/

Most of y'all don't likely have the patience and stamina to look through even a handful of articles that I posted, but:

la realidad es que la gran mayoría de los latinos del Milenio no se ve una diferencia importante entre los dos partidos políticos cuando se trata de dividir a las familias separadas a ambos lados de la frontera.

As I posted almost a year ago, Obama is still perceived as the "Deporter in Chief, that has dramatically expanded deportations for mothers and fathers of Millennials, simply for charges such as possession of small amounts of marijuana or first time DUI offenses, that for the vast majority of Anglos in Texas would warrant simply a few days in jail.

Under the aggressive policies of the Obama justice department that considers individuals that are married to American nationals, children born in America attending public schools, that haven't been back in their home country for 15 years to be "Criminal Aliens" and "Felons" that has separated and divided families, mainly because the US Government and politicians have refused to address this issue since Reagan back in the Mid- '80s.

We add to that, the fact that Clinton has done little since the primaries to actually speak to the broader interests and concerns of young Americans, unlike Bernie Sanders, when it comes to items such as a living wage, free community college tuition, and additionally Latinos have been disproportionately impacted by the elective war overseas in Iraq and military service enlistment in general, and it is no wonder that Latino Millennials are extremely skeptical of her candidacy, regardless of how much they despise Trump.

There is now a major body of polling from multiple states that appears to clearly indicate that Clinton's weakness among Millennials is especially significant when it comes to Latino Millennials.

[NOVA Green]

Busy day for TX

https://twitter.com/JMilesKHOU/status/790601122343858176

"Harris Co Clerk: 9000-10000 people voting, on average, per hour right now on 1st early voting day"

Amazing!

that's terrifying news for The Donald - prior to this election Texas was noted for terrible voter turnout.

Great news!

Harris county turnout and margins are key towards making this a close statewide race. I've been predicting a +10-15 Clinton margin in Harris for awhile, and with this level of turnout so far, it's not looking good for Da Donald down in Tejas.

[NOVA Green]

https://countyballotfiles.elections.myflorida.com/FVRSCountyBallotReports/AbsenteeEarlyVotingReports/PublicStats

Republican 503,632   
Democrat 483,019   
Other 31,507   
NPA 188,191

What's the official party line as for why this is happening?

The interesting item on the link you posted are actually the concentration of NPA not-yet-returned  numbers in counties that are swinging heavily towards Clinton this year (Miami-Dade, Tampa/St Pete, Orlando) heavily as a result of Latinos swinging hard against the Republican Pres nominee.

I haven't run the numbers on NPA in FL by county between '12 and '16, but it does appear that there are a lot of infrequent and/or first time voters that selected NPA in counties where Clinton will likely perform quite well in November.

[NOVA Green]

Whoa, Democrats surging in VBM in NEBRASKA:

2016:

VBM Requests: D 30,910 46% R 23,408 35% I 11,881 18% Total 66,768

2012:

vs. 2012 Requests: D 26,019 118.8% R 23,560 99.4% I 10,070 118.0% Total 59,980 111.3%

Hello, NE-02

If that holds up NE-01 could be reasonable.

What's the PVI on NE-01?

I I know that 2010 redistricting in Nebraska and the unicameral legislature shifted some heavily Democratic regions of Metro Omaha into the 1st district, and additionally there is a huge college town in Lincoln that is heavily D.

Still skeptical on NE-02, let alone NE-01 so curious on your explanation for why the 1st CD might be in play....

[NOVA Green]

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Hot dawg!!!!

My obsession with metro Houston has blinded me to the hidden Democratic base within Dallas County.

If these turnout numbers continue to hold it looks like Asian/Latinos are voting in force, while Black and Anglo voters are running out standard turnout levels.

# BattlegroundTexas is actually starting to look real considering early numbers from Harris and Dallas counties....

Still curious about Travis and Bexar returns on the first day of early voting, and assuming that El Paso will deliver strongly late in the end game.

[NOVA Green]

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Hot dawg!!!!

My obsession with metro Houston has blinded me to the hidden Democratic base within Dallas County.

If these turnout numbers continue to hold it looks like Asian/Latinos are voting in force, while Black and Anglo voters are running out standard turnout levels.

# BattlegroundTexas is actually starting to look real considering early numbers from Harris and Dallas counties....

Still curious about Travis and Bexar returns on the first day of early voting, and assuming that El Paso will deliver strongly late in the end game.

Bexar's up, but not as much as other metropolitan counties in the state.

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http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Early-voting-Bexar-County-record-10203591.php

And early voting in Travis has doubled per Speed of Sound's post.

