TX CD 23 in 2018 and Historical Context and Electoral Data

[NOVA Green]

So, politicalmasta PM'd me a week or so back asking if I was interested in taking a look at TX CD-23....

Told him I would consider taking a look at it, but wasn't sure how well my usual style of analysis would translate into a low-turnout "off-year" election in Texas, let alone being able to look at detailed precinct level analysis overlapped with Demographics, etc....

However, what caught my attention is that this district was basically designed to be a "swing district" despite the TX 'Pub Gerrymandering of the Lone Star State way back in '10 > '13, and although there are quite possibly a few other Texas CDs that will likely flip before CD-23 in '18, based upon patterns we observed in '16, the reality it is still very much a flip district with an extremely large Latino VAP, despite traditionally low turnout levels among Texans in general, and Tejanos in particular....

Let's start with the vote share by County.... instead of doing my typical NOVA GREEN deal where I use PRES or GOV numbers, instead I decided to focus initially on votes for Congressional Representation, considering a general significant drop-off in support for down-ballot Democrats within this district.

Vote Share by County in CD-23:

2016:



2014:



2012:



Ok--- fun charts---- what does all this mean???

Obviously Bexar County represents roughly slightly under 50% of the County Vote Share in CD-23 from '12 > '16.

El Paso County runs from 6-9% of County Vote Share '12> '16

Medina and Val Verde counties are pretty much ~ 8% in the former and 6% in the latter....

Maverick County runs about 5-6%.

Cool--- now let's look at the vote share trends so we can see overall shifts from '12 > '16 for US House Elections.



So here we see that Bexar Counties vote share has been steadily increasing from '12 > '16.... 

It certainly makes sense considering the massive population growth in Metro SA (San Antonio) compared to most other parts of the district....

El Paso County part of the CD-23 is fascinating, since it appears that it represents a much higher % of the CD Vote share in Presidential Election Years (7.6% in 2012, 6.0% in 2014, and 9.0% in 2016 (!!!)   )

Now, let's look at it from another perspective:

What are the RAW VOTE MARGINS by County for CD-23 Elections from '12 > '16?



So here we see how Republican the portions of Bexar County are and have historically been in CD-23 from '12 > '16.

Ok--- fine, let's take a look at '12 > '16 vote margins and swings in the largest Counties within TX- CD-23 at the Congressional Level.....



It's a pretty confusing chart/graph for anyone that hasn't been following my train of thought here, but bottom line we see a negative swing towards the DEM candidate for CD-23 in most the largest Counties in CD-23, with the exception of Bexar and El Paso Counties....

I'll be posting a lot more data as I shift through these numbers, going down to precinct level analysis, compare / contrast with PRES '12 / '16 numbers, US SEN '12, etc....

One of the questions that I was asked, was do I believe that Gina Ortiz-Jones might be able to mobilize enough support in certain parts of SouthTex considering her Sexual Orientation, despite her military background, and I strongly suspect that this is essentially a non-issue for the overwhelming majority of Latino and Anglo voters in CD-23....

Si se Puede....

[NOVA Green]

Ok--- So started to delve a bit deeper into the Bexar County numbers, since after all it accounts for not only close to 50% of the Vote Share of the County (As well as an increasing chunk of vote share from '12/'14/'16, but also is essentially the "breadbasket" of Republican votes within TX CD-23 at the Congressional Level....

Let's take a slight walk and look at an historical compare/contrast between US-PRES vs US-REP results within Bexar County precincts located within CD-23 to see what the Tea Leaves show....

Here are the 2012 to 2016 Votes for US President by Political Party:



Now let's look at the US-PRES Vote '12 > '16 by Place as a % of Partisan Votes...



Very interesting...

We see an overall +11.4% D swing at the Presidential level ('12 >'16) within the precincts of CD-23 in Bexar County, with a +10.9% D Swing within the precincts of San Antonio and +14.2% in the smaller portion of CD-23 located elsewhere.

Romney won the SA portions of Bexar by +6 % R in '12 and Trump lost it by 5% in '16.
Romney won the "Non-SA" portions of Bexar by 26% in '12 and  Trump only won them by 12% in '16.

Meanwhile we had a significant increase of "New Voters" between the '12 and '16 Presidential Elections in the CD-23 portions of Bexar County, and this is how they voted...



If we look at it from another perspective, we see the % changes when we take the entire vote change by place within CD-23 portions of Bexar County from these "New Voters", in the fastest growing VAP and Vote Share region of the Congressional District...



So, when we examine the largest chunk of voters in the CD-23 portion of Bexar County, we see the HRC capturing ~ 72% of the New Voters in San Antonio, and in Non-SA voters at 55-28 D...

Still, the largest swings between '12 > '16 for US-PRES happened in the CD-23 parts of Bexar County that are growing much faster in terms of overall population compared to San Antonio....

The 23% of "New Voters" supporting 3rd Party Candidates is astounding, SA (32% Other) even in the Non-SA areas of Bexar County, not to mention HRC bagging (55 D-29 R- 17 Other).

