Texas GOP Senate Runoff

[Miles]

I also made a map of the early votes. Cruz still won, but Dewhurst did considerably better, losing 53-47. I think that speaks to Cruz's momentum in the closing stretch of the race.

[jimrtex]

I also made a map of the early votes. Cruz still won, but Dewhurst did considerably better, losing 53-47. I think that speaks to Cruz's momentum in the closing stretch of the race.

In Texas, "early voting" refers to early voting in person and early voting by mail.

Early voting by mail is only allowed for cause: age, disability, confinement in jail, or absence from county for entire election period - one requirement is the ballot request must be mailed from outside the county.

Early voting in person can be done by anyone, and can be done at any early voting location in the county.

The SOS aggregates the two, but the counties can report them separately.

For example in Harris County:

Early voting by mail: 64.1% Dewhurst
Early voting in person: 68.8% Cruz
Early voting, total: 60.0% Cruz

Election day: 68.1% Cruz

Similar patterns occurred in Dallas and Tarrant, though it appears that Dewhurst did a particularly good job at getting mail voting out in Harris County.

There are probably a confluence of effects:

Dewhurst may have more appeal to older people.  He is almost 67, but looks a bit younger, and looks senatorial.  Cruz looks his age (41).

Dewhurst had a lot of money to spend, so could send out applications for mail ballots to identified elderly supporters.  Applications are good for both the primary and runoff (if indicated on the application).

Since voting by mail requires a preliminary step, it is likely to be initiated sooner.  So that aspect may reflect a late shift.

But because early voters are up over 50% it is too risky to target late deciders, who are likely not only late deciders as to who they are going to vote for, but possibly whether they would vote at all (eg election day is not "election day", but the last chance to vote.).

[Wisconsin+17]

Here's the actual results. Some counties (white) are outstanding. Purple counties tied.

[Wisconsin+17]

Here's with the flips. Green - counties that went from Dewhurst -> Cruz between Early voting and the final results.

Yellow - counties that went from Cruz -> Dewhurst between Early voting and the final results.

Apparently US 77 destroyed Dewhurst. He was crushed in the counties surrounding Victoria, and in Austin and the surrounding counties.

 

[RogueBeaver]

LOL, Dewhurst already has a primary challenger for 2014 in the Land Commish Jerry Patterson.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

*sigh*

It's not impossible, but its not looking good for Team Dewhurst.

I agree. Its a shame the TX GOP is on track to replace KBH with Ted Cruz, in my view.

I actually don't mind Cruz too much. I'm sure he'll make a fine US Senator. I just know Governor Perry, and I have met Dewhurst, which is why I'd like for him to win. At least if he loses, he'll still be Leut. Governor.

My feelings exactly.  I'm a conservative but believe that half a loaf is better than no bread.  Remember Bill Buckley: support the most conservative candidate that can win.

[nclib]

Here's the actual results. Some counties (white) are outstanding. Purple counties tied.

Looked up the population figures and Cruz won the 16 most populous counties (Lubbock was Dewhurst's most populated county).

[RogueBeaver]

Yep. Cruz won the population centers, Dewhurst the rural areas. Texas Tribune also has a good map. IIRC Cruz won the counties 141-104 or something like that.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

County map, anyone?

I'm a bit disappointed about Cruz winning, even if their voting records would have been similar. It's not a good situation for the Dems for the far-right to get energized (unless it would result in another Angle, O'Donnell, etc.). Also, another token minority GOPer helps them pretend they aren't anti-minority (though Cruz is Cuban which is the only minority group that has been consistently GOP).

Republicans aren't anti-minority.  I'm disappointed to because although I'm conservative, I think it sends a bad message to Republicans in other states (to keep nominating unelectable candidates to maintain ideological purity.)

[CatoMinor]

Republicans aren't anti-minority.  I'm disappointed to because although I'm conservative, I think it sends a bad message to Republicans in other states (to keep nominating unelectable candidates to maintain ideological purity.)

No, it sends the message that we don't want Dewhurst and Perry can expect a tough fight for re-election in the primary. again. On also, how on earth his Dewhurst more electable than Cruz? Or at the very least it sends the message that the establishment GOP needs to recruit candidates who do note have a feeling of entitlement.

[tmthforu94]

County map, anyone?

I'm a bit disappointed about Cruz winning, even if their voting records would have been similar. It's not a good situation for the Dems for the far-right to get energized (unless it would result in another Angle, O'Donnell, etc.). Also, another token minority GOPer helps them pretend they aren't anti-minority (though Cruz is Cuban which is the only minority group that has been consistently GOP).

Republicans aren't anti-minority.  I'm disappointed to because although I'm conservative, I think it sends a bad message to Republicans in other states (to keep nominating unelectable candidates to maintain ideological purity.)