So how is EV looking in El Paso County?

There were less than 180k votes cast in 2012 total in a county with > 1 Million population.

[NOVA Green]

Dave Wasserman (https://twitter.com/Redistrict) tweets:

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and

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Also:

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Wow!

These numbers are not a good early indicator for Republicans in Texas...

80% of the population of the Great State of Texas lives in a handful of urban Metro areas, and generally counties with high population growth, and the Travis and El Paso county numbers indicate an early surge of Latino voters in heavily populated counties.

Additionally Williamson (Round Rock) is basically an Upper-Middle-Class community North of Austin where there is a significant tech sector, exactly the type of college educated Anglos that are abandoning the top of the ticket in droves, so I suspect this is actually positive news for the Dems and as I have stated elsewhere, this county might be one of the surprise Texas county flips come November.

Even the "lowest turnout" of the Metro counties is not necessarily bad news for Dems. Montgomery County is typically a +55-60 Republican County, where I suspect higher turnout will result in significantly lower total Republican vote margins than previously, as well as places like Denton, Tarrant, and Fort Bend where increased turnout will also likely favor Democrats because of the proportion of non-voters combined with college educated Anglos will similarly cause a net reduction of total Republican total vote margins in these counties.

[NOVA Green]

Dave Wasserman (https://twitter.com/Redistrict) tweets:

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and

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Also:

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Wow!

These numbers are not a good early indicator for Republicans in Texas...

80% of the population of the Great State of Texas lives in a handful of urban Metro areas, and generally counties with high population growth, and the Travis and El Paso county numbers indicate an early surge of Latino voters in heavily populated counties.

Additionally Williamson (Round Rock) is basically an Upper-Middle-Class community North of Austin where there is a significant tech sector, exactly the type of college educated Anglos that are abandoning the top of the ticket in droves, so I suspect this is actually positive news for the Dems and as I have stated elsewhere, this county might be one of the surprise Texas county flips come November.

Even the "lowest turnout" of the Metro counties is not necessarily bad news for Dems. Montgomery County is typically a +55-60 Republican County, where I suspect higher turnout will result in significantly lower total Republican vote margins than previously, as well as places like Denton, Tarrant, and Fort Bend where increased turnout will also likely favor Democrats because of the proportion of non-voters combined with college educated Anglos will similarly cause a net reduction of total Republican total vote margins in these counties.

If Williamson County, which is a few points right of the state, ever flipped to Clinton, she would likely win Texas

I both agree and disagree...

I could easily envision a scenario where Williamson flips, along with similar large swings in heavily Anglo College-Educated counties, but Trump still ekes out a win because of the relative inelastic nature of EastTex and rural/ small town parts of NorthTex.

Although polling of Texas is sketchy, especially once we look at data from various regions of the state, it does appear that the largest swings towards Clinton are in the Metro Houston area, as well as Central Texas, while DFW doesn't appear to be swinging as hard towards the Democrats.

However, with Texas it all boils down to both voter registration and turnout levels, and at least the early voting results indicate that the state is not completely out of grasp for Clinton, and there is an outside chance of a hidden surge of voters making this a close ball game at the end of the 4th quarter.

But yes, if Clinton can win over wealthy Anglos in Williamson County, it would seem to indicate a complete collapse of the Anglo educated suburban voters, that will likely manifest in other places such as Montgomery/Fort Bend (Houston), Collins/Denton/Tarrant (DFW), as well as the heavily Anglo suburbs within Bexar and Travis counties....

If so, it might just be enough to take the ball over the finish line, or at least get a successful Field Goal in OT, to carry the state.... not expecting that as the outcome, and we'll need to continue to monitor EV numbers further and see if Republican enthusiasm and voting continues to remain depressed closer to election day.

[NOVA Green]

However, with Texas it all boils down to both voter registration and turnout levels,

And this is, of course, where there is the nearly untapped reserve of the Rio Grande Valley. This part of the state normally has abyssmal turnout. But, of course, in recent decades nobody has thought of mobilizing it - there has not been a reason to do so. While it might be too late to do so in this election, if Texas becomes competitive, Dems should be able to add a percentage point or two to their statewide results through proper registration/GOTV effort in the Valley.

Absolutely agreed....

The last time anyone attempted to organize in the Rio Grande Valley was way back in the days of the late great Cesar Chavez...

Obviously, the vast majority of SouthTex Latinos today are not Migros, but there was an historic culture of voter, economic, and political surpression from the dominant old Spanish Tejanos and Anglo ranchers and farmers, that is still prevalent to this day.