Something tells me many of these "new voters" in Bexar County that voted "other" are not inherently predisposed to vote Republican in November '18 at any level.

Now we need to take a look at US-PRES vs US-REP numbers in '12/'16 to do a slight compare/contrast model....

Here are the Raw Vote Comparison Numbers:



Here are the numbers looking the "Vote Gap" as a % of US PRES vs US REP numbers in '12 and '16...



Interestingly enough, we saw a dramatic collapse of support for the DEM candidate for TX CD-23 between '12 and '16, especially compared to US-PRES numbers, at a time where this portion of Bexar County was swinging "Hard DEM" at the PRES level....

The key question is how will many of these Republican leaning voters in precincts of Bexar County CD-23 swing in 2018???

Many of y'all might suspect that this was a "Latino Surge" vote gap in these precincts, but I looked at the raw Total Vote (TV) numbers, and it doesn't appear that voter drop-off was unusual at all when comparing Presidential Elections ('12 > '16) in terms of down-ballot drop-off.

What does appear to be the reality is that many voters that supported the DEM CD-23 candidate in '12 decided to switch sides and vote PUB CD-23 in '16 for whatever reason....

How will it play come November in Anglo suburban parts of Texas, where we are starting to see some interesting polling numbers come out, combined with a marquis election for US-SEN with a Beto vs Cruz wrestling match???

I suspect that Bexar County CD-23 '18 numbers might well be closer to '16/'14 numbers, and most significantly much of the benefit will accrue in favor of the Democratic Candidates for US-SEN and TX-CD 23.

Next Stop, more detailed look at political demographics and precincts of Bexar County, classic NOVA Green style....

[Bidenworth2020]

I think this section will likely be a bellwether of the result.

[Bidenworth2020]

people should took a look at this, seriously!

[NOVA Green]

Well, I've been sidetracked with a few other work-life experiences, but one of the items that I was starting to research was the Turnout levels and results in Bexar County in '12 > '14 > '16 for CD-23, overlapping with Socio-Demographic Data by precinct to see if we might be able to forecast how the fastest growing vote share of the District (~50% of Voters in '16) in the most Republican Part of the District might vote in November '18....

We might well see some interesting things happening in the Anglo 'Burbs of SA in CD-23 this November, time will tell....

Other interesting items will be to look at potential Turnout levels in El Paso County in November '18, compared to November '14, which is not only the 2nd largest chunk of County Vote share in CD-23, but also a pretty solid Democratic Vote Bank....

Not even going to spend time going down into the Rio Grande River Valley, and the Anglo Cow Counties of the District at this time....

Fascinating CD, which I am just starting to learn about....

[Indy Texas]

The disastrous results in the SD-19 special election certainly don't bode well for Democrats in this race, since it covered much of the same area.

[NOVA Green]

Time to delve a little deeper into the CD-23 portions of Bexar County, but first a brief recap of the data already presented:

1.) Bexar County accounts for ~ 50% of the Vote Share in CD-23, and is a fast-growing part of the District in terms of overall % of Vote Share.

2.) It is the most consistently Republican population center of the district, and one of the only places where there was a net swing towards the DEM CD-23 Candidate between '14 and '16.

3.) At a Presidential Level, there were significant swings towards the Democratic Candidate between '12 and '16 (+11.4%).

4.) "New Voters" between '12 and '16 at the Presidential level voted overwhelmingly Democratic.

5.) There tends to be a significant "Vote Gap" between the performance of Democrats for US-House CD- '23 vs US Pres results (Most visible in 2016).

OK--- Now it's time to look at a few other items for Bexar County CD-23....

First, let's start by taking a deeper look at the Congressional Elections between '12 and '16.



So what this tells us is that even though there was a visible swing towards the Democratic Candidate for CD-23 between '14 and '16, it was much less than the swing towards the Republican Candidate between '12 and '14.

In a Non-Presidential Election Year, such as 2018 this is obviously significant...

Now let's look at this from another perspective:

What can we ascertain from the changes in total votes for Presidential/US Senate Races by Party, using the 2014 Congressional Election as a baseline "controlled variable"?

The goal here is to look at:

1.) Drop-Off in Total Votes by Party between '12/'14/'16 for CD-23.

2.) Drop-Off in Total Votes by Party compared to "Headline Elections" contrasted against US CD-23 House Elections.



What does this tell us?

1.) There were 40% fewer votes cast in CD-23 in 2014 than in 2012.
     There were 50% fewer votes cast in CD-23 in 2014 than in 2016.

2.) Pubs tend to experience a lower drop-off in Total Votes for CD-23 in Bexar County, than Democrats do. The drop-off in DEM vs PUB US-REP votes in '16 compared to '14 was much lower than in '12, indicating a narrowing vote gap by Party, at least for Presidential Year Elections.

3.) Overall, there is a relatively small drop-off in Total votes from the "top-ticket" races (US-PRES '12/'16 and US-SEN '14) compared to US CD-23 races. Approximately 1% in 2014 and 1.5% in 2012 and 2016.