These type of races don't bother me as much, since the GOP will win the seat regardless and Cruz isn't too far out there. Where it bother's me is states like Indiana and Nevada, Delaware, and Colorado 2010. Those are 3 2010 that the GOP should have won if they nominated the right candidates.

[jimrtex]

Here's the actual results. Some counties (white) are outstanding. Purple counties tied.

Party primaries are conducted by county political parties, and so are not conducted in counties without a party chair.  The curiosity for the runoff is that the GOP did not hold a runoff in Oldham and Sterling counties, even though they had primaries.

http://www.texastribune.org/texas-politics/2012-elections/two-texas-counties-didnt-hold-runoff-elections/

[jimrtex]

Here's the actual results. Some counties (white) are outstanding. Purple counties tied.

Looked up the population figures and Cruz won the 16 most populous counties (Lubbock was Dewhurst's most populated county).

Cruz carried Lubbock.

The largest counties carried by Dewhurst are Bell, Tom Green, Gregg, and Orange.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

What patterns might we discern from this map?

[Miles]

What patterns might we discern from this map?

That Dewhurst won the areas of TX-13, TX-19, TX-11 and had pockets of strength in eastern Texas. Thats about all I can say...

[stegosaurus]

What happened in Val Verde County? I would have thought that would be strong Cruz territory, obviously I'm not very familiar with the area.

[jimrtex]

What happened in Val Verde County? I would have thought that would be strong Cruz territory, obviously I'm not very familiar with the area.

Maybe voters voting in the congressional primary for Gallego.  It was Dewhurst 302 Cruz 298, but 1700 votes were cast in the congressional race.

Cruz won almost all urban areas, including Lubbock, Potter, Randall, Wichita, Taylor, Smith, Gregg, Angelina, and Nacogdoches, so even the areas that look favorable to Dewhurst may not have been. 

[Reginald]

What patterns might we discern from this map?

As mentioned, Cruz was strong in the urban and especially the suburban areas, in addition to most of the border counties. The pattern as it pertains to the vast array of the rural, non-border counties is a bit more unclear... perhaps it's related to turnout? The Panhandle and that cluster in the center of the state voted mostly for Dewhurst in the first round, so there could be some significance there. Nevertheless, it's interesting to note that Dewhurst won each of the ten counties with the highest turnout...



... and Cruz won each of the ten counties with the lowest turnout (not nearly as noteworthy after taking into account just how low turnout was here; three people voted in Presidio County. But of course, most of these counties were not exactly expected to have many show up to vote in a Republican runoff.):



Just to visualize where these particular counties are (green is highest turnout, red is lowest):



I'll probably look into this more deeply later, just to see if this was even barely illuminating.

[Miles]

There weren't any votes from Foard County in either the primary or runoff. Are there just no registered Republicans there?

[minionofmidas]

What happened in Val Verde County? I would have thought that would be strong Cruz territory, obviously I'm not very familiar with the area.

Maybe voters voting in the congressional primary for Gallego.  It was Dewhurst 302 Cruz 298, but 1700 votes were cast in the congressional race.

Is that legal in Texas, voting in both parties' primaries?

There weren't any votes from Foard County in either the primary or runoff. Are there just no registered Republicans there?

Texas has some weird laws where you need somebody from the county to organize the primary, and I think foot some bills as well.

[jimrtex]

There weren't any votes from Foard County in either the primary or runoff. Are there just no registered Republicans there?

Texas doesn't have party registration, and technically₁ the political parties administer the primaries.  If a political party doesn't have a county chair, then they don't have a primary in that county.

When Texas was a one-party state, all the officeholders were chosen in the Democratic primary, and then many people would vote for the Republican presidential candidate.   It takes quite a bit of organization to run an election.

As Republicans had more success, it was easier to find people to run parties in more populous counties, and they might even have candidates for local offices.  But there was not that much competition for statewide or congressional nominations.  So in a smaller county, all the local offices might be settled in the Democratic primary, and then voters could vote for Republicans for statewide or congressional offices in the general election.   There usually was not that much competition for the Republican nominations.

It has not been uncommon for all the county commissioners, sheriff, etc. in a county to announce they were Republicans, which simply means that they would run for office in the Republican primary at the next election.  Then everybody could vote in the Republican primary, and choose local officials, as well as legislative, congressional, and statewide candidates.

But there are a few holdouts, such as Foard County.  Foard County voted for Carter (74%, 63%), Mondale 48%, Dukakis 63%, Clinton (55%, 62%), Gore 47%, Kerry 40%, Obama 37%.

Mondale only carried one State, so 48% is pretty good, and Gore and Kerry were running against a popular governor.   37% for Obama is a very good result for a rural county in Texas.