Based upon at least early voting numbers in the Rio Grande Valley, it does appear that there is an unprescedented level of political mobilization in voting patterns, although obviously investments in voter registration efforts and candidate recruitment for statewide elected offices, will have a much longer term impact, and again absolutely agreed this could well add +1-2% to Democratic margins statewide.

The realidad is that likely once there is a massive voter registration effort in Texas, the statewide Democratic Party will likely look much more progressive on economic policy positions than in in most other American states.

http://www.sampsoniaway.org/interviews/2014/04/03/%E2%80%9Cvoices-of-the-ufw-in-texas%E2%80%9D-a-documentary-on-the-united-farm-worker-movement-in-texas/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Farm_Workers

[NOVA Green]

Is that better or worse than previous early voting in Oregon?

In 2012 there were ~140k ballots cast by the third reporting day of early voting, which is lower than the  170k cast in three days of early voting this year.

Unfortunately, I can't see the party breakdown of EV for 2012 yet to see what the trend looks like.

I will note that the early vote numbers in 2016 are significantly higher in heavily rural and older Republican counties in Eastern and Southern Oregon than the statewide average, but I don't think that is particularly unusual.

What is interesting is that almost 11% have already been returned in overwhelmingly Democratic Multnomah County, also lagging in both the Democratic suburbs of Washington County, former Democratic strongholds of Coos & Columbia with large working-class Whites that have been trending Republican over the past few decades, and anemic in Jackson County in Southern Oregon, which is on my 2012-2016 flip R to D list, as well as Yamhill County (Exurban PDX).

[NOVA Green]

In Florida, Democrats have requested 3557 more absentee ballots + votes in VBM but the GOP has about a 35.5K lead in just ballots cast. Are some Dems requesting VBM ballots and deciding to vote in person?

They could just not be returning their ballots.

Or because they're no immediately filling out the ballots...

I mean like the election is 12 days away (because mail for today has already ended on the East Coast) so they better get those ballots in.

Well, coming from the first state to go all vote-by-mail, going way back in the early 2000s, and predominately vote-by-mail in the 1990s, I can attest that many people do wait.

Note, that in Oregon (Not sure about CO) there are ballot drop stations located all over the place in every city in the state, and typically election day has the highest spikes, since here the ballots need to be either received in the mail by ED, or dropped off at a ballot deposit location (Basically like a blue postal mailbox).

Some states like California, allow ballots with a postmark of election day to be counted, which creates a giant headache for election geeks trying to track close elections.

Oregon now has an 83-86% voter participation rate since VbM was implemented, and I would not be surprised to see it higher this year now that automatic driver license registration has rolled out for the first time.

It is a first time for Colorado, so we'll see if their turnout numbers start looking more like fully VbM states (OR & WA) and heavily VbM states (CA) or if it engenders confusion while voters adapt to the new system in their first year.

[NOVA Green]

Nate Cohn @Nate_Cohn:

Clinton has an even larger 66 to 28 percent lead among those early voters (n=47) who did not vote in the 2012 election.

Re:North Carolina

Looks like an extremely small sample size, (47) voters???

Still.... not particularly bad news although we'll need to see much more than this to make assumptions regarding those who have already voted that did not vote in 2012.

[NOVA Green]

Texas Tribune has a great early vote tracker that compares county numbers to 2012 and 2008.



https://apps.texastribune.org/texas-early-voting-tracker/?utm_campaign=trib-social&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1477592335

This is an awesome page....

Running through the numbers looks like there is a major spike in voter turnout in the heavily Democratic strongholds of Dallas, Travis, and El Paso counties, not to mention a pretty decent bump in Harris County, which is not only the largest county in the state, but quite possibly a C +10 County this year, Hidalgo seems to represent a massive surge in the heavily Democratic Rio Grange Valley....

Bexar seems to have a slower increase in total EV numbers than most other urban/suburban counties on the graph, so it will be interesting to see how this trends in what I am expecting to be a +10-12 C county this year...

EVs also appear to be high in traditionally Republican suburban counties of DFW (Tarrant, Collins, and Denton) but this does not necessarily indicate an increase in total Republican vote margins compared to '08 and '12, considering that this could also indicate a significant number of new voter registrations of younger Latinos and Millennials voting Dem, plus defection of college educated Anglos. We'll see what the final outcome is in these counties, but Collins and Denton in particular look ripe for significant defection of traditional Republican leaning voters, and also have a fast growing and educated demographic.

Fort Bend County having this spike is definitely a positive, since it is a county that has been on the "flip list" of Texas suburban counties for quite some time, and has been rapidly trending D. compared to statewide averages.