It doesn't appear that voters in off-year elections tend to vote only "top-ticket" and not down-ballot for US-REP to any significant extent compared to Presidential Election Years in Bexar County CD-23.

4.) It will be interesting to see if "Off-Year" election turnout increases in Bexar County in '18 compared to '14, considering the Texas US-SEN race is much more fiercely contested this Year.

5.) The Republican Candidate performance in Bexar CD-23 in '16 almost looks like an outlier, considering the Dem CD-23 Candidate out-performed the Dem "Top-Line" candidate in both '12 and '14.

How much of this was a result of HRC Anglo voters swinging hard DEM, but still wanting to keep a PUB in Congress as a "check on Trump" is unknown, but certainly something to consider as a potential wildcard in the 2018 TX GE, with US SEN race on the ballot, especially with the "surge" of new voters between '12 and '16, many of whom are likely inclined to vote for BETO this coming November....

Next stop, probably will be delve a bit further into the respective Party "Vote Banks" within Bexar County CD-23 and maybe some Socio-Demographic overlaps....

Fuel for thought.

 



 

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

I know you put in a lot of work on this. I'd make a substantive comment, I'm just not sure what to say, so I'll just make this comment to indicate acknowledgement and appreciation!

[NOVA Green]

Time to shift gears a little bit and start to break down Bexar County CD-23 into slightly greater detail....

Let's start with looking at the most Republican part of the County, the Northeastern Part of the District....

It consists predominately of precincts located within the City of San Antonio, as well as some Unincorporated areas, that are effectively suburban in nature.



These precincts collectively accounted for 33.0% of the US REP '16 CD-23 part of Bexar County, and 39% of the US REP '14 CD-23 part of Bexar County....

Let's take a peak at how they voted in recent elections....



So we see that at the Congressional Level, this part of the District tends to vote 2:1 Republican, but that there was a huge 17% gap between 2016 PRES results vs 2014/2016 US-REP results....

Although Trump still won here convincingly, there was a +19% D Swing at the Presidential Level between 2012 and 2016....

If the ~ +20% Dem Pres swing number doesn't ring a bell with anyone, the Atlas Collective can provide a comprehensive list of places where these types of swings occurred.

Now, what is interesting here is that we didn't really see any impact between '14 and '16 at the US-House level....

One of the key questions that surely occurs to many of us, are the midterm polling and special election results we are seeing simply a lagging indicator in many districts where among certain populations there was a massive swing at the Presidential Level, but no real movement at the Congressional Level?

Will voters in TX CD-23 NE Bexar County vote Democratic for their local Representative at the same levels they did for US President in 2016?

If so, that could obviously make the difference, even in a Non-Presidential Election Year.

Social-Demographics of the Republican Strongholds of CD-23 Bexar County Northeast....

This gets tricky, because of the heavily distorted Pub Gerrymandered map makes it difficult to align Census Tract data with Precinct data, without spending hours and hours of time....

Let's start with the canary in the coalmine...

Here is a map of "White Non-Latino Population" by Census Tract...

The oval black outline roughly corresponds to the Anglo Population within Bexar County CD-23 NE.



So, here we see one of the more heavily Anglo portions of Bexar County... I could pull a graphic of the Latino % of total population, African-American, Asian-American, etc, but without really delving into the details of individual precincts, I'm not sure the labor-hours invested would be worth the ROI.

Still, it is important to remind folks out there that Latino % of Total Population does not equal Latino % of VAP.... This is a result of multiple factors, but one of the biggest is simply that the Latino population tends to be lower in age than other communities, including many under the age of 18.

Let's look at the big picture when it comes to MHI within this portion of the District...



So what we see here is that "generally" these places tend to have a much higher Median Household Income than most other places within Bexar County....

Now, I could post multiple maps of Educational Attainment (Would have to be multiple since the source I use splits the Census Maps by levels of Attainment).... but once again, you will see that same correlation....

So.... Will the most Republican Voters in TX CD-23 (Outside of smaller rurals---) pull a ballot for Ortiz-Jones (D) vs. Hurd (R-Incumbent)? It doesn't take a massive swing, basically these types of folks voting US-House closer to how they voted for US-PRES, to flip this seat.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Time to shift gears a little bit and start to break down Bexar County CD-23 into slightly greater detail....

Let's start with looking at the most Republican part of the County, the Northeastern Part of the District....

It consists predominately of precincts located within the City of San Antonio, as well as some Unincorporated areas, that are effectively suburban in nature.

I agree, you pulled out pretty much the crucial part of TX-23 here. This is the most wealthy, white, traditionally Republican, high turnout part of San Antonio, and it has absolutely no legitimate business being in a Hispanic VRA seat (which is why it was included in the district, to stop Hispanics from being able to elect their candidate of choice). The other part of why it is included is that, particularly in the northern part, it has more white/wealthy/Republican/high turnout population growth, which is key to keeping TX-23 Republican leaning over time and offsetting the effect of Hispanic population growth. That is key to an effective gerrymander/vote rigging scheme in areas with significant population growth and demographic change - picking out the right areas of empty land to include in the district, because you know in advance who will move into those empty areas of land.

