Harris County Texas (Houston Chronicle) Clinton +10

[angus]

Harris County Texas (Houston Chronicle) Clinton +10

I just looked up its population.  4.3 million!  That must be the most populous county in Texas, maybe one of the most populous in the United States. 

If we assume that 2.2 million of them are voting, then that's 924000 for Clinton, 704000 for Trump.  220 thousand-vote lead in Harris County alone.  Fairly significant.

[angus]

Turnout in Harris County was only 1.2 million in the last 2 presidential elections

That's awfully low.  Lower than I'd have guessed.  It's only 28% of the population.  I looked it up, in 2008 and 2012, 1.171 and 1.185 million voters voted, respectively.  The actual number of registered voters in Harris County is 2062792, which is about 49% of the county population.

For comparison, I looked up lancaster county.  There are 323799 registered voters as of September 19.  The current estimated county population is about 536624.  That means that just over 60% of the population is registered to vote.  I had assumed Harris would be lower, but I had no idea what the actual numbers were for either county before I looked them up today. 

Just for fun, here is the breakdown of registered voters for Lancaster County as of September 19:

Republican 168739
Democrat 104587
Other 50743
Total 323799

It's interesting to note the changes from Democrat to Republican in 2016 alone:  4570
and from Republican to Democrat in 2016 alone:  3943

I assume that such large numbers were due to the wild primaries this year.  Normally, by the time it gets to PA it's a fait accompli, uninteresting and pre-decided, but this year neither the Democrats nor the Republicans had it settled by April. 

I couldn't find a breakdown of registration by party for Harris County.  Maybe they don't do it that way in Texas.  You can look up voter registration by precinct in Harris county, but it seems tedious and all you get is name, address, and the last time that person voted, but not a political party.  Also, it says this in ALL CAPS on the Harris County website where you can look stuff up:  "IT IS A CRIMINAL OFFENSE TO USE VOTER REGISTRATION INFORMATION IN CONNECTION WITH ADVERTISING OR PROMOTING COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS OR SERVICES."

[angus]

Everything costs money, but with 4.3 million people concentrated in less than 1800 square miles, one need only rely on one communications media market buyout to reach a huge audience.  For either the GOP or the Democrats, reaching the voters of Harris County should be a priority.  It represents about 17% of the state population, and it votes in appallingly low numbers.  Clearly, voters--and there are many potential voters there--need some motivation.  It would seem to me to be an obvious place to put some of the millions of dollars that campaigns typically raise.  I looked into it today, and it seems that both parties ignore the media market there, and neither have much of a ground game there.  I'm very much against identity politicking because I think division is bad for everyone in the long run, as we have seen in South Asia, the Middle East, Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, etc., etc., so I'm not going to argue about this ethnic group or that being easily led one faction or another, and I appreciate the fact that you (for the most part) haven't been pushing that sort of stuff either.  People are people, but the people of Harris County are not fully exploiting the democratic system.  Given that they are 17% of the 2nd-largest pot of electoral votes, it strikes me as odd that both parties ignore that media market.  Part of that, of course, is an artifact of our bizarre system of electing presidents.  Texas for about a hundred years was a guaranteed Democrat bastion, and then, for about 30 years, was a guaranteed Republican bastion.  It shouldn't be like that.  Such a large county in such a large state ought to be one of the places where elections are fought out, for better or worse.

[angus]

I couldn't find a breakdown of registration by party for Harris County.  Maybe they don't do it that way in Texas.

There is no party registration. You can only vote in one primary (they might even be in separate buildings, or at least rooms). You are considered to affiliated for the rest of the election year, but that in practice means that you can't switch parties for the runoff. Officially, everyone is cleansed of their partisan alignment on January 1 of the odd-numbered years.

In 2016, Republican voters outnumbered Democratic voters 3:2 in Harrison County.

Trump, Clinton, and Sanders are from New York City (Youtube)

And who do you think got most of those votes? It certainly couldn't have been native Texan Ted Cruz...

I'm pretty sure that Ted Cruz is not a native of the Lone Star State.  I read somewhere that he is a native of the great state of Canada.  Perhaps that was your point. 

jimrtex, so every one is unaffiliated until he votes?  Okay, that would explain why it wasn't easy to find party registrations in Harris County.  I did see somewhere that in 2012 Romney voters outnumbered Obama voters.  In fact, Dave Leip's US Election Atlas has that info.  I actually like that situation.  In Pennsylvania, you have to pick a party and pick it early.  Four weeks before the primary election, or something like that.  On the other side of the spectrum is Iowa, where there's same-day registration.  I lived in Iowa for five years.  There, you can decide whether you're a Democrat or a Republican or a Libertarian or a Socialists or whatever on the day of the caucus.  Of course, the day of the caucus is in early January and it's usually a day when the high temperature is about 20 degrees Farhenheit and there is about two feet of snow outside, and you have to show up early for a good parking spot and stay there for many hours.  I guess ou can't have everything.