[NOVA Green]

Status on OR

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/10/28/1587774/-One-more-state-where-Democratic-turnout-is-looking-good

In 2008 Barack Obama won 13 counties
In 2012, he only won 10 counties in the state, and four of the top seven in population.

"Registered Democrats currently have turned in more ballots than Republicans in 17 of Oregon’s 36 counties. Including all seven of the most populous counties. Currently Democratic turnout is at 14.8% and Republican turnout is 12.2%. This is not normal. Usually, unless it is a very good election for us, Republican turnout is at east as high as Democratic turnout."

So far 49.7% of voters are Democrats to 29.7% Republicans. In registered voters, Democrats lead 38.9% to 28.2%, so that 2.6% edge in turnout so far leads to us significantly outperforming registration.

It is extremely interesting to see Democratic early VbMs in Oregon starting with such a high lead for the Democratic votes visa-a-vis Republicans.

Also, voter turnout on the 4th reporting day in 2016 is 420k returned ballots versus 250k in 2012.

Some of that might be a factor of a number of Indies switching party registration to Democratic in order to be able to vote in the Primaries for Bernie that won the state in a landslide, and frequently voters don't shift back registration between the primaries and GE.

Additionally, Oregon now has automatic driver license voter registration, which is likely expanding voter registration levels among first-time drivers, as well as those who need to renew their driver's license every 7-8 years.

It is interesting that early Dem ballots returned actually have Democrats leading by small numbers in downstate Oregon Blue Collar Coastal Oregon counties that have shifted Republican over the past few decades (Columbia, Coos, Tillamook).

If we look at Metro Portland EVs so far (~55% of the statewide total vote):

Multnomah:  EV (70-16-14) D-R-NA vs RV (59-14-27)
Washington: EV  (55-29-16) D-R-NA vs RV  (42-28-30)
Clackamas: EV  (51-33-15) D-R-NA vs RV (39-33-28)

Note: That in Multnomah and Washington counties the lion's share of Independent voters vote Dem in Presidential elections.

Democrats are voting earlier and in heavier numbers than ever before, not only the most populated region of the state, which was also a major under-performing region for Trump who essentially ran unopposed in the Oregon Primary. Republican votes are basically stagnant compared to their RV numbers, and will likely drop significantly once Indies start voting en masse closer to ED.

At this point I would not be surprised to see Clinton's vote percentages create a record in Multnomah and Washington Counties, even with 3rd party votes....

Also, note that Democratic ballots are currently exceeding Republican numbers, in some cases significantly in the upper Willamette Valley counties of Polk, Yamhill, and Marion, all of which I predict will be Democratic Party flips in November.

Edited: To correct Multnomah County NA RV numbers.

[NOVA Green]

^ Matches the VBM patterns in Washington so far.  We don't have party registration, but I've seen the data.

So what are you seeing for early VBM numbers in Clark and Pierce Counties thus far for relatively Blue Collar parts of the state?

Also, what's going on in Whitman and Spokane counties with VBMs in Eastern Washington, as well as some smaller counties along the Columbia River Gorge?

How's your Washington state flip map working based on what your early numbers are showing?

[NOVA Green]

^ Matches the VBM patterns in Washington so far.  We don't have party registration, but I've seen the data.

So what are you seeing for early VBM numbers in Clark and Pierce Counties thus far for relatively Blue Collar parts of the state?

I've been looking at the return rates among voters who participated in our useless May presidential primary as a gauge of enthusiasm -- especially since you'd figure those folks are disproportionately hardcore party faithful.  So far, Democratic returns outpace Republican turns about 27.2% to 22.8%.  The gap is mostly pretty uniform statewide.  King is slightly higher than average, but among the 36/39 counties reporting statistics, only two have a higher return rate among Republicans.  Those are Okanogan, which had a high-turnout ballot measure on the May ballot, so I wouldn't pay that due, and Grays Harbor, a working-class Dem-leaning county where Trump did quite well in the primary.

Oddly enough, Spokane has an even bigger gap (30.1% vs. 24.8%) than King.

Also, what's going on in Whitman and Spokane counties with VBMs in Eastern Washington, as well as some smaller counties along the Columbia River Gorge?

Sorry, in what way?

How's your Washington state flip map working based on what your early numbers are showing?

Eh, I'm reluctant to read too much into this.  I think it's a good sign for the Democrats, but considering today's national news and how vague these tea leaves are, I'm not overthinking it.  I expect turnout to even out, and after today, we may see the enthusiasm gap reverse slightly.  Who knows

Apologies... no party registration makes it a bit more difficult to read the bird entrails, so you have a bit less to work with for data points, other than the May "Primaries" to look at overall turnout and enthusiasm levels .