This area is also particularly critical in midterms because it is high turnout, and suffers less from midterm (I am not looking at any numbers, but I am pretty sure that if you checked, the % of the total vote cast by those precincts in TX-23 would be higher in midterms than in Presidential years).

The big problem is Hurd has done a fairly good job of differentiating himself from Trump. Indeed, he may have been partly specifically targeting this area and these voters when deciding to be somewhat critical of Trump. So I am not too optimistic that there will be a very large Dem swing here, and if there is not, that is the key for Hurd to hold on.

And of course, it makes absolutely no substantive sense for this to be the case that the crucial voters in a Hispanic VRA seat should be high income/high turnout whites, but that's why it's a fake Hispanic VRA seat rather than a real one.

[NOVA Green]

Time to shift gears a little bit and start to break down Bexar County CD-23 into slightly greater detail....

Let's start with looking at the most Republican part of the County, the Northeastern Part of the District....

It consists predominately of precincts located within the City of San Antonio, as well as some Unincorporated areas, that are effectively suburban in nature.

I agree, you pulled out pretty much the crucial part of TX-23 here. This is the most wealthy, white, traditionally Republican, high turnout part of San Antonio, and it has absolutely no legitimate business being in a Hispanic VRA seat (which is why it was included in the district, to stop Hispanics from being able to elect their candidate of choice). The other part of why it is included is that, particularly in the northern part, it has more white/wealthy/Republican/high turnout population growth, which is key to keeping TX-23 Republican leaning over time and offsetting the effect of Hispanic population growth. That is key to an effective gerrymander/vote rigging scheme in areas with significant population growth and demographic change - picking out the right areas of empty land to include in the district, because you know in advance who will move into those empty areas of land.

This area is also particularly critical in midterms because it is high turnout, and suffers less from midterm (I am not looking at any numbers, but I am pretty sure that if you checked, the % of the total vote cast by those precincts in TX-23 would be higher in midterms than in Presidential years).

The big problem is Hurd has done a fairly good job of differentiating himself from Trump. Indeed, he may have been partly specifically targeting this area and these voters when deciding to be somewhat critical of Trump. So I am not too optimistic that there will be a very large Dem swing here, and if there is not, that is the key for Hurd to hold on.

And of course, it makes absolutely no substantive sense for this to be the case that the crucial voters in a Hispanic VRA seat should be high income/high turnout whites, but that's why it's a fake Hispanic VRA seat rather than a real one.

Thanks Cruz Will Win....

As I have posted elsewhere on various other election related threads, especially when it comes to Arizona, it is unrealistic to expect Working-Class Latino Turnout to be especially high in a Non-Presidential Election Year, especially in States with generally low levels of overall voter Turnout (All the eyes of Tejas are upon you)....

La Realidad Politica, is that Middle and Upper Middle-Class Latinos vote at much higher numbers than Working Class Latinos, and tend to be "swingier", especially in a State like Tejas....

There ARE some major working-class Latino precincts in Bexar CD-23, but I suspect that this will be a much lower element in 11/18, and the key question will be more what is Latino Turnout looking like in the Eastern portion of El Paso County, and various places down along the Rio Grande Valley....

I hope to get to that a bit later.... but ultimately I wanted to start the project with Bexar County with 50% of the CD-23 Vote Share....

Obviously, the next stop on the train will be a similar overwhelmingly Anglo (VAP) and relatively Upper-Middle Class (Bexar County CD-23 NW), where I suspect numbers might be similar to NE Bexar County CD-23, but possibly slightly more DEM (IDK???).

Now Cruz Will Win, mi compañero de armas, the BIG QUESTION:

How will the BETO vs CRUZ contest play out in these types of precincts of San Antonio....

At minimum I suspect BETO will meet HRC '16 PRES numbers, and quite frankly I suspect BETO might gain an additional +5-7% over HRC margins in these types of Tejas 'Burbs.

Thoughts?

[NOVA Green]

Now it's time to take a look at the NW Portion of Bexar County CD-23....



These precincts collectively account for:

2012: CD-23 REP Bexar County Vote Share: 14.9%
2014: CD-23 REP Bexar County Vote Share: 17.0%
2016: CD-23 REP Bexar County Vote Share: 15.2%

Let's take a look at how NW Bexar County CD-23 voted in recent elections:



So again we see similar numbers compared to NE Bexar County CD-23....

1.)  A +18% D swing between the '12 and '16 Presidential Elections
2.) An overwhelmingly Republican Electorate (70-73% for US-House '12/'16, TX-SEN '12, and US PRES '12.
3.) HRC hits 30% in a part of the District where DEMS typically would only hit 25-27% of the Vote, regardless of the Race.

Now let's pull up some maps by Census Tract of Bexar County CD-23 NW Precincts:



Let's look at the Census Tract Map of Bexar County CD-23 NW Precincts by total Latino Population:



These numbers might possibly explain some of the minor variances in places like Precinct # 3151 por ejemplo, but obviously we need to look at most of the voters in these precincts as being overwhelmingly Anglo...

