TX CD 23 in 2018 and Historical Context and Electoral Data

[Bidenworth2020]

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

[Bidenworth2020]

people should took a look at this, seriously!

[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

[Bidenworth2020]

Thanks for the post game analysis! Very interesting to read. My prediction that Gina Ortiz Jones would lose ground in catholic areas was proved very wrong. As mentioned, Gina outperformed him in most rural areas, losing because of the large crossover in Bexar from Beto to Hurd. This was likely due to the low info surname voters (see Kenedy county) who voted for the person with the most Hispanic-sounding surname.

[Bidenworth2020]

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?

Now time to take a look at a small handful of Precincts in South-East San Antonio that account for one of the largest concentrations of African-American Voters within CD-23.

This small neighborhood is basically on the edge of a relatively large historically Black Community in Eastern San Antonio, where Racist "Red-Line" real estate policies dictated who could live where as part of systematic policies practiced from the Northern States to the Deep South....

With the end of Racist Housing policies in the '60s, like many other Metro Areas in the Country, gradually Younger Residents relocated elsewhere, while older Residents stayed behind.

With the dramatic increase in Mexican Migration to America, many of these historically Black neighborhoods in Texas started to take on a more varied population, as newer immigrant populations created businesses and homes in small family neighborhoods.

TX CD-23 is not a major Black Community, if we look at it within the traditional context of the African-American experience, but yet within the Latino-American experience it is not unusual at all to have Black-Latinos from South America and the Islands living among Mexican and Central-American communities (As I experienced first hand with friends and co-workers in Houston Texas).

So, let's take a look at how this neighborhood has voted in Federal Elections from 2012 to 2018...



TOTAL VOTES:

1.) Obviously a significant decrease from '16 > '18

2012: Total Votes ran from 4.8k to 4.9k
2014: Total Votes--- 2.7k
2016: Total Votes---  5.5k to 5.6k (US-HOUSE to US-PRES)
2018: Total Votes--- 4.9k to 5.0k (US-HOUSE to US-SEN)

DEMS in '18 held steady at their 2012 numbers of +2.3k DEM > +2.6k DEM numbers in the TX-SEN race ( + 2.3k DEM) close to the +2.4k DEM numbers in the PRES race in '16.

DEM raw vote numbers in CD-23 dropped to +2.0k DEM, which matched the '16 HOUSE numbers, despite a much lower Turnout than in a PRES Election Year...

Still a pretty impressive performance compared to the 2012 GE overall, and certainly nothing to sneeze at in the TX-SEN and CD-23 Raw Vote Margins....

Now let's look at the % by Party for FED races 2012 to 2018:



William Hurd actually captured the highest % of a FED PUB in these precincts since before 2012, with 28.4% of the Vote (!!!).

Although these numbers might not sound impressive, he only won 27.7% in 2016, and the PUB only got 26.1% in 2014, and 21.3% in 2012. (!!!).

Although these aren't tons of votes, Turnout and Margins matter in close elections....

Meanwhile BETO captured 72.5% of the Vote, which although respectable, was still below Obama's 73.2% Vote in 2012, and the DEM HOUSE REP's 74.0% in that same Year....

We could blame it all on a Midterm Turnout deal, but in fact Ortiz-Jones actually lost 6% compared to the 2014 Mid-Term election.

Although the DEM margins of victory overall have relatively minor shifts for most of these elections, it is interesting that DEMs were winning with + 46-53% Margins in 2012 and 2014, and now only BETO hits the +46% Margin number....

Still relatively small chunk of the vote in Bexar, but important nonetheless, especially considering swings in some of the Anglo Neighborhoods within the CD in Bexar.

Next Stop South SA (San Antonio for those of you not familiar with Texas).

Interesting. It seems likely that these areas may be trending republican because as the older, more AA generation passes, they are replaced by 1) anglos looking for cheaper housing 2) latinos moving in. Both of these demographics, especially the former, are more favorable to republicans.  As for Hurds high performance with AA's his status as one himself must help .