How is overall party registration and turnout numbers looking like in heavily Latino Counties in Eastern Washington? Have we seen a surge in voter registration numbers in places like Yakima County as well as early turnout numbers? What are early voting numbers looking like in heavily Mormon Counties in SE Washington?

What we are seeing in Eastern Oregon is high turnout levels in many traditionally Republican Counties that have both a large population of Mormons, as well as large populations of Latinos, and even with Party ID (Unlike WA) it's difficult to tell if we will see some interesting results from places like the "Inland Empire" where there is both a strong Anti-Trump Republican element, as well as an extremely large and latent Latino vote, in what are generally heavily Republican parts of both Oregon and Washington.

I wish I could run the 2008 and 2012 numbers in Oregon by County and Party ID for early voting, but unfortunately, I think I would need to pay to pull this data.

[NOVA Green]

Early voting numbers in Harris County, Texas looking very favorable for Clinton:

57% Female, much more heavily Latino, 13% of EV are first time voters.

Also, in 2016 a study indicated that 52% of county respidents identify as Democrats versus only 30% Republicans.


http://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/politics/houston/article/Early-voting-numbers-surge-in-Harris-County-10421186.php

[NOVA Green]

@RalstonReports  17s seconds ago

Turnout today in Clark County is going to be higher than Friday. 24,000 by 3 PM. It was 22,000 at same time Friday.



Any fear about turnout being down early in the day seems to have been unnecessary (...as usual).

Democratic base furious with Comey and taking it out on Comey and Trump. For reference, turnout on the same day in Clark was only 2000 higher, so we're looking to exceed 2012 at least on this metric

idk about the motivation of the increased total turnout today, it could just as easily be that it's a Saturday so a lot of M-F workers, college students, and offshift Casino workers find it easier to take the time to vote on a Saturday than during a normal weekday.

Still regardless, good news for Team Clinton and curious about the current D-R-NAP breakdown in Clark County after today's update in terms of both vote banking, as well as capturing 1st time voters....

[NOVA Green]

I suspect we won't have a clear picture of EV numbers until we see the results from the "Souls to the Polls" as well as a surge of weekend numbers from states rolling from Texas to Ohio...

Meanwhile, Atlas will roll on and debate and discuss every infinitesimal movement in the numbers, but we will likely have a much better picture come EOB Monday....

Just sayin'

[NOVA Green]

IS EVERYONE READY FOR SOULS TO THE POLLS?!?!

PRAISE THE LORD!!!

HALLELUJAH!!!!

[NOVA Green]

Dan Frosch digs into the voter surge in Texas (full article, not just the graph below):




https://twitter.com/TimJHanrahan/status/792754968461713409

Texas will be a battleground after all

Sending out the bat-signal for NOVA Green on this. It looks like about 2/3 of the total voter registration spike in TX was Hispanic and most of the increased turnout in all these large TX counties is Hispanic

No question, this is huge, and likely understates the Latino registration surge between 2012 and 2016, considering that this data is based solely upon Spanish vs non-Spanish surnames, and within Metro Houston, and likely DFW as well, there is significant intermarriage and various communities with associated name changes.

Also, not covered in this graph is the spike in voter registration numbers in suburban counties around DFW, Austin, and SA (Hays, Williamson, Montgomery, Comal, Denton, Collins, etc...), where much of the recent population growth has been heavily Latino in recent years.

I am curious what voter registration numbers look like between 2012 and 2016 in SouthTex and WestTex in smaller counties and population centers, since although we have seen some data from El Paso County and a few other areas, there is significant room for growth in terms of both raw voter registration as well as a potential collapse of Trump support among rural Latinos in areas that have frequently tended to vote Republican alongside their Anglo neighbors.... IF Clinton ends up winning Latinos in Texas by a +55% margins combined with high turnout, this state could be a real squeaker on election day.

The interesting thing about WestTex is also that the Latino population has surged in several major population centers (Midland and Ector counties) putting them in the top ten list of counties with the largest increase in Latinos in the state, driven heavily as a result of Oil Sector related jobs.

So for example if you look at those two counties, Obama only won 21% and 26% respectively in 2008, and now in 2016 Latinos represent 38% and 53% of the population.... I could run through a list of some (30) counties in Texas that are majority Latino that voted for Romney/McCain, in many cases by 2:1 margins.... If the Latino surge sweeps through WestTex, I would not be surprised to see Clinton ending up with more votes than Trump in that region of the state...