We do see a few clusters of Census Block Group maps of Asian-Americans with ~ 6.5% -7.0% in the Middle Range around SH-10 (--- Old Man Eyes staring at precinct maps... ).

Very few Brothers and Sista's living out in these Neighborhoods....

Now let's look at the Bexar County CD-23 NW Precincts by Household Income...



Hmmm... on Average it looks like Household out yonder are clearing ~ $120k/Yr.

Again, I can pull up maps based upon educational attainment, but it would take a few of them, and I suspect Y'All already know the answer....

I'll be doing more work on this project, since ultimately it is a story about Texas, with CD-23 in many ways looking like a Microcosm of a much deeper story....

Although Hurd might well be able to survive the Tsunami, Cruz might well not if BETO is able to hit HRC '16 margins in these types of communities that exist all over the Great State of Tejas from the Metro areas of Houston, to DFW, Austin, and SA, and beyond....

[NOVA Green]

Time to shift gears a little bit and start to break down Bexar County CD-23 into slightly greater detail....

Let's start with looking at the most Republican part of the County, the Northeastern Part of the District....

It consists predominately of precincts located within the City of San Antonio, as well as some Unincorporated areas, that are effectively suburban in nature.

I agree, you pulled out pretty much the crucial part of TX-23 here. This is the most wealthy, white, traditionally Republican, high turnout part of San Antonio, and it has absolutely no legitimate business being in a Hispanic VRA seat (which is why it was included in the district, to stop Hispanics from being able to elect their candidate of choice). The other part of why it is included is that, particularly in the northern part, it has more white/wealthy/Republican/high turnout population growth, which is key to keeping TX-23 Republican leaning over time and offsetting the effect of Hispanic population growth. That is key to an effective gerrymander/vote rigging scheme in areas with significant population growth and demographic change - picking out the right areas of empty land to include in the district, because you know in advance who will move into those empty areas of land.

This area is also particularly critical in midterms because it is high turnout, and suffers less from midterm (I am not looking at any numbers, but I am pretty sure that if you checked, the % of the total vote cast by those precincts in TX-23 would be higher in midterms than in Presidential years).

The big problem is Hurd has done a fairly good job of differentiating himself from Trump. Indeed, he may have been partly specifically targeting this area and these voters when deciding to be somewhat critical of Trump. So I am not too optimistic that there will be a very large Dem swing here, and if there is not, that is the key for Hurd to hold on.

And of course, it makes absolutely no substantive sense for this to be the case that the crucial voters in a Hispanic VRA seat should be high income/high turnout whites, but that's why it's a fake Hispanic VRA seat rather than a real one.

So--- Agree with your overall premise regarding Political Gerrymandering from the TX-PUB Party, and how they created a CD that was both compliant with VRA as a "Latino Majority District", while also putting in the "Poison Pill" of Upper-Middle Class SA Anglos as a bulwark (Or an opportunity to potentially keep the district at minimum competitive with various demographic and population changes).

Where I disagree with your argument, at least based upon the data that I have currently reviewed (Bolded) is the concept that the heavily Republican parts of Bexar County CD-23 are the "fastest growing parts of the County"....

So, thus far we have a combined NW + NE Anglo Bexar County CD-23 Vote Share look like the following:

2012: 52.1% of Bexar County CD-23 Vote Share
2014: 56.0% of Bexar County CD-23 Vote Share
2016: 48.2% of Bexar County CD-23 Vote Share

To be continued, but the overwhelmingly 'Pub precincts within Bexar County actually appear to be losing Vote Share, at least in Presidential Election Years....

There is a lot more data that I still need to review, and there are new precincts on the map in CD-23 portions of Bexar County that weren't there in 2016 that appear to have new housing developments popping up, but there is also population growth elsewhere within the Bexar Counties of CD-23.

To be Continued....

[Bidenworth2020]

This is a really interesting look, for sure. The Gallego failing is giving me cynicism , as a dem who wants to flip this seat

[NOVA Green]

This is a really interesting look, for sure. The Gallego failing is giving me cynicism , as a dem who wants to flip this seat

Interesting point, since I tend to downplay individual candidate quality when it comes to my historical election data and demographic style of analysis and presentation...

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

While I can't speak to the overall impact of Gallego, I strongly suspect that there are very many Upper-Income Anglos in NW and NE portions of Bexar County CD-23, that are becoming increasingly unhappy with the overall job performance of the Trump Administration (And Republicans in General in the US-SEN and US-HOUSE) that aren't taking Trump to task....

Although I am not convinced it will be enough to flip TX-CD-23 in a Midterm Election (We haven't even looked at heavily Latino precincts), it certainly may well be enough of a swing to see HRC level numbers to send Ted Cruz searching for work as a "Commentator" on FOX, or resuming his Legal Business, maybe even thinking about being a successor to Greg Abbott?