So Foard County continues to have a Democratic Primary.  In May, 138 persons voted in the presidential primary, where Obama failed to get a majority against 3 no-names.   172 voters voted for an unopposed District Attorney, and up to 209 persons voted on ballot propositions (Texas permits non-binding propositions on primary ballots).  There would have been local races as well, for county commissioner in 2 precincts, sheriff, and a few others.

So voters would have shown up to vote for the local office holders.  Around 35% skipped the presidential race, and half of the remainder voted against Obama.    About 30 of those who did not express an opinion in the presidential race, voted for an unopposed district attorney  (whose grandfather had been a state representative for 28 years), and then about 40 more voted on the propositions.

So a bunch of voters showed up to vote in the The Primary, skipped the Democratic presidential race (and barely half voted in the Senate races).  They voted for Staley Heatly, perhaps because they remembered his granddad, and then  voted on the ballot propositions - which were not completely obvious as being Democratic propositions.

Only 13 voters showed up for the Democratic senate runoff in Foard County.  If there are no runoffs in an area, no runoff primary is held, but this year there were statewide runoffs in both parties.

1 The State pays for the primaries, and ordinarily, the parties contract with the county election officials for voting equipment.   In addition, early voting is conducted by the counties.  So from a voter perspective it looks like the county is conducting the election - other than being held in different polling places.   But candidates file with the county or state party chairs and the parties do the actual canvass.  

So Billy Jo Bugtussle would file with the party chair of the RorD Party that she was running for re-election as county clerk.   The county chair would go rent the voting machines from Bugtussle and inform her that Billy Jo Bugtussle was the only candidate for RorD Party nomination for county clerk.  The state chair would inform the county chair of the candidates for statewide and multi-county office, who would also transmit these to clerk Bugtussle so that they could be programmed in.  Bugtussle would administer early voting, and voters who chose the RorD party could vote for her.  Bugtussle would prepare voting rolls for the election day, which would indicate which voters had already voted.   The RorD Party would conduct voting on election day using the county's voting equipment.   At the end of election day, they would take the voting machines and voting rolls back to the county clerk's office, where the votes would be tallied.  A few days later the party would canvass the results (look at the printout prepared by the county clerk, and decide they were OK).   They would then tell the county clerk that Billy Jo Bugtussle was the party's nominee for the general election.   The county party would also transmit the county results to the state party, so they can conduct the statewide canvass, and inform the Secretary of State who the party nominees are.

[jimrtex]

What happened in Val Verde County? I would have thought that would be strong Cruz territory, obviously I'm not very familiar with the area.

Maybe voters voting in the congressional primary for Gallego.  It was Dewhurst 302 Cruz 298, but 1700 votes were cast in the congressional race.

Is that legal in Texas, voting in both parties' primaries?

No.   But voters can choose their primary,  and they can't switch parties between the primary and runoff (note: about 1/6 of early voting Republican runoff voters, had not voted in the May primary).

In May, about 2500 voted in the Democratic congressional primary, overwhelmingly for Gallego, with around 2400 voting for Gallego's replacement in the House.  Only about 1700 voted in the senate race.  Around 1000 voted in the Republican primary.

If you lived in Val Verde County, you could vote in the Democratic primary and still vote for Canseco in November.  So the Republican electorate in Val Verde County was more tilted towards voters who voted in the Republican primary because they preferred the Republican Party, rather than picking the primary with the more interesting race.  Statewide the senate primary was the more interesting race in May, but not in Val Verde County.

[jimrtex]

What patterns might we discern from this map?

As mentioned, Cruz was strong in the urban and especially the suburban areas, in addition to most of the border counties. The pattern as it pertains to the vast array of the rural, non-border counties is a bit more unclear... perhaps it's related to turnout? The Panhandle and that cluster in the center of the state voted mostly for Dewhurst in the first round, so there could be some significance there. Nevertheless, it's interesting to note that Dewhurst won each of the ten counties with the highest turnout...



... and Cruz won each of the ten counties with the lowest turnout (not nearly as noteworthy after taking into account just how low turnout was here; three people voted in Presidio County. But of course, most of these counties were not exactly expected to have many show up to vote in a Republican runoff.):



Just to visualize where these particular counties are (green is highest turnout, red is lowest):



I'll probably look into this more deeply later, just to see if this was even barely illuminating.

Several of the high turnout counties in the central area had runoffs for state representative which may have pushed turnout up a bit - and the runoff would have had more visibility in a local weekly newspaper, or at the local cafe, DQ, or feed store.   The panhandle counties will be around 90% for Romney so they are simply highly Republican areas (since Texas does not have party registration, turnout is based on the entire electorate).