If Ted Cruz loses in '18, it will likely be as a result of a massive swing among Anglos, combined with high level of African-American Turnout in a Midterm, major swings among Middle-Class Tejanos, combined with a much higher than usual turnout among Working-Class Mexican-Americans (This is Texas folks)....

Honestly, I don't pretend to have any special insights in TX-23, although spent some time and traveled through most of the District, I have much more to say about Metro-Houston where I lived for Four Years, but obviously Metro San Antonio is a HUGE population center of Texas, and much like Metro Austin, the Congressional Districts have been so divided to protect against a Democratic Wave, but yet it is now increasingly looking plausible that the DEMS might be able to pickup a US-TX-SEN seat and possibly flip 3-4 US-HOUSE seats.....

Who knows... we will have more data points about TX '20 in just a short 6 Weeks?

[BaldEagle1991]

Just out of curiosity do you think the Dem challenger being LGBT might be hurting her a bit among possible "swing voters"?

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Now it's time to take a look at the NW Portion of Bexar County CD-23....

This is really basically the same area as the 1st part you picked out. You could just combine them into one area, and also probably include 1 or 2 more precincts in it as well, I think. It only gets a bit different when you get on to the actual western side of the county.

Just out of curiosity do you think the Dem challenger being LGBT might be hurting her a bit among possible "swing voters"?

It's not going to help her, let's just say that.

[NOVA Green]

Just out of curiosity do you think the Dem challenger being LGBT might be hurting her a bit among possible "swing voters"?

Well, this is one of the questions that PolitcalMasta73 first asked about this race, which was an interesting potential subtext with CD-23.

My initial response....

1.) The battle for TX CD-23 will likely be won or loss in the heavily Anglo Upper-Income 'Burbs of San Antonio (SA).

2.) I strongly suspect that Ortiz-Jones Sexual Orientation will be a major factor among Romney > HRC swing Voters within Bexar County.

3.) When it comes to other heavily Anglo parts of CD-23, Trump effectively maxed out the ballot in Rural overwhelmingly Anglo "Cow Counties".

4.) The concept that Latino turnout in CD-23 would be significantly lower than in 2014 compared to 2018 because of Ortiz-Jones Sexual Orientation would seem to be absurd on the surface, especially with US-SEN and TX-GOV races on the line, not to mention down-ballot races....

5.) If Hurd wins in '18, it will be much more likely about local issues (Plus distancing from Trump on an array of issues). Even Latinos in SouthTex like Border Seguridad, especially if it means an expansion of FED Government Union Jobs running border patrol, where Bi-Lingual is a +++ ....

These Border Patrol Officers aren't haters, but rather have achieved the American Dream through Military Service, protecting the local communities from violent criminals with foreign national passports, etc....

6.) Trump's "street cred" with Middle-Class Latino Voters in Tejas (Especially in CD-23), appears to be taking some major hits....

It's one thing for Texans of Mexican-American Heritage to support increased border security to protect against a massive influx of Central-American economic refugees over the past decade or so, but yet another thing to believe in the mission to "protect the border", "build the wall", etc...

7.) I have yet to see any evidence that the Democratic Candidate is taking hits because of her Sexual Orientation among Latino Voters....

[NOVA Green]

Now it's time to take a look at the NW Portion of Bexar County CD-23....

This is really basically the same area as the 1st part you picked out. You could just combine them into one area, and also probably include 1 or 2 more precincts in it as well, I think. It only gets a bit different when you get on to the actual western side of the county.

Just out of curiosity do you think the Dem challenger being LGBT might be hurting her a bit among possible "swing voters"?

It's not going to help her, let's just say that.

Why would I combine them???

Sure, I could go back and look at each individual precinct in greater detail....

I like granularity, so if I have time can go back and drill down precinct by precinct methodically matched against demographic details.... 

Sure I could cut to the chase combine all of these precincts, and suddenly we have 48-56% of the Bexar County CD-23 Vote... next I could throw in the heavily Latino precincts of the County '12 >'16, then maybe look at "Cow Country", SouthTex, etc....

You are impatient Young Jedi....

I'm still trying to figure out how to wrap up Bexar County, before I start looking at El Paso County, and SouthTex Border Counties....

If you want to pull some numbers and maps together, be my guest... since you know your s**t, and would love to see you invest some time into a district that might well be part of the reason why: "Ted Cruz Will Lose"

[NOVA Green]

Time to take a trip down to the "Democratic Heartlands" of Bexar County CD-23, down to Southeast, South, and Southwest San Antonio....



Now some of you might say, wait why was this precinct in SE or South SA not included, but reality was that I was trying to focus on more heavy population dense precincts, since there are some additional precincts, not included in my outline that are technically part of the City, but don't appear to have high pop density....

Let's start with the SE Portion of San Antonio located within the CD-23 portions of Bexar County....



County Vote Share: 2016 US-House 4.9% of Bexar Co CD-23, 2014 US-House 4.9%, 2012 9.6% of US-REP vote Share....

So right there we have multiple questions:

1.) Why did the Vote Share of these precincts drop 50% between 2012 and 2014/2016?

       A.) The obvious answer is that other parts of Bexar County CD-23 are growing more rapidly in
            population, especially since the variance between '12/'16 US-REP numbers can't be
            explained by a low turnout '14 US-REP election.

      B.) An alternative hypothesis might be that for whatever reason, VAP population growth increased here between '12 and '16 roughly equivalent to elsewhere within the Bexar County CD-23 SE San Antonio precincts, but voters were less motivated than in other parts of the District within the County.

2.) Why was 2014 such a hot year for a Democratic House Candidate in the District compared to 2012 and 2016 (Which should be contrary to conventional political wisdom)?

3.) Why was there a +15.9% swing towards Trump in an overwhelmingly Democratic Neighborhood(s) of San Antonio?

    A.) 3rd Party Voting does not appear to be the primary reason at the Presidential Level,
         considering Dems lost 9.2% between '12 and '16 and Trump gained 6.7%.

    B.) Drop-Off of Down-Ballot Voters did play a factor in the margins between the 2014 and 2016 in
         the US House Race, but even there only account for maybe 30% of the -15% Dem numbers
         for that race and the +10% Rep numbers for that race when we compare 2014 to 2016.

Ok--- Let's take a look at the Demographics of Bexar CD-23 SE:

Let's start with the % of population that is African-American for the three Census Tracts overlapping these precincts.



Note that the African-American population is even higher for the 0-17% age range than the overall population of these Census Tracts...

Now what about the Latino population for these three Census Tracts?



And of course we need to look at the Anglo population by Census Tract:



Ok a few more data points:

Census Tract: 131200 (Far West Tract)-
MHI: $30.4k /Yr
ED Level: 7.6% > HS Diploma, 58.8% HS Diploma, 33.6% No HS Diploma
Relative Occupations: Construction (11.0%), Transportation (10.5%), Food Service (9.4%)
Relative Industries: Health Care (22.7%), Construction (14.3%)

Census Tract: 131300 (Middle Tract)-
MHI: $36.0k/Yr
ED Level: 27.4% > HS Diploma, 17.9% No HS Diploma
Rel Occupations: Administrative (25%)
Rel Industries: Retail / Construction

Census Tract: 131401 (Eastern Tract)-
MHI: $ 65.5k/Yr
ED Level: 31.8% > HS Diploma, 51.8% HS Diploma, 16.4% No HS Diploma
Rel Occupations: Administrative (16.9%), Repair (11.1%), Construction (10%)
Rel Industries: Health Care (14.5%), Hospitality (11.4%), Education (11.0%).

Whew--- Ok so basically the far Western area has an extremely large working-class African-American and Latino population, with the same rough pattern in the Central Area, and the Eastern Area is much more Middle-Class Latino...

So what does this tell us about the results of recent elections within the district?

In order to try to more closely overlap the Census Tract data with the precinct data, I needed to consolidate the precincts on the Western Part of the Loop 410 from the Eastern Part...

Let's look at the total Vote by Region by Party by Election from 2012 to 2016:



What are some key takeaways here?

1.) There was an increase in approximately 700 voters between the 2012 and 2016 Pres Election.

This growth was entirely concentrated in the Eastern portion.

2.) The Eastern portion, although it is still heavily Democratic, is much less so than the Western Portion, which accounted for the bulk of the total margin swings here between '12 and '16.

3.) In the more heavily African-American precincts of Western SE Bexar CD-23, there was no visible drop-off in support at the Presidential level between '12 and '16 for the Democratic Candidate (Obama 1,943 Votes 2012 and HRC 1,942 Votes 2012). Conversely on the Republican side (Romney 614 Votes and Trump 615 Votes) !!!

4.) The Republican Candidate for CD-23 gained an additional 120 votes between '12 and '16, which appear to have pretty much all come from DEM CD-23 Voters....

It could well be that Will Hurd is performing significantly better among African-American voters within the District than Republicans typically tend to perform.

5.) It will be interesting to see what turnout will look like here in Nov '18 with marquis elections for TX-SEN and TX-GOV attracting attention, compared to 2014....

6.) The Eastern portion of Bexar County CD-23 is where the growth is at, and Trump gained +224 Votes over Romney, whereas HRC gained only + 296 Votes over Obama. 3rd Party Candidates garnered 114 Votes.

7.) If we look at the '12 to '16 results in the Eastern Precincts for US-REP-CD 23, we see the PUB gain + 360 votes and the DEM gain + 101 votes.

Although I haven't looked at Population growth rates within this Census Tract, it's pretty clear there were a significant number of HRC > Hurd Voters in the Middle-Class and more heavily Latino precincts of the Eastern portion of this part of the District.

How will Middle-Class Latinos vote in November 2018 for TX-SEN and US-House- TX- CD 23?

[Former Kentuckian]

Amazing work, NOVA Green

[NOVA Green]

Amazing work, NOVA Green

Well, there are a few things after yet another reread that I need to modify, since there are a few areas that might be unclear to casual readers not familiar with my posting style on these types of presentations.

Also, originally I was planning on doing all three "Democratic Strongholds" of the San Antonio portion of Bexar CD-23 into one presentation, but the more I started looking at the precinct results combined with demographics for the SE portion, I realized that the fairly large Black Community within these precincts deserved it's own post, instead of broad-banding with the South S.A. and West S.A. portions of Bexar County CD-23.

Those are next on my list....

[NOVA Green]

Just out of curiosity do you think the Dem challenger being LGBT might be hurting her a bit among possible "swing voters"?

Apologies for the delayed response....

My initial thoughts are this is not likely to be a major factor among the Anglo Upper-Middle Class voters of Bexar County.

Additionally, I strongly doubt that this will be a major issue among African-American voters within the District (Albeit a relatively small overall Vote Share of the total district population).

Anglo Voters in heavily Republican "Cow Country" parts of the district are not swing voters, so I doubt that will be an issue in that regard.

Latino Voters in Metro San Antonio, El Paso, and in SouthTex, I really wonder to what extent this will really be an issue either....

Although obviously I am not Latino, and do not pretend to speak for nor represent the Community within Tejas and CD-23, in my personal experiences in Four Years of living in Houston, at least in the larger Metro Areas, this does not appear to be a major issue for the vast majority of Latinos...

In the current modern political era in which we live, I question to what extent Political Candidates sexual orientation plays a major role where SSM is now the Law of the Land, AND I'm not convinced that Latino Voters in Tejas overall consider this to be a major issue, despite various stereotypes and suppositions regarding the Latino Community when it comes to "Culture War Issues" such as Women's Reproductive Rights, and LGBT equality....

Middle-Class Latinos have historically been the swing vote within Texas in recent years, and over the past few GE cycles have been moving much more Democratic at a Presidential Level, than traditionally used to be the case.

Working-Class Latinos tend to be much more Democratic, but vote less frequently, especially in off-Year Elections.

I can't pretend to totally understand how this will play out in '18 in the district, but LGBT issues and the movement for equality and freedom is (At least in the Latino Metro Areas of Tejas), a strong force where essentially most of the population doesn't give an eff about all that, since we're talking about friends, family, neighbors, and co-workers, in a communidad where living in the shadows and speaking "in a language that the Anglos don't understand" is how it goes.

Simply being an Anglo in Tejas that would cross-over and speak Spanish with my co-workers (And even employees where English was a 2nd language but very limited) exposed me to a whole different reality than most of the other Anglo Workers and Bosses down in the Bayous of Houston.

[Former Dean Phillips Supporters for Haley (I guess???!?) 👁️]

Yeah, SE San Antonio is basically explained by the African American population there.

Including those precincts in TX-23 is one of the few stupid things Republicans did with their gerrymander. They could have included alternate precincts in southern San Antonio that would have been more heavily Hispanic and provided a smaller Democratic vote margin than those precincts, so they could have made TX-23 both more heavily Hispanic and also less Democratic by including alternate precincts. That would have made it look more like a "Hispanic" district, but actually be even more of a fake Hispanic district.



Re: Ortiz-Jones' sexual orientation --- probably only a very small number of voters are even aware of her sexual orientation.

[NOVA Green]

Ok--- time to take a look at South San Antonio Precincts located within Bexar County CD-23...

So here's a slightly different map, that actually shows the State Highways and Interstate Highways better than my previous version.



This is basically the most Democratic region of Bexar County TX CD-23....

It accounted for 7.2% of the 2016 PRES vote Share within Bexar CD-23, was 7.6% in 2012 PRES vote share, and 6.5% in 2014 for TX-CD 23- US House....

Ok--- Let's look at the map of Latino % of the Population by Census Tracts...



I could try to break it down in greater detail, but basically we are looking at precincts that are 90% Latino...

So how did these precincts vote 2012 to 2016 as a % of Vote by Party by Election?



So basically we haven't seen a Republican garner over 20% of the Vote in any Federal Election....

The drop-off in Democratic PRES numbers between '12 and '16 came entirely off of defections to 3rd Party Candidates (Millennial Voters anyone ).

We did see a marginal increase in PUB support between '12/'14 and '16 for the TX-CD 23 race....

Now, time to take a look at the raw vote numbers by Election and Party for South San Antonio precincts within CD-23....



So.... what does this all mean???

1.) There was a raw +1k vote increase in these precincts between '12 and '16....

2.) DEMS significantly increased their total numbers between '12 and '16 at the PRES level, PUBs were stagnant and 3rd Party Voters increased significantly.

3.) At the TX CD-23 level PUBs improved their performance in '16 compared to '12.

4.) This was less a factor of voters within South Antonio switching political parties, but more a drop-off in support for down-ballot Democratic Candidates.

5.) How will working Class Latinos in South San Antonio turnout in 2018?   Will it be more like 2014 numbers or a bit higher with a US-TX-SEN race on the line? If so, will these voters, punch the down-ballot ticket for Ortiz-Jones or just vote for BETO???